溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Where Does Evil Come From, and Whose Choice Is It?
If evil is in the world, is it the fault of God, of matter, or solely of the human will turned the wrong way?
Nothing is so wholly within our power as the will itself.
This question opened the door to the free-will debate in Western thought. Manichaeism saw evil as a substance of darkness opposed to light, making the human merely its battlefield — and then a human has nothing to regret or answer for, only a war ground. Augustine reversed this, moving evil into the direction of the will and so returning responsibility to the person. Yet as his later thought tilted toward the absoluteness of grace, Pelagius pushed back — if the will is truly free, must not salvation too be achievable by oneself? Their debate carried across a thousand years to Erasmus and Luther in the Reformation. Freedom or grace, how far is the human portion — this question settled at the floor of the Western conscience.
The more an age explains everything by brain and environment, the heavier and more needed becomes the moment of saying: still, this was my will.
The young Augustine dwelt long in Manichaeism, for it eased the heart to blame evil on darkness, an outside substance.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
The young Augustine dwelt long in Manichaeism, for it eased the heart to blame evil on darkness, an outside substance. Yet at last he cast off that comfort and said evil is no substance but the direction of a will turned from the good. This answer is heavy, for it returns the whole burden of evil to my own choice. I sense this question is the theological root of regret — because it was my will, I can regret, and because I can regret, I can also turn back. I stand before it too, meeting again the old temptation to lay my faults on others and on circumstance.
✍️Your Answer
The lineage of the ancients ends here. Now it is your turn before the question. There is no right answer — only how you, today, would answer.
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