The Augustinian theodicy, named for the 4th- and 5th-century theologian and philosopher Augustine of Hippo, is a type of Christian theodicy that developed in response to the evidential problem of evil. As such, it attempts to explain the probability of an omnipotent (all-powerful) and omnibenevolent (all-loving) God amid evidence of evil in the world. A number of variations of this kind of theodicy have been proposed throughout history; their similarities were first described by the 20th-century philosopher John Hick, who classified them as "Augustinian". They typically assert that God is perfectly (ideally) good, that he created the world out of nothing, and that evil is the result of humanity's original sin. The entry of evil into the world is generally explained as consequence of original sin and its continued presence due to humans' misuse of free will and concupiscence. God's goodness and benevolence, according to the Augustinian theodicy, remain perfect and without responsibility for evil or suffering.
Augustine of Hippo was the first to develop the theodicy. He rejected the idea that evil exists in itself, instead regarding it as a corruption of goodness, caused by humanity's abuse of free will. Augustine believed in the existence of a physical Hell as a punishment for sin, but argued that those who choose to accept the salvation of Jesus Christ will go to Heaven. In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas – influenced by Augustine – proposed a similar theodicy based on the view that God is goodness and that there can be no evil in him. He believed that the existence of goodness allows evil to exist, through the fault of humans. Augustine also influenced John Calvin, who supported Augustine's view that evil is the result of free will and argued that sin corrupts humans, requiring God's grace to give moral guidance.
The theodicy was criticised by Augustine's contemporary Fortunatus, a Manichaean who contended that God must still be somehow implicated in evil, and 18th-century theologian Francesco Antonio Zaccaria criticised Augustine's concept of evil for not dealing with individual human suffering. Hick regards evil as necessary for the moral and spiritual development of humans, and process theologians have argued that God is not omnipotent and so cannot be responsible for any evil. The logic of Augustine's approach has been adapted by Alvin Plantinga, among others. Plantinga's adapted Augustinian theodicy, the free will defence – which he proposed in the 1980s – attempts to answer only the logical problem of evil. Such a defence (not a "theodicy" proper) does not demonstrate the existence of God, or the probable existence of God, but attempts to prove that the existence of God and the presence of evil (or privatio boni) in the world are not logically contradictory.
General forms The Augustinian theodicy was first distinguished as a form of theodicy by John Hick in Evil and the God of Love, written in 1966, in which he classified Augustine's theodicy and its subsequent developments as "Augustinian". Hick distinguished between the Augustinian theodicy, which attempts to clear God of all responsibility for evil, based on human free will, and the Irenaean theodicy, which casts God as responsible for evil but justified because of its benefits for human development.Hall 2003, p. 132
The Augustinian theodicy is a response to the evidential problem of evil,Svendsen & Pierce 2010, pp. 48–49 which raises the concern that if God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, there should be no evil in the world. Evidence of evil can call into question God's nature or his existence – he is either not omnipotent, not benevolent, or does not exist. Theodicy is an attempt to reconcile the existence and nature of God with evidence of evil in the world by providing valid explanations for its occurrence. The Augustinian theodicy asserts that God created the world ex nihilo (out of nothing), but maintains that God did not create evil and is not responsible for its occurrence.Bennett, Peters, Hewlett & Russell 2008, p. 126 Evil is not attributed existence in its own right, but is described as the privation of good – the corruption of God's good creation.Menn 2002, p. 170
The Augustinian theodicy supports the notion of original sin. All versions of this theodicy accept the theological implications of the Genesis creation narrative, including the belief that God created human beings without sin or suffering. Evil is believed to be a just punishment for the fall of man: when Adam and Eve first disobeyed God and were exiled from the Garden of Eden.Corey 2000, pp. 177–178 The free will of humans is offered by the Augustinian theodicy as the continued reason for moral evil: people commit immoral acts when their will is evil. The evil nature of human will is attributed to original sin; Augustinian theologians argue that the sin of Adam and Eve corrupted the will of human beings,Green 2011, p. 779 maintaining that God is blameless and good, and not himself responsible for evil.Geivett 1995, p. 19
Development
Augustine Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430) was a philosopher and theologian born in Roman Africa (present-day Algeria). He followed the Manichaean religion during his early life, but converted to Christianity in 386. His two major works, Confessions and City of God, develop key ideas regarding his response to suffering. In Confessions, Augustine wrote that his previous work was dominated by materialism and that reading Plato's works enabled him to consider the existence of a non-physical substance. This helped him develop a response to the problem of evil from a theological (and non-Manichean) perspective, based on his interpretation of the first few chapters of Genesis and the writings of Paul the Apostle.Korsmeyer 1995, p. 47 In City of God, Augustine developed his theodicy as part of his attempt to trace human history and describe its conclusion.
Augustine proposed that evil could not exist within God, nor be created by God, and is instead a by-product of God's creativity.Menn 2002, p. 168 He rejected the notion that evil exists in itself, proposing instead that it is a privation of (or falling away from) good, and a corruption of nature. He wrote that "evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name 'evil.'"The City of God, Augustine of Hippo, Book XI, Chapter 9 Both moral and natural evil occurs, Augustine argued, owing to an evil use of free will, which could be traced back to Adam and Eve's original sin,Svendsen & Pierce 2010, p. 49 which to him was inexplicable given the understanding that Adam and Eve were "created with perfect natures". He believed that this evil will, present in the human soul, was a corruption of the will given to humans by God, making suffering a just punishment for the sin of humans.Menn 2002, p. 174 Because Augustine believed that all of humanity was "seminally present in the loins of Adam", he argued that all of humanity inherited Adam's sin and his just punishment.Bennett, Peters, Hewlett & Russell 2008, p. 127 However, in spite of his belief that free will can be turned to evil, Augustine maintained that it is vital for humans to have free will, because they could not live well without it. He argued that evil could come from humans because, although humans contained no evil, they were also not perfectly good and hence could be corrupted.Menn 2002, p. 176
Augustine believed that a physical Hell exists, but that physical punishment is secondary to the punishment of being separated from God. He proposed two reasons for this: Firstly, humans have free will, and only those who choose to follow God will be forgiven and able to avoid Hell.Cavadini 1999, p. 422 Secondly, he believed that Adam and Eve's choice to sin affected our free choice, and that humans are left unable to resist sin.Cavadini 1999, p. 423 Augustine proposed that the grace of Jesus Christ freed humans from original sin, but he maintained that humans can only be saved if they choose to receive grace, and that this choice is formed by the character of individual humans. Accepting that even those who will be saved continue to sin, Augustine proposed that those who choose God's grace will still go to Hell for a time to purge them of their sin, before going to Heaven.
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, a thirteenth-century scholastic philosopher and theologian heavily influenced by Augustine, proposed a form of the Augustinian theodicy in his Summa Theologica. Aquinas began by attempting to establish the existence of God,Little 2005, p. 44 through his Five Ways, and then attested that God is good and must have a morally sufficient reason for allowing evil to exist.Geivett 1995, p. 18 Aquinas proposed that all goodness in the world must exist perfectly in God, and that, existing perfectly, God must be perfectly good. He concluded that God is goodness, and that there is no evil in God.
Aquinas supported Augustine's view that evil is a privation of goodness, maintaining that evil has existence as a privation intrinsically found in good.Geivett 1995, pp. 19–20 The existence of this evil, Aquinas believed, can be completely explained by free will. Faced with the assertion that humans would have been better off without free will, he argued that the possibility of sin is necessary for a perfect world, and so individuals are responsible for their sin. Good is the cause of evil, but only owing to fault on the part of the agent. In his theodicy, to say something is evil is to say that it lacks goodness which means that it could not be part of God's creation, because God's creation lacked nothing. Aquinas noted that, although goodness makes evil possible, it does not necessitate evil. This means that God (who is good) is not cast as the cause of evil, because evil arises out of a defect in an agent, and God is seen to be without defect.Little 2005, pp. 42–43 The philosopher Eleonore Stump, considering Aquinas' commentary on the Book of Job, argues that Aquinas has a positive view of suffering: it is necessary to contrast Earth with heaven and remind humans that they still have the propensity to commit evil. Aquinas believed that evil is acceptable because of the good that comes from it, and that evil can only be justified when it is required in order for good to occur.Howard-Snyder 1996, p. 51 Attempting to relieve God of responsibility for the occurrence of evil, Aquinas insisted that God merely permits evil to happen, rather than willing it.Korsmeyer 1995, p. 45 He recognised the occurrence of what seems to be evil, but did not attribute to it the same level of existence that he attributed to spirituality. Like Augustine, Aquinas asserted that humans bear responsibility for evil owing to their abuse of freedom of the will.Wawrykow 2005, p. 53
John Calvin John Calvin, a sixteenth-century French theologian and principal figure in the development of Calvinism, was influenced by Augustine's works.Cavadini 1999, pp. 116–118 Unlike Augustine, Calvin was willing to accept that God is responsible for evil and suffering; however, he maintained that God cannot be indicted for it.Case-Winters 1990, p. 70 Calvin continued the Augustinian approach that sin is the result of the fall of man, and argued that the human mind, will, and affections are corrupted by sin. He believed that only the grace of God is sufficient to provide humans with ongoing ethical guidance, arguing that reason is blinded by humans' sinful nature.McKim 2004, p. 93 Calvin proposed that humanity is predestined, divided into the elect and the reprobate: the elect are those who God has chosen to save and are the only ones who will be saved.Steele & Thomas 1963, pp. 15–17
Criticism
Fortunatus