On the Nature of Good

St. Augustine of Hippo

  1. 1. — God the Highest and Unchangeable Good, from Whom are All Other Good Things, Spiritual and Corporeal
  2. 2. — How This May Suffice for Correcting the Manichæans
  3. 3. — Measure, Form, and Order, Generic Goods in Things Made by God
  4. 4. — Evil is Corruption of Measure, Form, or Order
  5. 5. — The Corrupted Nature of a More Excellent Order Sometimes Better Than an Inferior Nature Even Uncorrupted
  6. 6. — Nature Which Cannot Be Corrupted is the Highest Good; That Which Can, is Some Good
  7. 7. — The Corruption of Rational Spirits is on the One Hand Voluntary, on the Other Penal
  8. 8. — From the Corruption and Destruction of Inferior Things is the Beauty of the Universe
  9. 9. — Punishment is Constituted for the Sinning Nature that It May Be Rightly Ordered
  10. 10. — Natures Corruptible, Because Made of Nothing
  11. 11. — God Cannot Suffer Harm, Nor Can Any Other Nature Except by His Permission
  12. 12. — All Good Things are from God Alone
  13. 13. — Individual Good Things, Whether Small or Great, are from God
  14. 14. — Small Good Things in Comparison with Greater are Called by Contrary Names
  15. 15. — In the Body of the Ape the Good of Beauty is Present, Though in a Less Degree
  16. 16. — Privations in Things are Fittingly Ordered by God
  17. 17. — Nature, in as Far as It is Nature, No Evil
  18. 18. — Hyle, Which Was Called by the Ancients the Formless Material of Things, is Not an Evil
  19. 19. — To Have True Existence is an Exclusive Prerogative of God
  20. 20. — Pain Only in Good Natures
  21. 21. — From Measure Things are Said to Be Moderate-Sized.
  22. 22. — Measure in Some Sense is Suitable to God Himself
  23. 23. — Whence a Bad Measure, a Bad Form, a Bad Order May Sometimes Be Spoken of
  24. 24. — It is Proved by the Testimonies of Scripture that God is Unchangeable. The Son of God Begotten, Not Made
  25. 25. — This Last Expression Misunderstood by Some
  26. 26. — That Creatures are Made of Nothing
  27. 27. — "From Him" And "Of Him" Do Not Mean The Same Thing
  28. 28. — Sin Not From God, But From The Will of Those Sinning
  29. 29. — That God is Not Defiled by Our Sins
  30. 30. — That Good Things, Even the Least, and Those that are Earthly, are by God
  31. 31. — To Punish and to Forgive Sins Belong Equally to God
  32. 32. — From God Also is the Very Power to Be Hurtful
  33. 33. — That Evil Angels Have Been Made Evil, Not by God, But by Sinning
  34. 34. — That Sin is Not the Striving for an Evil Nature, But the Desertion of a Better
  35. 35. — The Tree Was Forbidden to Adam Not Because It Was Evil, But Because It Was Good for Man to Be Subject to God
  36. 36. — No Creature of God is Evil, But to Abuse a Creature of God is Evil
  37. 37. — God Makes Good Use of the Evil Deeds of Sinners
  38. 38. — Eternal Fire Torturing the Wicked, Not Evil
  39. 39. — Fire is Called Eternal, Not as God Is, But Because Without End
  40. 40. — Neither Can God Suffer Hurt, Nor Any Other, Save by the Just Ordination of God
  41. 41. — How Great Good Things the Manichæans Put in the Nature of Evil, and How Great Evil Things in the Nature of Good
  42. 42. — Manichæan Blasphemies Concerning the Nature of God
  43. 43. — Many Evils Before His Commingling with Evil are Attributed to the Nature of God by the Manichæans
  44. 44. — Incredible Turpitudes in God Imagined by Manichæus
  45. 45. — Certain Unspeakable Turpitudes Believed, Not Without Reason, Concerning the Manichæans Themselves
  46. 46. — The Unspeakable Doctrine of the Fundamental Epistle
  47. 47. — He Compels to the Perpetration of Horrible Turpitudes
  48. 48. — Augustine Prays that the Manichæans May Be Restored to Their Senses

The highest good, than which there is no higher, is God, and consequently He is unchangeable good, hence truly eternal and truly immortal. All other good things are only from Him, not of Him. For what is of Him, is Himself. And consequently if He alone is unchangeable, all things that He has made, because He has made them out of nothing, are changeable. For He is so omnipotent, that even out of nothing, that is out of what is absolutely non-existent, He is able to make good things both great and small, both celestial and terrestrial, both spiritual and corporeal. But because He is also just, He has not put those things that He has made out of nothing on an equality with that which He begot out of Himself. Because, therefore, no good things whether great or small, through whatever gradations of things, can exist except from God; but since every nature, so far as it is nature, is good, it follows that no nature can exist save from the most high and true God: because all things even not in the highest degree good, but related to the highest good, and again, because all good things, even those of most recent origin, which are far from the highest good, can have their existence only from the highest good. Therefore every spirit, though subject to change, and every corporeal entity, is from God, and all this, having been made, is nature. For every nature is either spirit or body. Unchangeable spirit is God, changeable spirit, having been made, is nature, but is better than body; but body is not spirit, unless when the wind, because it is invisible to us and yet its power is felt as something not inconsiderable, is in a certain sense called spirit.