Evil as a subjective experience: ontological meaning of evil from Saint Augustine

Abstract

The feeling of evil has afflicted humanity since the beginning of time: since the human being became a thinking being, evil, as a feeling, has been situated in the realm of consciousness, constituting one of the most significant ontological realities of human life. Our interest in addressing the problem of evil from the perspective assumed by Augustine when reflecting on his conversion is due to the fact that he did not depreciate the value of what was experienced as a psychic and subjective element, thus diverging from those who limit the problem to the scope of cosmological and/or theological discussions. Beyond the limits of his historical conditionality, that is, the religious quarrels he faced as Bishop, Augustine knew how to problematize the meaning of evil in the sphere of conscience. His view of evil as a fault, error or sin is decisive for understanding the problem of moral action in the modern world. This explain why we can return to Augustine’s problem of evil in view of his vision of the problem in the sphere of consciousness. Thus, we not only will we be able to concentrate on the genesis of the problem as a moral problem, but we can also clarify the meaning of our justification above regarding the purpose of all philosophical study since the Socratic precept ‘know thyself’ namely: raising man to self-consciousness and provide him with an understanding of his own destiny