"Place your hope in God alone. If you notice something good in yourself, give credit to God, not to yourself, but be retain that the evil you commit is always your own and yours to acknowledge." (Ch. 4 Pg.13)
This quote from the Rule of Saint Benedict reminds me a lot of something Augustine would say in his Confessions. This quote accredits God with the good within an individual, and places the responsibility of sin and evil not with the nature of God, but with the free will of humans. Both place significance on taking responsibility for one's own evil. Both suggest God cannot be held accountable for one's own wrongdoing and sin as God is inherently good. However my question to you, my fellow classmates is: what do you think Augustine would have to say about the guidelines St. Benedict is writing for religious communities to live by? Would he promote the same values? What would he criticize?
This again has to do with that question of if God creates everything and only creates that which is good, how is it that there is evil and suffering in the world? This quotation from St. Benedict seems to me like a cop out to that question by saying that evil comes from the actions of men. Does this mean that men are inherently evil or just that free will leaves the opportunity to do evil?
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