... and Epicureans, Augustine chooses to define this evil further, as a degradation of the absolute good. As such, all human beings are really inferior to the good of God, but along the same line, and more importantly, evil is not itself a force, but a relative lack of the good. It follows then that good and evil are both opposite ends of infinity, and man cannot approach one or the other without ceasing to exist, or becoming divine. However neatly privation of good counters the argument of the Manicheans and Epicureans, privation does not help in the understanding or application of morality. Augustine has, in defining evil thus, laid the groundwork for moral relativism, the concept much paraded about by right wing fundamentalists in describing the woes of modern times. That is, the rejection of the idea of absolute good. If we awe at God in its supreme goodness, don't ...

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