Death is unquestionably an evil, says St. Augustine. It was brought on us by our sin. But a Christian turns that evil to good use by dying well. To show what a hurtful thing sin is when grace does not help us, the Apostle has not hesitated to say that the power of sin is that very law by which sin is prohibited. “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” (1 Corinthians 15:56).... Read more

Arguing with pagans after the disastrous invasion of Rome in 410, St. Augus­tine says that all the bad things that happened then were not really evils. The only true evils are the ones that ruin the soul. I think I’ve said enough about moral and spiritual evils, which are to be guarded against above all, to show that the false gods did nothing to keep the people who worshiped them from being overwhelmed by such disasters, but in­stead made the... Read more

St. Augustine carefully works out what has become a famous formulation of Christian ethics: love the sinner, hate the sin. Even the sinner is good by nature. If we’re careful to distinguish the sin, everything else is worthy of our love. But the character of the human will is important here. If it is wrong, these motions of the soul will be wrong; but if it is right, they will be not only blameless but commendable. So the man who... Read more

It’s human nature to try to make excuses for our sins. But we shouldn’t do it, says St. Augustine. We’re only making the sin worse by showing our ungodly pride. But it is a worse and more damnable pride that looks around for the shel­ter of an excuse even in obvious sins. Our first parents did just that: the woman said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I ate,” and the man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with... Read more