The Problem of Evil and God's Existence - A Review of St. Augustine's Theodicy

Aurelius Augustine or Saint Augustine of Hippo who lived from AD 354–430  is widely recognized as the most influential Christian thinker, outside the biblical writers, in world history. His brilliance and sincere heart to seek God made him one of the most significant defenders of the Christian faith. Augustine's work influenced Martin Luther who defended justification by faith alone through whom the protestant reformation began. Augustine's famous notion of 'imago dei' points out that human beings are made in the image of God that when we turn inward and then upward we will be able to see things more clearly of God. It is an attestation to Apostle Paul's words, "Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God." (Romans 1:20) Augustine's explanation for the Triune God springs out of that as he pointed out the indivisibleness of the tripartite soul of humans, which is the combination of memory, understanding, and will. Since these three, memory, understanding, will, are not three lives, but one life; nor three minds, but one mind; it follows certainly that neither are they three substances, but one substance, like the unity of Trinity in Godhead.  

Augustine's Free-Will Theodicy  (Why evil exists?):

Augustine addresses the problem of evil through God's goodness and the free will of humans. As one of the great thinkers of free will in the 4th century, Augustine spent much time pondering and writing on the nature of the will. God gave human beings the power to choose the good, and this ability to choose is what is responsible for ushering evil into the world. Augustine also held that angels were given free will, and some of them used it to turn against God and the good. He maintained that human will, as a created thing, is itself corruptible. And through its own power, it became corrupted as humans failed to uphold goodness through free will. 

Augustine used this notion of the will to develop a detailed theodicy, an explanation for how evil could exist in a good world that God created and how a good God would allow evil and suffering in this world. This free-will theodicy can be concisely delineated in the following six statements:

  1. God created the universe, and everything in it was good.
  2. While God is in control of the universe, and nothing happens in it outside his permitting will, some of God’s creation, namely people, were given the good gift of freedom of the will (having the freedom of the will in the universe is better than not having it, since a moral universe requires it, and a moral universe is better than a nonmoral or amoral universe).
  3. Some of these created persons, first angels and then human beings, freely chose to turn from God’s goodness; that is, they “sinned” and fell from their state of perfection (the "fall”).
  4. This turning of the will, or sinning, brought evil (corruption) into the universe.
  5. Evil, though brought about by created persons, is not a thing or entity; it is a metaphysical deprivation, or corruption, or lack, or privation, of the good (a privatio boni—“privation of good,” to use a medieval Latin term).
  6. God will finally rectify evil when he judges the world, ushering into his eternal kingdom those persons who have been saved through Christ and sending to eternal hell those persons who are wicked and disobedient.
  7. Evil, although causes pain and suffering, in reality, can be an instrumental way of accomplishing the good. Augustine maintained that the adversities we face can cause us to reflect on what is truly significant and also to think about the afterlife, which can produce a healthy soul (An example  would be of going to the dentist and having a cavity removed. This can be a painful and anxiety-producing event. Yet the result is something good: a healthy tooth.) 


Defense Against the Objections to the Existence of God & God's Nature:

Through Augustine’s free-will theodicy, the objections, raised due to the problem of evil and suffering against the existence of God and His nature, fail both in the past and present. Augustine's free will theodicy argument for the co-existence of a morally perfect God and evil in the world is still applicable in our contemporary context, for the following reasons:

