A Response To The Problem of Evil Augustine’s Theodicy A Response To The Problem of Evil

Recap There have been many proposed solutions to the problem of evil, but we can group the main ones into 4 types: Evil is necessary for good Evil needs to be seen in a wider context (life after death) Evil is a means to a greater good (soul making, the best of all possible worlds) Evil is the responsibility of humans (the free will defence)

Augustine’s Theodicy This falls into Solution 1: evil is necessary for good (some of Augustine’s ideas also fit in to Solution 4:evil is the responsibility of humans) St Augustine based his arguments on the Bible, especially the accounts of the Creation and the Fall in Genesis. His influential theodicy rests upon 2 major assumptions: Evil did not come from God, since God’s creation was faultless and perfect As evil has come form elsewhere, God is justified in allowing it to stay

Summary of Augustine’s Argument God is perfect. He made the world free from flaws God cannot be blamed for creating evil, since evil is not a substance but a deprivation, and it makes no sense to say that God created a deprivation Evil comes from angels and human beings who chose deliberately turn away from God The possibility of evil in a created world is necessary. Only the uncreated God Himself can be perfect; created things are susceptible to change

Everyone is guilty because everyone was seminally present in Adam Therefore everyone deserves to be punished Natural evil is a fitting punishment and came about because human action destroyed natural order Therefore God is right not to intervene and put a stop to suffering God saves some through Christ – shows that He is merciful as well as just

Is there a contradiction here? When you look at the following statements: God’s world was flawless Evil came from the world not from God is there not an identifiable problem? Are there any ways you can see to answer this problem?

The Aesthetic Theodicy The aesthetic theodicy suggests that evil is part of the balance of the universe. The argument is called the aesthetic argument because is it one that is for the beauty of the universe Augustine uses an analogy saying that it is similar to the use an artist makes of light and dark shades that create harmony and balance in a painting: “for as the beauty of the picture is increased by well-managed shadows so, to the eye that has skill to discern it, the universe is beautified even by sinners, though considered by themselves, their deformity is a sad blemish”

Augustine says that this description of the world as being perfectly balanced fits in with the original sin and the imperfection that we have bought into the world as a matter of perspective At first it may seem to us that there is imbalance in God’s creation: there is too much pain and suffering and too much evil goes unpunished Augustine claims that our sinful acts are ultimately balanced by the justice of God: after we die we are all judged, and sinners atone for their sins by being punished. So the beauty that Augustine is talking about is a kind of ‘moral beauty’ where ultimately justice is done, and the moral beauty of the universe is restored.

Is this ok? Does this idea that we are judged after we die and either rewarded or punished make up for suffering in the world?

Criticism There are 2 key problems with Augustine’s aesthetic theodicy: Darwin points out there is a vast amount of suffering undergone by animals which doesn’t seem to be balanced by anything, even after the animals die Augustine isn’t really concerned with this type of suffering, nature needs to change and progress, and somehow the deaths of animals helps this to happen Augustine is left with having to justify the eternal pain of humans who are punished and go to hell. By explaining how the suffering caused on earth is balanced by the suffering of wrong-doers in hell: Augustine has simply moved the problem of evil onto the next life – why does a benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient creator allow eternal pain and suffering to exist for those in hell?

Task In a world where everything is red, would it be possible to appreciate, or even recognise, the redness of the universe? If this is possible how is it possible? Is it possible to teach someone the meaning of the following words without using the words in brackets? Down (up) Hard (soft) Sad (happy) Tall (short) Good (evil/bad)

Contrast Theory There is another way in which evil might be seen as necessary for good. Although Augustine hints along the lines in his theory it does not seem to be central to his ideas Hick picks this up in the contrast theory. This is the idea that good only makes sense in contrast to evil – the 2 concepts trade off each other and so evil is actually necessary for good We couldn’t have a concept of good without a concept of evil and so we would be unable to recognise the good things and action in the world without perceiving the evil things and actions with which they are contrasted

Impact of contrast theory The implication here is that in a world without any pain or suffering we would not recognise good acts and so would not applaud or strive towards them this links back to the idea of having an all red world. The analogy here is that a world without evil would be similar to a world with no colours other than red: we wouldn’t be able to see the redness because we would have no non-red point of reference: there’s nothing to compare it to

Criticism 1 Mackie says contrast theory sets limits on what God can and can’t do: he can’t create good, or make us aware of good, without simultaneously creating evil so if we wish to maintain that God is omnipotent then the contrast theory must be abandoned. As such this does not really answer the problem of evil as it doesn’t really help the traditional theists argument

Criticism 2 A stronger argument against the contract theory is that the 2 concepts don’t in fact trade off against each other in the way they’d have to for the contract theory to work Good and evil are not opposites in the same way that up and down are. The concept of good has certain intrinsic features which are not defined simply by opposition to evil. We can imagine a world in which everyone is good – the people would just not need concepts of good and evil. Just because they do not recognise their acts as ‘good’ it does not mean they are not actually being good