Vol. XXXVIII / 1 - Studia Moralia

ST. AUGUSTINE’S CRITIQUE OF THE ADIAPHORA 185
sibility of an independent principle of evil. Moreover, if God provides
the ultimate Cause of all things, then everything must be
fundamentally good. But Augustine likewise affirmed that created
realities exist within a hierarchy that admits a scale of being
and goodness. 49 In this respect, he upholds the logical priority
and ontological primacy of good over evil. From this standpoint,
the notion of a completely evil reality is wholly untenable.
Indeed, if a thing were evil in an absolute sense, it simply could
not exist. It likewise could not be conceptualized, since it would
lack the goodness which is necessarily correlative with being.
If they are deprived of all good, they will be absolutely
nothing. Hence, as long as they exist, they are good. Therefore,
whatsoever things exist are good. But evil, of which I asked
“Whence is it?” is not a substance, for if it were a substance, it
would be good. 50
Accordingly, if evil can be said to “exist” (as it does for the
one experiencing it), it can only do so as a corruption, deficiency,
or lack of goodness and being. As I have already observed,
Augustine viewed reality in terms of a harmonious gradation.
We have, then, a metaphysical scheme that not only admits
varying degrees of being and goodness, but varying degrees of
mutability and corruptibility as well. Indeed, Augustine extolled
the diversity of created being to such an extent that even imperfection
and disorder could be reconciled with the goodness of
the whole.
The constant passing and succession of things give rise to a
unique terrestrial beauty, with the result that even those things
which die or which cease to be what they have been do not
disturb and disfigure the limit and form and order of the created
universe. 51
49
Confessiones VII,13(19): PL xxxii (Pars I), 743-744.
50
Confessiones VII,12(18): PL xxxii (Pars I), 743.
51
De Natura Boni 8 : CSEL XXV (VI,2), 858.