Criticisms about Agustinians Theodicy, and the strengths and weaknesses.

Augustine was criticised about his theodicy, to begin with one of the principal critics of the Augustinian Theodicy is F.D.E Schleiermacher. He argued that it was logically contradictory to claim that a perfectly created world went wrong, since this implies that evil created itself , which is a logical contradiction. Either the world was not perfect to start with or God made it go wrong; so it is God and not humans who are to blame, and the existence of evil is not justified. If the world was perfect and there was no knowledge of good and evil, how could Adam and Eve have the freedom to disobey God if goodness and evil were as yet unknown? The disobedience of Adam and Eve and the angels implies that there already was knowledge of good and evil. Augustine’s interpretation of the tree of knowledge therefore is questionable.

Augustine’s view is also inconsistent with the theory of evolution which asserts that the universe began in chaos and is continually developing, not diminishing over time. Also Augustine’s view that every human in seminally present in the loins of Adam is biologically inaccurate.

The last criticism, is a moral one within Augustinian's theodicy which concerns his concept of hell. Hell appears to be a part of the design of the universe which implies that God must have already anticipated that the world would go wrong, and have accepted it. Hell is a place of eternal suffering, so therfore it seems to contradict the existance of an all loving God. Finally, although Augustine argued that God's selection of some people for heaven shows his mercy, others would argue that it displays irrational inconsistency, further questioning God's existence.