Confessions

p. 114

Even the greatest theologians are stumped by the mystery of iniquity.  So Augustine confesses to God that he can’t figure out how evil got into the universe.  “Who made me?  Is not my God not only good but the Supreme Good?  Why then have I the power to will evil and to reject good?  Who put this power in me? . . . If the devil was responsible, where did the devil himself come from?  Even if he began as a good angel and became devil by a perversion of the will, how does the evil will by which he became devil originate in him, when an angel is wholly made by a Creator who is pure goodness?”