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That there are not two kingdoms, one good and one bad, we shall see
from this. For good and evil are opposed to one another and mutually
destructive, and cannot exist in one another or with one another.
Each of them, therefore, in its own division will belong to the
whole, and first they will he circumscribed, not by the whole alone
but also each of them by part of the whole.
Next I ask, who it is that assigns to each its place. For they will
not affirm that they have come to a friendly agreement with, or been
reconciled to, one another. For evil is not evil when it is at peace
with, and reconciled to, goodness, nor is goodness good when it is on
amicable terms with evil. But if He Who has marked off to each of
these its own sphere of action is something different from them, He
must the rather be God.
One of two things indeed is necessary, either that they come in
contact with and destroy one another, or that there exists some
intermediate place where neither goodness nor evil exists, separating
both from one another, like a partition. And so there will be no
longer two but three kingdoms.
Again, one of these alternatives is necessary, either that they are
at peace, which is quite incompatible with evil (for that which is at
peace is not evil), or they are at strife, which is incompatible with
goodness (for that which is at strife is not perfectly good), or the
evil is at strife and the good does not retaliate, but is destroyed by
the evil, or they are ever in trouble and distress, which is not a
mark of goodness. There is, therefore, but one kingdom, delivered
from all evil.
But if this is so, they say, whence comes evil? For it is quite
impossible that evil should originate from goodness. We answer then,
that evil is nothing else than absence of goodness and a lapsing from
what is natural into what is unnatural: for nothing evil is natural.
For all things, whatsoever God made, are very good, so far as they
were made: if, therefore, they remain just as they were created,
they are very good, but when they voluntarily depart from what is
natural and turn to what is unnatural, they slip into evil.
By nature, therefore, all things are servants of the Creator and
obey Him. Whenever, then, any of His creatures voluntarily rebels
and becomes disobedient to his Maker, he introduces evil into
himself. For evil is not any essence nor a property of essence, but
an accident, that is, a voluntary deviation from what is natural into
what is unnatural, which is sin.
Whence, then, comes sin? It is an invention of the free-will of
the devil. Is the devil, then, evil? In so far as he was brought
into existence he is not evil but good. For he was created by his
Maker a bright and very brilliant angel, endowed with free-will as
being rational. But he voluntarily departed from the virtue that is
natural and came into the darkness of evil, being far removed from
God, Who alone is good and can give life and light. For from Him
every good thing derives its goodness, and so far as it is separated
from Him in will (for it is not in place), it falls into evil.
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