“THE PROBLEM OF EVIL” my REFLECTION

St. Augustine of Hippo believes that although God created everything that exists, He did not create evil, because evil is not a thing, but a lack or deficiency of something.

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           There are different classification of evil; first the natural evil, it is the natural calamity such as typhoon, storms, earthquake, tsunami, etc. Second is the physical evil, example are blindness, leprosy, a person without a limbs, deceases and many more. And the third is the moral evil, where people such as killing, lying, dishonesty, steeling and many more. God allows evil to be experienced by man to realize that there are something great good in this world. For example, the typhoon Yolanda, is a natural evil where God allows hitting the Tacloban in the Philippines. This typhoon gives advantage and disadvantage effects. The disadvantages, thousand of peoples die and million of properties are destroyed. And the advantages, people of good will response to help those victims donating, foods clothes, shelters and they create fund raising for them to recover from the effect of natural disaster. In the first place evil achieve his goal to destroy the people of Tacloban but in the end he is not the winner, cause all the people around the world prayed and helped those victims. They show unity and courage to face the trials and most of all they armed of faith and they trust God.

             St. Augustine also suggests a solution to the problem, asking us to see the world as a thing of beauty. He says that although there is evil in the universe, it contributes to an overall good that is greater than it could be without evil – just as discords in music can make a harmony more lovely, or dark patches add to the beauty of a picture. It is true like those keys in piano, white keys represent good and black keys represent evil. When using both white and black keys they create a harmonious sound and beautiful music. And like mostly the passion and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. He experience the ultimate torture in the hands of Poncious Pilate and his soldiers. He experience the evil in this world. He died and was buried but in the third day He rose again from the dead. We all know Jesus Christ is the only Son of God and His sufferings and death lead us to find and accept the salvation. The evil not is failed because only God will always reign in this world. 

           Having freedom of will means being able o choose, including choosing between good and evil. But suddenly most people failed in choosing good by choosing evil, where all of this rooted to Eve and Adam when they choose evil by disobeying God and commit sin. And according to St. Augustine of Hippo, “What made Adam capable of obeying God’s commands also made him able to sin.” The battle between good and evil still present, the question to each of us is, “Which will you choose good or evil? To do good, where God could be happy for us or to do evil where He could be hurt for not choosing to do good.”

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