Overrated. But I'll give him this: the conversation partner is not nearly as painfully boring as the ones in the republic, by Plato.

Not as fascinating a read as the Confessions, but important as yet another influential text from Augustine that continues to this day, in this case with his account of free will and divine omniscience. I wasn't convinced that the account holds up--absolute divine foreknowledge and robust free will are simply logically incompatible, and that kind of foreknowledge isn't necessary to predicate of the God of the Bible (even less so of Mormonism). Still, a pleasure to read a great mind at work.

Por qué escogemos el mal?

This is such a pleasing read. Very socratic in form, Augustine wrestles with the meaning, origin, power, and place of the free will in sin and virtue. Though the Pelagians seized upon certain passages of Augustine’s to validate their views, a careful read on books 2 & 3 shows he makes distinctions between Man as created, Man as fallen, and Man as redeemed. He most certainly argues for the necessity of prevenient grace to help sinners out of their ruin.

The most important thing, however, that Augustine stresses is that God is not the origin of sin, His foreknowledge in no way caused it, and He only works either to remedy it or punish it.

The work has some deeply platonic ideas, which is not bad, but the reader will discover themes that resonate with platonic categories.

Especially interesting was Augustine’s recognition that the Church had different ideas about the origin of the soul (four ideas: pre-existing souls who were placed into bodies after conception, pre-existing souls who sinned by taking on bodies, souls that were created after conception, and souls that were generated naturally by reproduction) - he surmised the Catholic commentators of his day either had not spoken authoritatively on the matter yet or their writings had not gotten to him.

This was an immensely enjoyable book full of high theology and practical Christianity. It is challenging but not dry at all. It lays solid foundations of Christian anthropology.

The questions posed were great, the best wording I could hope for. I did find some insight in the answers provided by Augustine, but on the most important ones I was completely unable to follow his logic chain. I value this book for providing me with a set of questions that I hope further reading will provide answers to.

did i finished it ? no
why ? I WAS TIRED AND BORED

I don't agree with Augustine. I can't put my finger on why, which is frustrating. I think I need to read up more on how attempts of proving the existence of God were put down before, because I know they have, I just don't remember how. (I think mostly Kant)
Augustine has a couple of pretty interesting points, but rambles in parts and loses himself in circular arguments (for example, justifying the human's god-given free choice of will by bible citations just won't do)

Esse eu tive que dar uma nota boa. Consigo me projetar pra época, e pensar como um crente. Dessa maneira o livro se torna algo sensacional. Cheio de malandragens para construção do convencimento das pessoas, ele realmente explica bem a origem do pecado, porque pecamos, a essência do livre arbítrio e até prova a Existência de Deus.

Mas... como ele mesmo diz, tem que crer para entender. O eu de hoje, um descrente, não entende mesmo. E até ri de vários argumentos e das tais malandragens. A tal prova da existência de Deus começa com um malandrops pra cima do Evodio, que dá até dó.

A parte 1 do livro, que fala sobre o pecado como desejo culpável é a parte mais bacana do livro. A segunda e a prova da existência de Deus, relação com número e tal, tem seu valor. A terceira, é aquela babação que encontramos lá nas confissões. É a bíblia escrita de maneira "filosófica".

Esse vale a leitura. Para crentes, um prato cheio. Para não crentes, um estudo de onde a ilusão pode chegar.

For the first foray into this topic in the known history of philosophy, it's fascinating. There are plenty of areas where he gets bogged down in issues and pseudo-arguments that his contemporaries might have found convincing, but don't really make much sense or contain abundant buried assumptions...which describes all philosophical writing, without exception, so far as I know.

It's also very refreshing to realize that Augustine believed so strongly in human choice that he wrote this book. From my recollections of reading the Confessions, and probably confounding him with other Christian writers, I think I used to have the idea that Augustine believed you were either lucky and were taken over by grace to become what you might call a "grace zombie," or else you were left to your own devices and stayed a "sin zombie." I think that describes many strands of moral theology that infested the hermetically sealed Christian Europe of a millennium later, but Augustine had to deal with virtuous pagans (Romans 2) every day. This book is, in its lucid parts, far more realistic and inspiring.

A good book!
It took me awhile to get through, so hopefully I don't misrepresent the book in my review.
The book is written in a dialectical style, similar to philosophical literature. Two people, Augustine and Evodius, discuss the origin of evil.
Part of the book is on how to know God exists through reason.
The book is largely on understanding with reason what you believe by faith.
If you have faith that God is good, but wonder how evil can exist if God didn't make it, this book can help you logically work through that. St. Augustine explores how evil can exist, even though everything God created was made good, and that there is nothing but unchangeable God and his changeable creation.

3.5 stars. Was very interesting but dragged on and was too preachy for me at points. Also this + confessions + city of god in one week is too much Augustine for me I think

I wasn't expecting the text to be so accesible. Augustine uses a question and answer format which makes everything much simpler to understand, though quite a bit still went over my head!