HKB
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Often appears with: the problem of evil and theodicy · justice as a virtue · the harmony of nature · saint veneration · problem of evil · predestination and salvation · origin of evil · miracles and divine intervention · hypocritical holiness · goodness of created order · free will · evil as lack not substance
Usually: detachment (3) · argument (2) · crisis of belief (2) · reflection (1) · reverence (1) · skepticism (1) · wonder (1)
“Either then corruption injures not, which cannot be; or which is most certain, all which is corrupted is deprived of good.” Augustine, of Hippo, Saint, The Confessions of St. Augustine · insight
“... he might in his last moments have made so complete an act of contrition that perchance God had mercy on him and received him into His kingdom.” Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, Volume I · insight
Augustine says he still could not see the cause of evil without making God mutable, tries to locate evil in free will and punishment, and argues about angels and the devil without yet escaping confusion.
those who deserved wholly to be vomited out of the overcharged stomach; for they had no escape, without horrible blasphemy of heart and tongue, thus thinking and speaking of Thee. But I also as yet, although I held and was firmly persuaded that Thou our Lord the true God, who madest not only our souls, but our bodies, and not only our souls and bodies, but all beings, and all things, wert undefilable and unalterable…
He argues that corrupted things are still “good” insofar as corruption cannot exist without diminished goodness, claims evil is not a substance but a lack, and praises God’s ordered creation.
in Him, I cannot in myself; but He remaining in Himself, reneweth all things. And Thou art the Lord my God, since Thou standest not in need of my goodness. And it was manifested unto me, that those things be good which yet are corrupted; which neither were they sovereignly good, nor unless they were good could be corrupted: for if sovereignly good, they were incorruptible, if not good at all, there were nothing in t…
The narrator concludes that, though Ciappelletto lived wickedly, he may have received mercy through sincere last-moment contrition, yet the story insists it appears he should be damned to highlight God’s goodness toward believers.
they called him and still call him San Ciappelletto affirming that many miracles have been and daily are wrought by God through him for such as devoutly crave his intercession. So lived, so died Ser Cepperello da Prato, and came to be reputed a saint, as you have heard. Nor would I deny that it is possible that he is of the number of the blessed in the presence of God, seeing that, though his life was evil and depra…