Theodicy of Augustine
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- Date Submitted: 04/09/2015 04:32 AM
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Theodicy of Augustine
Augustine based his theory on his reading of key biblical passages, genesis and Romans 5:12-20, he also based his theory on two assumptions. One of the assumption Evil is not from God ,since God’s creation was perfect and faultless. The second assumption is evil came from within the world. Sin and death entered the world through Adam and Eve, and their disobedience, in genesis 3 it tells the story of Adam and eve and their ‘Fall’ in the Garden of Eden. In it the ‘serpent’ convinces Eve to pick a fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, however God has forbidden her to pick from this tree. She picks a fruit from the tree and passes some to Adam, in punishment God evicts them from the garden. This brought about disharmony both in our human nature and in creation.
God is perfect, the world he created reflected that perfection. He made the logical point that it is not possible for God to be responsible for evil , since evil is not a substance. Instead evil prefers to what is lacking in a thing; it is a ‘privation of good.’ Augustine uses the analogy of blindness, which is blindness is not an entity, but an absence of sight. Augustine accounts for evil by ascribing it to human agency, evil came about as a result of the misuse of free will.
Having explained the origin of evil, Augustine went on to show that all suffering is a fully deserved consequence of human sin. Natural evil originated from the loss of order within nature following the first sin also known as the original sin. This destroyed the delicate balance of the world. It also, however, caused the world to become distanced from God in this new and damaged environment, remote from God and immorality has been able to thrive, this is the causes moral evil.
Both types of evil are interpreted as a punishment: ‘ All evil is either sin or the punishment for sin.’ Augustine made the essential point that all humans deserve to suffer, including supposedly innocent babies,...
Augustine based his theory on his reading of key biblical passages, genesis and Romans 5:12-20, he also based his theory on two assumptions. One of the assumption Evil is not from God ,since God’s creation was perfect and faultless. The second assumption is evil came from within the world. Sin and death entered the world through Adam and Eve, and their disobedience, in genesis 3 it tells the story of Adam and eve and their ‘Fall’ in the Garden of Eden. In it the ‘serpent’ convinces Eve to pick a fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, however God has forbidden her to pick from this tree. She picks a fruit from the tree and passes some to Adam, in punishment God evicts them from the garden. This brought about disharmony both in our human nature and in creation.
God is perfect, the world he created reflected that perfection. He made the logical point that it is not possible for God to be responsible for evil , since evil is not a substance. Instead evil prefers to what is lacking in a thing; it is a ‘privation of good.’ Augustine uses the analogy of blindness, which is blindness is not an entity, but an absence of sight. Augustine accounts for evil by ascribing it to human agency, evil came about as a result of the misuse of free will.
Having explained the origin of evil, Augustine went on to show that all suffering is a fully deserved consequence of human sin. Natural evil originated from the loss of order within nature following the first sin also known as the original sin. This destroyed the delicate balance of the world. It also, however, caused the world to become distanced from God in this new and damaged environment, remote from God and immorality has been able to thrive, this is the causes moral evil.
Both types of evil are interpreted as a punishment: ‘ All evil is either sin or the punishment for sin.’ Augustine made the essential point that all humans deserve to suffer, including supposedly innocent babies,...