Why Does Evil Exist

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In more ways than one St. Augustine of Hippo has made everyone question why evil exists if God is literal perfection. Most people might answer that evil exists because God decided to give everyone free will. However, St. Augustine believes that evil stems from ex nihilo or out of nothing. He says that we are all evil and that nothing we do is ever done with true good intentions (Augustine, City of God). Somehow, there’s always some type of ulterior motive that sometimes even we are not even aware of because it is a part of our nature. Everything we do in life, according to St. Augustine, is evil because the only true thing we should ever do is hope. Hope that God forgives us for our sins and saves us (Augustine, City of God). While I was walking in the mall on Saturday afternoon I found a wallet on the ground. When I opened it I found money, credit cards, and a drivers license. I turned it into the lost and found at a nearby store where I figured they might return to once they figured out it was missing. I did this without ever …show more content…
The teacher posted this test and had given us the essay topic two days before it was due. I knew it was in my best interest to study and get it done ahead of time, but I still chose to put it off. Somehow no matter how good we know something is for us we will still choose to do the thing that will do the opposite of benefit us. This, of course, all stems back to our “evil nature.” This wasn’t because of our ignorance because I knew better than to put it off, yet I still decided to. I willing chose to do the bad thing when I clearly had the choice to do the right one. For example, in the story of The Fallen, there is literally only one thing that they are not allowed to do. They can have everything they want, so long as they do not eat the apple. Yet they go on and do the only thing they are not allowed to do anyway. This is because we are evil by

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