Reading Questions on Augustine's On Free Choice of the Will, Books I & II

Book I

  1. What is Augustine's initial answer to the question, "Is God the cause of evil?" How does he distinguish between causing evil and suffering evil? (1)
  1. Note the basic propositions about God that Augustine and Evodius believe, but also what to know and understand and establish through reason: "God is omnipotent and unchangeable. God is creator of all good things. God is the supremely just ruler…" etc. (2)
  1. Why does he turn from asking, "Is God the cause of evil?" to asking a new question: "What is evil doing?" (3)
  1. What are some of the initial answers Evodius gives to this new question? What are the problems Augustine sees with Evodius' attempts to answer it? Compare with Euthyphro's attempts to define "piety" in Euthyphro.
  1. Why is it that when you are trying to figure out why something is evil, you don't want to just simply look at the external act, but consider the internal state that is at the root cause of the action?
  1. What is inordinate desire? How is it different from desire in general?
  1. What are the sorts of things that are not ultimately in our control in life? What, if anything, is in our control?
  1. What objections are made to the supposition that inordinate desire is the source of evil doing? How are they addressed?
  1. How, and why, does Augustine distinguish between "temporal law" and "eternal law"? (6)
  1. Augustine defines eternal law as "the law according to which it is just that all things be perfectly ordered." How is this similar to and different from our everyday understanding of "law"? and "justice"?
  1. What is if for human beings to be perfectly ordered within, to be "just" and so ruled by the "eternal law"? (7-10)
  1. How does Augustine argue that a "mind that is in control, one that possesses virtue, cannot be made a slave to inordinate desire"? (11) What role does freedom of the will play here? What does he mean by "freedom," here?
  1. Why does Augustine hold that being ruled by inordinate desire is punishment in itself? (11)
  1. How does Augustine define a "good will"? (p. 19, section 12)
  1. How does Augustine define the traditional cardinal virtues of prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice? How is prudence, "the knowledge of what is to be desired and what is to be avoided," involved in the other three virtues? (13)
  1. On p. 22 Augustine writes: "So if by our good will we love and embrace that will, and prefer it to everything that we cannot retain simply by willing to retain it, then, as the argument showed, we will posses those very virtues that constitute an upright and honorable life." Explain.
  1. Explain what Augustine means, when he says that "a happy life consist(s) precisely in the enjoyment of true and unshakable goods." (p. 23, section 13)
  1. What is the relationship between having a good or evil will, the eternal law, and happiness and unhappiness? What does he mean when he says that "it is by the will that human beings achieve a happy life"? Can we be happy by simply willing to be happy? (p. 23, section 14)
  1. Note how Augustine returns to the distinction between the eternal and the temporal law. How does he clarify the way in which the temporal law applies to those who have inordinate desire for "things that can be called ours only for a time" (p. 25) and that can be lost against our will? (15)
  1. How does Augustine distinguish between good and bad use of those things that can be lost against our will? (15)
  1. Augustine says, "We have determined that the choice to follow and embrace one or the other [temporal or eternal things] lies with the will, and that only the will can depose the mind from its stronghold of power and deprive it of right order." Explain. (p. 27, section 16)
  1. Augustine redefines evildoing in light of the previous discussion as follows: it is "neglecting eternal things, which the mind perceives and enjoys by means of itself and which it cannot lose if it loves them; and instead pursuing temporal things … as if they were great and marvelous things." (p. 27, section 16)

Book II

  1. How does Augustine answer Evodius' question, "Why did God give human beings free choice of the will, if we can choose to do evil?" Outline his initial argument. (1) Note that Augustine prefaces his entire argument with a qualification: "If all of this is true…" (p. 30) The rest of Book II will be an attempt to provide rational arguments for the truth of some of Evodius' fundamental assumptions.
  1. Why does Augustine hold that "No action would be either a sin or a good deed if it were not performed by the will"? Explain.
  1. Note: Augustine thinks we must be able to answer three questions in order to rationally ground the conviction that free will is a good thing. The rest of Book II is devoted to answering these three questions in turn. "Does God exist?" (3-14) "Do all things, insofar as they are good, come from God?" (15-17) "Should free will be counted as one of those good things?" (18-20)

Does God Exist?

  1. How is it shown that you, yourself exist?
  1. How does Augustine distinguish between the five senses, the inner sense, and Reason? How are they ordered in relationship to each other in terms of function? (3-4)
  1. How are the five senses, the inner sense, and reason ordered in terms of the hierarchy of judging and the hierarchy of being? (5)

In order to show that there must be something superior to human reason, namely God, Augustine first argues that we share common objects of the senses. He will then try to show that in an analogous way, we share common objects of thought as well. These shared objects of thought (unchangeable truths), he will then argue, are indeed superior human reason.

  1. How does Augustine argue that we share common objects of the senses? (6-7)
  1. Just as there are common objects of our senses, so Augustine argues, there are common objects of thought (the order and truth of numbers and universal wisdom). How is the case of numbers like, and different from, that of wisdom? (8-11)
  1. How does Augustine define term "wisdom"? (9) Write down the definition and think hard about what it might mean.
  1. What is the relationship between wisdom, happiness and the highest good? (9)
  1. What are the "lights of the virtues" or the "rules" that Augustine claims are part of wisdom? (10)
  1. How does Augustine argue that the unchangeable Truth must be superior to our minds? (12)
  1. How does Augustine relate the unchangeable Truth to human happiness? How does he contrast the desire for Truth with the inordinate desire for things that can be lost against our will? (13) Why is the satisfaction of the desire for Truth superior to the satisfaction of our inordinate desires?
  1. Augustine writes, "This is our freedom, when we are subject to the truth; and the truth is God himself, who frees us from death, that is, from the state of sin." Explain how it is that our freedom consists in being subject to truth.
  1. How does Augustine summarize his argument for the existence of God at the beginning of (15)?

Do all things, insofar as they are good, come from God?

  1. Augustine holds that, all creatures "have forms because they have numbers; take away their form and number and they will be nothing." Explain. (15)
  1. Why, according to Augustine, can't a changeable thing form itself? Explain. (17)
  1. Outline Augustine's argument that there can be no good thing that doesn't come from God. (16-17)

Should free will be included among the good things that come from God?

  1. What analogy to "bodily goods" does Augustine use in order to argue that free will (a good of the soul) should be given by God, even if it can be used badly? (18)
  1. How does Augustine explain sin as a wrong turning of the will? (19) What sort of turning? Turning from what to what?
  1. What is the preliminary answer that Augustine gives to the question, " What is the source of the movement by which the will turns away from the unchangeable good toward a changeable good?" (20) What does he mean when he says it is due to a "lack" or a "defect"?