Explain and evaluate Augustine's Theodicy

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Explain Augustine’s Theodicy

Augustine developed a theodicy to help answer questions in relation to the problem of evil, taking the blame of the existence of evil away from God. St Augustine based his theodicy on a number of biblical passages, including Genesis 3 and Romans 5:12-20. Augustine uses the story of The Fall in Genesis, using it to argue God intended for the world to be a perfect place, however due to Adam and Eve disobeying him in the Garden of Eden by eating forbidden fruit, they bought evil into the world.

The story of Adam and Eve is told in Genesis 3, where the serpent convinces Eve to pick an apple from the Tree of Knowledge which God forbid her to by being tempted by the serpent; actually Satan in disguise. As a consequence perfection was ruined by human sin, destroying the delicate balance of the world. This shows Christians that evil is not actually God's fault and however it is actually humans' fault after giving into temptation. Allowing them to still believe in God of classical theism.

Augustine believed in original sin, meaning that sin meaning that the sin of Adam and Eve is passed on through humans, resulting in humanity no longer remaining in the paradise originally created by God.

This idea also links to free will, as St Augustine says that evil is actually the result of humans abusing the gift of free will that God gave. God created humans perfect, however he created them with the capacity to make choices and decisions for both evil and good. Humans have realised the potential for evil and have created a gap between God and human beings through the use of free will. - "the creation of free creatures involved the risks that persons would misuse their freedom and reject the good and this is what happened". So, what is the reason God created the universe? Humans having free will, means that God will not interfered in humans committing evil acts, leading to evil consequences or that or simply evil. Free will would lead to evil and suffering, as it was logically impossible for God to create any humans freely only performing acts that are good and not evil.

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In his argument, Augustine also claimed God cannot be responsible for the existence of evil, due to the fact evil is not a substance. St Augustine said that "God made a good world but humans chose not to obey God so the goodness of the world went wrong." Augustine defined evil as "privation", meaning when we use words such as "evil" and "bad" that we are saying that something doesn't meet our expectations of what it should be like by nature. St Augustine said that evil is not a substance in itself, but is an absence of these feelings. He ...

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