Evil in the Personal Experience of St. Augustine

Abstract

The most disturbing issue that permeates all of Saint Augustine’s works is the problem of existence, experiencing and inflicting evil. Giovanni Papini claims that Augustine himself, “before he found himself in finding God, […] he had to exhaust the experience of evil to the very bottom” (Giovanni Papini, Saint Augustine, translated by Antonina Brzozowska, Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy Pax, 1958, 32). This remark redirects our thinking about Augustine’s understanding of evil from the field of theoretical deliberations to the ground of examining his personal experience of evil, where his philosophical and theological thought seems to have its roots. For many years, Augustine suffered greatly from evil and inflicted it himself. A sense of persistence in falsehood and iniquity, observed by Augustine quite late, a few years before his death in 430 (if one can regard his Confessions as a testimony to this important moment) and his desire to know the truth about himself, motivated him to reflect on evil in depth. In the article we offer a look at the well-known problem of evil in the thought of Aurelius Augustine of Hippo in this very personal, experiential perspective.