Outline of the argument of bk. 2 of De Libero Arbitrio

  1. In the first book of “On the Free Choice of the Will”, Augustine and his interlocutor, Evodius, delved into the problem of the origin of evil in the world. This clearly is a serious problem for a Christian, who can see the obvious conflict in the conception of a world manifestly containing horrendous evils, despite its being the creation of an omnipotent, omniscient, and absolutely benevolent God. (The problem of theodicy. For the origin of the term check ) According to the conclusion of the first book, it is certainly not God who is to blame for the presence of evil, but rather man, who abuses his God-given free will to do wrong.
  2. But then the question naturally arises: if God gave free will, and He could foresee that man would abuse it, why didn’t He prevent evil from arising by simply not giving free will to man in the first place?
  3. Addressing the further problems stemming from this consideration is the main topic of the second book. In order to solve the inconsistency between free will’s being the source of evil and its being God’s gift, the interlocutors have to go back to check their original assumptions, namely, whether free will is really God’s gift, indeed, whether there is a God in the first place, to give such a (dubious) gift.
  4. The starting point of the argument in c. 3 is the absolute certainty of one’s own existence. (So, here we can see the use of the considerations concerning skepticism in Contra Academicos. Yet, as I pointed out in the lecture concerning that work, despite its being the starting point of Augustine’s argument, the certainty of one’s own existence will never have the systematic role of the Cartesian cogito.)
  5. The subsequent considerations in cc. 3-6 are designed to establish (a) that there is an objective hierarchical arrangement of things within nature; (b) that reason is on the top of this hierarchy, and (c) that if there is something superior to reason, then it is either God, or something to which God is superior; whence, either way, if something is superior to reason, then God exists. It is important to observe in these considerations what the principle of ordering the items in this hierarchy is: the higher up something is the nobler it is, where nobility is understood in terms of the ability to rule, to deliver judgment over what is inferior, or to be the standard for such judgment (just as nobility is understood in the context of a social hierarchy, from which its primary concept derives – let us not forget this important aspect of pre-modern thought in general, that it is firmly set in the mentality of a strongly stratified society).
  6. Chapters 7-14 are designed to prove that there is something superior to reason, namely, the eternal truths of number (c. 8) and of wisdom (cc. 9-14). It is in this context that we find Augustine’s “embedded” epistemological argument. The important point of the argument (reconstructed here: is that our knowledge of mathematical truths is not derivable from the natural resources of human experience, whence we must have received it from a supernatural source.
  7. Chapters 9-14 are analogous considerations concerning other a priori truths, the “rules of wisdom”, which Augustine shows to be superior to reason, insofar as reason cannot judge them whether they ought to be the way they are (they simply have to be the way they are, and reason can just enjoy if it manages to discover them -- cf. reason rather judges other things, inferior and/or equal to itself, in accordance with these rules, namely, whether these things are the way they ought to be – this is again the Platonic use of Forms and the eternal truths they validate as norms or standards by which we judge things whether they live up to them. (We’ll discuss the issue of the relationship between Forms or Divine Ideas and eternal truths and Truth Itself in more detail later.)
  8. Chapter 15 finally draws the conclusion that God exists. Note Evodius’ reaction: “my inner voice shouts” – this is the ecstatic Platonic moment of the sudden flash of understanding, mentioned in the (perhaps spurious, but doctrinally quite authentic) 7th letter of Plato.
  9. This conclusion allows the interlocutors to return to the ethical considerations that prompted this “excursion”. Chapters 16-17 establish that all being, and hence, all order and perfection derives from God. Note the analogy of the craftsman who follows the (mathematical!) rules of his art, to God the Creator. For the significance of the issue, check out Spade’s Survey, c. 4, especially pp. 45-47.
  10. Finally, the closing chapters deal with the issue that since moral evil is the lack of the proper direction of the will, and a lack, a defect, a deformity cannot come from the giver of perfection and form, evil cannot come from God. Evil is rather just the deformity and defectiveness of a God-given good thing, the free will of a rational creature. This is another definitive Platonic-Augustinian theme: evil is just the privation of the good (malum est privatio boni ). (For later developments, and careful articulation of the idea see my lecture note on Boethius: