Augustine's Theodicy

Although it was his mother, Monica’s desire for him to convert, the decision was ultimately Augustine’s. It is not my belief that Augustine did not

According to Augustine, God’s mercy can be painful in that as humans we can see how bad we were and the kind of grace God gave us anyway. It hurts us to envision our pasts knowing that we were so sinful and that Jesus had to endure so much to save us- so much that we didn’t deserve.

Augustine believed that people were selfish since they did not see God. Despite the many wonderful things God created for human eyes to see, they have not glorified or given him grace (11). Believing in God means accepting life and understanding that suffering happens daily. St. Augustine said that all humans experience distress and that even the natural pleasures of life contain suffering (13). Every human experiences distress, however, it remains a choice whether to find the good in it, or blame it on God.

This sets the basis of Augustine’s discussion on the nature of evil and the theological problem it presents. Although he takes a logical approach to his synthesis on the nature of evil and the problem it brings, Augustine repeatedly invokes the Christian beliefs, teachings and principles in his

In Augustine’s early life, God took many actions to develop him as a human. God gave him everything he needed to survive, punished when necessary, and steared Augustine to

With God making these human-like decisions, it is hard to believe he is a real God. Augustine is placed in the camp of Manicheans, which believed there is an evil God

Augustine did not accept that justice could be obtained through killing in self-defence. One should only be permitted to kill only under the instruction of God or a legitimate authority ordained by God. He believed that self-defence should never be a valid justification for causing harm to another man. However, in the Bible one of the ten commandants is that ‘thou shallt not kill '. In arguing that killing is sometimes an unavoidable evil Augustine contradicts traditional Christian doctrine and goes against the teachings of Jesus.

In Augustine’s Confessions his mother pleads with him throughout his life to come to a knowledge of who God is and let his life be one that glorifies God. Augustine struggles with many temptations, a major one being women and lusting towards them. He questioned himself and he questioned God. Augustine had a heart knowledge of who God was from his mother. He knew laws and how God felt about how Augustine behaved, but it was not until he moved away and lost the woman he loved due to his upcoming marriage that he realized how lost and how sinful he really was. He begged God for forgiveness and he began to turn his life around. Augustine’s mother grew ill very quickly and Augustine spent time in prayer. He prayed over his mother’s soul, and he

The philosopher Augustine, as a christianity member, the good was identified as the creator and the evil was the destroyer. Theses are two different aspects that Augustine's argues the ideas that evil was not created it is distinguished as a “ thing.” Augustine's conclusions lead to a situation that if God is good why would he be the less likely to form evil. “In fact, there is no other good which can make any rational or intellectual creature happy except God,”(XII.1). This is where I agree on the argument, its logic and to where as I know I was told god had a brother and since god was more powerful that brother became very angry , which is the evil. Furthermore, Augustine states that if God is good they why would he create evil, because everything

St. Augustine answered a question, which was, “why did God give freedom of the will to men since it is by this that men sin?” His answer was, basically maybe God did not really give us freewill for us to sin, but something bigger, such as reward and punishment. We chose to do good or bad knowing that rewards and punishments comes from either one. God did not give freewill, but this is something that just had to come about for being a human being is what I grasp to understand from St. Augustine. I agree with St. Augustine because even though we may have come from God, it is still a choice to do good or bad. Evodius was saying what if God had not made it where we could chose to sin, what he failed to understand is that we would still have to choose to do good, even if that is the only choice. In this paper I will give supporting facts on how St. Augustine answered the question and understanding on how I agree with what he said.

This idea states that in order to find evidence for something, one must first believe in that something. He also believes in direct insight, which can be defined as a personal experience that encourages faith before reason. Secularism is not allowed in Augustine’s world. The lover of God lives by faith and hopes for salvation, the one who lives by reason only lives by presumption and seeks earthly happiness and success.All existence and beauty in this world must come from a single source, that is God and nothing can equal God’s understanding. He did not create us to be independent of him, our reason allows us neither to control our fate. Our fate is death. God is not the cause of everything in the world; natural evil is caused by natural events, and moral evil is caused by human events. Freewill is good in instrumentality so a person must choose to be good. It is our free will given by God that determines our ability to reason. What we think about things depends on our attitude we take toward them. The meaning of life can be found only in God and no other

It was so difficult for Augustine to make the decision to embrace the Christian faith because he was running from God. He speaks as if he had been convicted for a while, and he did not want to accept that God was convicting him. Augustine was also struggling with not being worthy enough for this call on his life from God, to become a Christian. Augustine might even have had some struggles with letting go of his plans and life and allowing God to have control. Augustine is at odds with himself because he describes how he willed it and how he did not will it. Augustine is struggling with letting his life go and giving it to God. He struggles with giving God the power and glory over himself.

Augustine believes in before the fall and after the fall. This is where he uses the example of Adam from the biblical scripture. He sees a man who is walking towards the righteous path. He loves God and what God stands for. Before the fall Adam is healthy and alive. Even though Adam is healthy and alive he managed to destroy the full concept of what is right in his reality of God. Adam demolished his ability to live in peace and without sickness or suffering. There are questions that define the human ability to know “the good” such as Adams punishment of not becoming ill or suffering. Knowing the good is the ability to choose between good and evil. In order for one to know how good one has it there will be a temptation from evil making one

The grace of God is a necessary component of man being able to exercise his free will correctly and choose to do good. In On Grace and Free Will, Augustine says that the reason there are divine commands in scripture is so that man will not be ignorant of grace and free will. Therefore, God cannot be blamed when a man sins or deny the achievement of will when he chooses good, keeping the hope of reward for his good works alive. Augustine taught that when men do good it is because grace gives them the power to do

     According to Augustine, “Human beings are endowed with a power that he calls the will.” He emphasizes the will to being the center of freedom. Unlike other philosophers, who are determinists, Augustine, who has a libertarian view, sees our will as free choice. So for whatever we may choose to do, we become solely responsible for our actions which are caused by external factors instead of internal ones.