Augustinian Theodicy and Irenaean Theodicy Essay

The task of detestation is a signifi green goddesst and enduring philosophical and theological debate. A pass is often raised and discussed if matinee idol is both all-loving and all-powerful, then how gouge monstrouss-including natural vicious and moral mephistopheleanexist in our serviceman? In response to the charge that the harms of the gentlemans gentleman ar in congruous with idols omnipotence and perfect goodness, the wordtheodicy is coined to deal with the problem of disgust. Usually it is an stress to show that it is possible to affirm the omnipotence of deity, the love of God, and the reality of evil with come on contradiction. deuce of the most well-known and most frequently discussed theodicies are the Augustinian theodicy and the Irenaean theodicy.The Augustinian theodicy was constructed by saint Augustine (345-430 AD) and is the main traditional Christian response to the problem of evil. The Augustinian Theodicy holds the view that beca social occasion God is perfect, the earthly concern was created innocuous of imperfections. God cannot be blamed for evil and piteous delinquencyce God didnt create them, on the contrary, evil comes from angels and kind-heartedss who travel less than perfectly and choose d bingle free pass on to sin and disobey God. subjective evil is an appropriate punishment because humanity destroy the natural order, we have all sinned so we all deserve to be punished. Quite several(predicate) from the Augustinian theodicy, the Irenaean theodicy which was created by Saint Irenaeas (130-202 AD) and later developed by John Hicks and Richard Swinburne doesnt see the world as created all-good and describes an almost enemy process compared with the Augustinian theodicy.It holds that humans were initially created as immature and imperfect beings they were created in the image of God, but not His likeness. Mankinds goal is to fulfill that likeness. Such perfection and likeness of God cannot be ready-made , it can whole be developed through free will choices, and we can simply become moral and develop through making moral judgments. Natural evil has to be created in order to help man progress. harmonise to Irenaean theodicy, the worthless of the world will be justified with the reward of heaven, and this is a heaven for all, everybody will go to heaven by achieving the likeness of God. The avocation passages are mainly devoted to the discussion of the distinctions between the Augustinian theodicy and the Irenaean theodicy.First, the different theories of evil are where a foremost and drastic distinction emerges. In the Augustinian theodicy, the main philosophical position is the idea of the negative or privative nature of evil. malefic here is seen as a matter of loss-in each created being, evil is that which deprives it of the exceptional form or purpose which is natural to it. In other(a) words, evil is not substance, not a thing, but a privation of good, an absence of goo d and a falling away from good. It al ways consists of the go bad of something that is in itself good. For example, shadow is not a pro smellration of darkness, but an absence of light. Since evil is a lack of something, it is not something that was created by God, but comes from angels and humans who encounter less than perfectly. When human beings free will abandons what is preceding(prenominal) itself and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil. So human beings are totally responsible for evil because evil is the gist of human error.In the Irenaean theodicy, however, evil plays an important role in the gradual creation of a perfected humanity through life in a highly imperfect world. Then a question Why cant God just create us as perfect as in Augustinian theodicy? is raised. To this question, John Hick gave a fully and vivid ex programmeation in his book Philosophy of Religion. He cleverly points out if the world were a paradise from which all incident of pain and low-down were excluded, then the consequences would be very far-reaching, secret code bad, nothing suffering would exist in this world, no one could ever be injured by accident, people could do anything immoral they want without nuisance other peopleAs a result, in a world free of real dangers, difficulties, problems, obstacles, in that respect will be no signification for the real good qualities as generosity, kindness, love, prudenceetc to exist. God had to allow the possibility of evil, because if at that place were no such possibility man would not be free to choose good over evil. If there were no evil and suffering humans would always follow Gods law because there would be no difficulties in doing so. The evils in this world are call for by a God of love who seeks the development of his free creatures from their veritable naturalness into fully mature spiritual beings. In other words, we human beings learn to be morally mature enough to grow at hand(predicate) to God. Evil c an lead us to the final goodness and perfection. In this regard, God is partlyresponsible for the evil in the world.Second, Augustine sticks close to the scriptural text, whereas Irenaeus ties his theory less to the biblical text. As the more authentically biblical view, the Augustinian theodicy is based on the Bible and does not contradict the scriptures it follows the traditional Christian description of the creation story in the Genesis God creates the world perfectly in six days, Adam and Eve-the ancestors of human beings merry in the Garden of Eden happily, until one day Eve is tempted by a serpent and eats the forbidden fruits and is finally driven out of the Paradise.By eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil Eve commits the first sin. Augustines theodicy could be seen as consistent with this interpretation of the text. Moreover, he uses other Biblical ideas of God, and defends the perfection of God by maintaining that evil is a privation and not a su bstance, and that evil comes from human sinfulness. man deserve the consequences of natural evil and they are responsible for their own suffering through abuse of their own free will. The Irenaeus theodicy, on the contrary, is not compatible with biblical teaching. As a matter of fact, it is in many ways just the opposite of the interpretation of the Bible by claiming that God is part responsible for evils.Third, in comparison to the Augustinian theodicy being a Soul decision making theodicy, the Irenaean theodicy is a Soul making theodicy. Soul deciding means that different consequences come as a result of the free will of human beings. So if a person chooses to do a morally wrong act a consequence will follow. A soul making theodicy is applied by irenaeus, which means to move from the state of imperfection through moral struggle toward eventual completed humanization. Besides the distinctions mentioned in the supra passages, the Augustinian theodicy and Irenaean theodicy are of ten compared by people in many other aspects.For instance, Augustine leaves some people a long way from God whereas Irenaeus explains how everyone can reach heaven through moral struggle for Augustine God is irrelevant from man, having been distanced by his sin whereas for Irenaeus, as we make this progress we grow closer to God, reducing the epistemic distance between us and God the Augustines theodicy is often thought of as a pessimistic and tragictheodicy whereas the Irenaean theodicy is principally conceived as a comic theodicy as is more positive and optimistic. non surprisingly, the 2 theodicies also have some similarities, the most common one is that both of them trace evil back to human free will for Augustine it is the reason why angels and human beings fall from the ultimate goodness of heaven, and what they use to disobey God, but for Irenaeus it is a part of Gods plan because it allows self-development, people also use this free will to disobey God and it causes suffe ring, but this suffering can help them to develop their character in order to choose to embrace goodness or evil.In conclusion, the Augustinian theodicy and the Irenaean theodicy are two sharply contrasted theodicies the Augustinian theodicy which is also known as the soul deciding theodicy, stresses the role of the Fall, and sees evil as either sin or the result of sin whereas the Irenaean theodicy, which regards evil as a requirement by a God of love to let his free creatures to develop from their original innocence into fully mature spiritual beings. Thus, our world becomes the vale of soul-making. Since the day of their births, the two theodicies have respectively received many praises as well as criticisms and challenges. Many deficiencies are found in both of the two theodicies. As a matter of fact, the problem of evil, far from being solved, is still promiscuous to discussion.ReferencesDay, Elizabeth. Geneticist claims to have foundGod gene in humans. The Washington TimesWor ld. 15 Nov 2004. Copyright 2004 News WorldCommunications, Inc.Hick, John. An Irenaean Theodicy. A John HickReader. Ed. Paul Badham. PhiladelphiaTrinity entreat International, 1990. 88-105.Ridley, Matt. Genome. New York HarperCollinsPublishers, 2000