Notes
Theodicy
original sin of Adam, and the redeeming activity of Christ brings about
atonement. This stain stems from the exercise of Free Will in the Garden of
Eden.
Jesus Christ, in His self-sacrifice on the cross, gave Humans the opportunity
to make amends through a rejection of evil, and turning to good through the
grace of God (and belief in Jesus Christ). Jesus death atones for the misuse
of free will. Christ freely chose ultimate goodness to redress the balance after
we chose evil. God experiences suffering through Jesus Christ to identify with
Humans and to suffer in our place.
At the end of time, we will be judged. Good will be rewarded, evil punished,
both in an afterlife. The good will experience eternal happiness, the evil will
receive their just punishments.
Problems with Augustines Theodicy
1. How can something perfect go wrong? Why should creatures living in a
perfect world choose to rebel?
Augustine explained that what went wrong was less than perfect. But in
creating a universe with imperfections makes evil Gods fault, and
Humans are therefore being punished for what is Gods fault.
2. What is the purpose of Hell? What does eternal punishment achieve other
than revenge?
Augustine explained that it restores the moral balance of the universe.
Salvation, though, becomes impossible.
3. Modern theories of Creation, such as the theory of evolution, seem to
disprove Augustine. There is no room for the development of a moral
sense. Natural disasters shaped the planet long before there were humans
to punish. By the same token, the story of the Garden of Eden, and the fall
of angels, appears to have no place in a modern view of the World.
Is Augustine speaking in mythological terms? This doesnt make his theodicy
untrue:- a myth seeks to give understanding to a spiritual truth. The
apparent lack of historical truth in the story of Adam and Eve doesnt mean
that the principle isnt true. There is room for evolution in the myth of Adam
and Eve.
4. There does seem to be something illogical in the account - if God is allknowing, He surely knew that Man would "fall". It is therefore hard to
accept the role of an all-loving God in a brutal universe given this point.
The classic response to this argument is to concentrate on the word
"love". Christians have long proposed that God wishes to enter in a
"loving relationship" with Creation. Love can only be possible in a
situation of total freedom - there can be no compulsion. A world
populated by people compelled to love God would be a world of robots a non-moral world.
5. For many people, Evil is too powerful an experience for it to be a privation
of good. Many argue that Evil is a real entity.
Theodicy
Theodicy
When God created the world, he formed a primal chaos into an ordered
universe. Within this there is the risk of the positive benefits over the
negative experiences.
Should God, for the sake of avoiding the possibility of Hitler, and
horrors such as Auschwitz, have precluded the possibility of Jesus,
Gautama, Socrates, Confucius, Moses?
David Griffin, God, Power and Evil, a Process Theology