Question

What does Augustine mean by a good will? Does Augustine believe that someone with a genuinely good will would ever unjustly harm another person, why or why not? If someone with a good will cannot do bad things, then what explains why people do bad things? What justifies punishment of those people?   

Answer 1

• Augustine defines "good will" as "a will by which we seek to live a good and upright life and to attain unto perfect wisdom" which, of course, assumes that it is free.In fact, a free will that does not seek God clings to material things, which are so easily lost in everything from hurricanes to death. Those who choose evil are ruled by their passion and desire for things of this world.One who chooses to do good ultimately gains everything because there is no fear of losing "things" due to lack of attachment to them. Those who becomes perfect could lose every material thing and still gain all precisely because they are trying to attain the perfect, which is wisdom. Wisdom cannot be lost as long as someone has good will.
• Humans always choose to do good, it's just a matter of whether one chooses a lesser "good." This occurs when one chooses to allow passions and desires rule the soul, which tend toward things of this world. So moral goodness, although limited, is attainable through faith, and so whilst humans may not be entirely morally good of their own accord, they can strive for moral development in this life, culminating in the summum bonum, the most supreme good, in the life to come.
• What good comes out of a drive-by killing, someone might ask, or the death of a teenager through overdose,?The answer is that a commensurate good doesn't always come out of those individual situations, though God is certainly capable of redeeming any tragedy. Rather, the greater good results from having a world in which there is moral freedom, and moral freedom makes moral tragedies like these possible.