Logical/ Augustine's soul-deciding theodicy

• Augustine

  God made the world perfect with variety - Genesis 1:31

  • Principle of Plenitude: Diversity in the world makes it more perfect - range of creatures

  
  

  privatio boni

  
  

  
  

  Fall of Angels and humans - misuse of free will - natural and moral evil - OG sin

  
  

  
  

  Evil is not attributed to God but the free will of humans

  • a perfect world must have free will

  
  

  Everyone is guilty for OG sin - loins of Adam - seminally

  • original sin= inherited - natural tendency to sin

  
  

  natural evil = punishment for the Fall

  • all suffering = deserved consequence of sin
  • loss of order of nature - balance lost
• Augustine

  God's grace

  • God sent Jesus to die so that SOME may be saved and go to heaven - limited election
  • John 3:16 - sacrifice of Jesus
  • Matthew 7:13-14 - the gate that leads to heaven is narrow
• Strengths of Augustine's theodicy

  This theodicy's main strength is that it never suggests that God tolerates evil or wants to have a world with evil in it - God has nothing to do with it - therefore humans' misuse of free will is responsible

  
  

  
  

  Christian Scientists - religious group, founded by Mary Baker Eddy - agree with the idea of the non-reality of evil

  • evil = illusion - eg pain, cruelty

  HOWEVER, this is not a satisfactory explanation because even if evil is an illusion, it is real enough and has real symptoms - eg the death of terminally ill people
• Weaknesses Augustine's theodicy 



  Schleiermacher

  • it is impossible to find cause/motivation for angels to sin unless they were created imperfectly
  • evil can't have come out of nowhere unless God first made it
  • if it did come out of nowhere then it raises serious issues for the notion of God's omniscience and omnipotence

  Omniscience

  • why did God create the world knowing we would use our free will to sin - is this wise?
  • even if our choice to sin is wholly ours, he knew what would happen and could arguably be blamed for making the choice to create the world this way regardless
• Weaknesses - Augustine


  Hick: lacks plausibility because it relies on literal interpretation of Genesis - The Fall - myth - contradicts evolution

  • science: how is it biologically possible to be present in the loins of Adam - inheritance of OG sin
  • limited election: why are only some saved if we are not all equally sinners, descending from Adam?