Augustine evaluation

Question 1

John hick

Answer 1

inherent to see we existed in ‘loins ‘ of Adam, science points to genetic variation

Question 2

Dawkins

Answer 2

’ selfish genes theory, no distinct human nature, developed morality and ideas from innate evolutionary tendency

Question 3

Pelagius

Answer 3

the habit of doing wrong that has infected us from childhood ‘
Adam and eves sins are not the personal crimes of their descendats, it is unjust that we are punished for their crimes

undermines free will

Pelagius: God commands moral action so we must be capable of moral goodness

Pelagius points out that the bible is full of cases of God commanding humans to do morally good actions and avoid morally bad actions. It’s difficult to see why God would make these demands if original sin meant that humans did not have the ability to obey those commands.

Question 4

Pinker

Answer 4

Moral Progress - How we have increased, no longer legal slavey
Not eternally flawed
‘moral arc of the universe bends towards justice’

Question 5

Aquinas

Answer 5

God willingly sends nobody to hell
Unlimited election - slavation is open to all christans, but not all choose it

Cathecism - ‘willfully turning away from God is required’

1)Aquinas defends his natural theology from original sin. Aquinas claims that pre-fall human nature contained three ‘goods’:

the properties of a human soul, e.g. rationality.

An inclination towards the good (telos) as a result of being rational.

Original justice/righteousness; perfect rational control over the soul.

—Original sin completely destroyed original justice, which caused us to lose perfect rational control over our desires. Nonetheless, Aquinas argues that our rationality and its accompanying inclination towards the good was not destroyed by original sin.

Question 6

Brunner

Answer 6

Brunner claimed the fall destroyed the material imago dei (Adam and Eve’s relationship with God)

but not the formal imago dei, which is what separates us from animals and gives us language, reason and moral responsibility.

Logical - Psalm 8 which states humans are lower than the angels but higher than the animals.

Preserving grace

God continues to be active in maintaining creation, shielding it from the effects of sin

This can be known through the order in the universe; that the world is still spinning, and humans still existing reveals God’s gracious preservation of us.

Brunner still thinks however that natural theology alone will always, due to our sinful state, result in a distorted knowledge of God. We need the special revelation of Christ to achieve full knowledge.

. the limited purpose of natural theology is to offer ‘the possibility of a discussion pointing towards such evidence of the existence of god’. brunner argues thus:

-imago dei/revelation/ conscience – God wants us to discuss/ reason and trust in him.

Question 7

Social conditoning

Answer 7

Freud – how superego internalizes different learnt ideals

-Guilt not atonement for sin but emotional response when we go against the superego

-God as physiological construction deriving from need for a father figure, protects against violent inclinations

Foucault – human nature is taught to us. Religion is the ‘key error’ leafing to repression and unhappiness

Question 8

Roussau

Answer 8

born good but ‘educated in evil’ due to societal hierarchies. man is born free and everywhere is in chains’

Locke – idea we are born a blake state, tabula rusa

*Society has messed humans up and the natural state of humans is good