4. Augustinian Theodicy

Question 1

Summary

Answer 1

1. Creation
2. Evil Explanation
3. Intervention
4. Pre-Destination
5. Aesthetic Theory
6. Contrast Theory
7. Process Theodicy
8. Criticisms

Question 2

1. Creation

Answer 2

• God is perfect and God created the world (God created a perfect world)
• “God saw all that he made and it was very good” - Genesis 1:31
• God created the world without natural and moral evil

Question 3

2. Evil Explanation

Answer 3

• Evil is not a thing in itself but absence of good
• God gave humans free will
• When they choose to disobey God, they created an ‘absence of good within themselves’
• Fall of Man: Sin of Adam and Eve destroyed state of perfection (doctrine of the fall of man and doctrine of original sin)
• Actual punishments correct sin

Question 4

3. Intervention

Answer 4

• God is fair and just. Shows his justice by not intervening to prevent evil.
• “All evil is either sin, or the punishment for sin”
• We’re all guilty of Adam / Eve’s sin as it was passed down to children
• Mary has to be a virgin so that no sin is passed to Jesus
• Jesus is the only sinless man so he can save people
• God allows redemption through Jesus

Question 5

3. Pre-destination

Answer 5

• Calvin: God orchestrated original sin
• Augustine believed in pre-destination
• God knew in advance who would sin and who wouldn’t

Question 6

4. Aesthetic Theory

Answer 6

• An idea that from a distance all goods and evil come together to make a morally beautiful world.
• We need to see the biggest picture
• We would then understand evil is needed for balance
• God exacts justice for both good and bad people in the afterlife, all actions will contribute to moral perfection

Question 7

5. Contrast Theory

Answer 7

• Good and evil and necessary opposites
• We could not know good unless we knew evil
• We know how to be good through our understanding of evil

Question 8

7. Criticisms

Answer 8

• Could a perfect world go wrong?
• Schleirwacher: logical contradiction, either world is not perfect or God enabled it to go wrong
• How could perfect beings choose evil
• Not reasonable to say suffering isn’t a real thing.
• Augustine is playing word games through calling evil a privation

Question 9

6. Process Theodicy

Answer 9

• “God is the fellow sufferer who understands” - Whitehead
• Whitehead: God is not the omnipotent creator of the universe; he is limited by basic laws and forces of the universe.
• Man is a result of the evolutionary process
• Strengths: Co-suffering God is a more personal God whom we can identify
• Weakness: some argue process does not defend the traditional notion of God.