  1. The logical problem that it is logically impossible for the coexistence of a morally perfect God and evil assumes that God prefers only a world without suffering and that God can create a world in which the people will always freely chose to do good. However, it is incoherent because forcing free agents to always choose to do good makes people no longer free to choose. Moreover, per Augustine’s theodicy, God allows suffering to bring greater good and God does something with a purpose. The human limitation may prevent one to see the full picture of God’s doing but that shouldn’t discard that God has sufficient reason to allow suffering in this world to achieve what He purposed. Therefore, the burden of proof lies on the objector to prove that it is logically impossible that free will exists, and its logically impossible that God has good reasons for allowing suffering in the world.
  2. The theological problem is that God, who is all-knowing and has the foreknowledge of the future, would still create a world knowing that evil will perpetuate but not stop it or even alter the course of history to prevent it shows that God is not morally perfect and therefore cannot be omnibenevolent. However, this assumes that God is morally deficient if He creates a world where evil and suffering are permissible. At the same time, it ignores God’s provision for getting rid of evil. Additionally, the burden of proof rests on the objector to prove that God has not done anything to stop or limit the perpetuation of evil in this world. To say the truth, if God had not intervened in the pages of history, one cannot even imagine the vastness of evil that would have been unleashed. Thank God for His intervention; we have a livable world today. 
  3. The intellectual problem is that natural evil, calamities, is a mere part of the natural world since it is backed with reasonable scientific explanations and therefore, it excludes the necessity of man’s fall due to free will as the reason for evil in the world. However, the scientific explanations for any natural evil can only answer how it comes about but cannot explain why it came about. Augustine’s theodicy addresses this problem through the aftermath of sin through fall and it encompasses the justification for both man-made evil and naturally occurring evil. Moreover, there is no justification in the setting of a purely natural world to call the natural phenomenon objectively evil or good; it can only be subjective. Even as a purely intellectual problem, the problem of evil cannot come close to disprove that God and evil can coexist.
  4. The emotional problem is that evil and suffering are simply too much in abundance that one wouldn’t even want to seek after a God who would allow such overwhelming suffering to fulfill His own purpose no matter how justifiable it is and even if a God exists he cannot be morally perfect. As hard it is to accept the fact that God would permit such overwhelming evil in the world for a greater good, it is also crucial to understand that evil, which is not an entity but the privation of good is only temporary as God will finally rectify evil when he judges the world per Augustine’s theodicy argument. Moreover, this problem assumes that the purpose of life is happiness and God is obligated to make everyone in this life happy. However, Augustine’s theodicy from the perspective of Christianity is that through suffering one learns about God, experiences God, and gains knowledge of God which is the ultimate fulfillment of human existence.
  5. The evidential problem is that the pointless suffering, like an innocent child going through intense pain, shows that there are simply so much evil and suffering in this world that are meaningless. Therefore, it seems improbable that God could have good reasons for permitting it. Suffering provides empirical evidence that God's existence is not just improbable, but highly unlikely. Moreover, if God’s ultimate purpose is to create free agents who will fulfill God’s plan through pain and suffering but in the end will live in perfect joy and harmony in heaven, then its highly likely that a morally perfect God, if He exists, would have created such a possible state in the first place where free will and sinlessness could coexist? However, with human limitations and uncertainty of the future, one may not be able to pass judgment on God that He probably lacks sufficient reason to allow people to go through this temporal phase in the world to bring them to eternal bliss. Augustine maintained that the adversities we face can cause us to reflect on what is truly significant and also to think about the afterlife, which can produce a healthy soul. God, in order to the best outcome and to fulfill His divine purposes may have to allow a great deal of suffering along the way. This suffering may appear to be pointless within one's scope of understanding because of limitation and lack of background information from God’s perspective but maybe justly permitted by God to achieve the best outcome.


Conclusion:

Augustine’s theodicy reconciles the existence of evil and suffering, also known as the problem of evil, with the existence and nature of God: omniscience, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Augustine’s apologetic argument for theodicy points to the failure of human free will as the reason for the source of both manmade evil and natural evil. It stands as the best defense for the Christian faith for over a millennium. It reconciles the nature and existence of God with the problem of evil through the provision of God. The all-knowing, all-powerful God, who had the full knowledge of the unfolding of evil in the days to come made the best possible provision for getting rid of evil throughout history at the appointed times and will in the end destroy evil forever. This review shows how, through Augustine’s theodicy, the objections, raised due to the problem of evil and suffering against the existence of God and His nature, fail, both in the past and present. Today, as we face contemporary challenges and questions for the problem of evil and suffering, Augustine’s theodicy stands tall and answers one of the toughest questions in the history of mankind. Augustine utilized the notion of "imago dei" that human beings are made in the image of God, and when we turn inward to find answers for things that appear unreconcilable at the surface, we will be able to find a reasonable explanation for why things are the way they are. The importance of understanding this is crucial in finding answers to this tough question we face in this life. 

_______________________

In Defence of the Truth

Jenn Anand

_______________________

Reference:

B.K. Forrest and J.D. Chatraw, The History of Apologetics. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan. 2020. 








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Second Coming Of Christ: Secret or Public?

THE RETURN OF THE KING: SECRET OR PUBLIC? Since we are living in a desperate time and the signs of the end of times are alarming, I thought it would be appropriate to share on the subject of Christ's second coming. This article addresses a common but important question on this subject: "Is there a secret Coming of Christ? Will Jesus come twice, pre-tribulation secretly and Post-Tribulation publicly?" 1. INTRODUCTION: The Bible is very clear; there is no mention of a secret coming of Christ. The Bible only speaks of the second coming of Christ, only once to establish His kingdom in this earth to rule for 1000 years. He comes not to take us away secretly but to openly establish a kingdom on this earth. And at the end, we together will inherit the New Heaven and Earth after the 1000 years of God's kingdom on this earth. So, when will Jesus come? 2. THE LAST TRUMPET: When Paul talks about the second coming of Christ in 1 Corinthian 15 and  1 Thessalonians 4,...
Read more

Revelation Revealed: A Study on the Book of Revelation

Revelation Revealed: A Study on the Book of Revelation I have penned down a short summary of the book of Revelation based on my study of the book. Since many people have difficulty understanding the book of Revelation because of the several visions, which may be difficult to understand, I thought this would be an appropriate post for those who are try8ing to understand the book.  ____________________________ 1. INTRODUCTION: As we read the book of revelation, we should understand that John is writing these visions that he saw as a symbolic representation of many things: The things that had already happened. The things that were happening at the time he wrote the letter. The things that are happening at present in our time The things that will continue to happen until Christ returns The things that are yet to happen. More importantly, the book is not to be taken as a sequential order of events based on the chapter order. The order of chapters is not meant to say that things will hap...
Read more