on and divine omnipotence, is nothing? Or that it merely *appears* evil when considered in isolation from the totality of which it is a part? As we shall see, the answer is in one respect no, but in another, yes. The answer is no, insofar as Augustine does not merely dismiss those who raise this problem by referring them to the two approaches to the problem already considered. Rather, addressing those who attempt to lay blame on God for the sin of human beings and the punishment consequent to that sin, he takes a third approach, arguing that the origin of moral evil and the punishment it entails is a consequence of the free choice of rational creatures. Sin, Augustine argues, is voluntary, disrupting the order of the universe, while the punishment is said (redundantly) to be "penal," restoring that order (*On Free Will* 3.9.26). The important point is that insofar as we must talk of evil as if it were something, God is not responsible for it, rather his creatures are. God is to be praised insofar as he is willing and able to harmonize the dishonor introduced by the evil will of individual creatures with the honor intrinsic to the whole (3.9.26). If we inquire as to the cause of the evil will, Augustine claims an ignorance of sorts, consistent with his notion of evil as a privation: We cannot doubt that [evil] movement of the will, that turning away from the Lord God [our "aversion" to the unchangeable good], is sin; but surely we cannot say that God is the author of sin? God, then, will not be the cause of that movement; but what will be its cause? If you ask this, and I answer that I do not know, probably you will be saddened. And yet that would be a true answer. That which is nothing cannot be known. . . All good is from God. Hence there is no natural existence which is not from God. Now that movement of "aversion," which we admit is sin, is a defective movement; and all defect comes from nothing. Observe where it belongs and you will...
