Problem of Evil

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Philosophy Essay on the Problem of Evil and the Irenaean and Augustinian Theodicies.

There are two main theodicies tackling the problem of evil and they are the Augustinian and Irenaean theodicies.

The Augustinian theodicy is so called because it originates from St. Augustine (354-438). He approaches the problem of evil from different ways, he did a number of writings on the problem of evil including The City Of God and The Confessions. The main thought that St. Augustine had was that creation is good. He says that as God is the author of everything in the created universe, it follows that evil is not real, otherwise it would mean that God would have created evil which St. Augustine refused to accept. So for Augustine evil is not existent but he believes that it ought to exist. He says that evil can not exist in its own right.

The criticisms of Augustinians theodicies are these; that modern science rejects the picture of fall of humanity perfection. Rather it suggests an evolutionary development. A literal approach seems to contradict modern science. Hence some have taken the book of Genesis as a symbol/myth depicting the fact that all humans do sin, by choice.

That if humans are finitely perfect, then even thoug

Couldn't these great goods be achieved/accomplished without all the horrible pain and suffering that has to be endured before the goods are there. For example cannot cooperation be learnt by teaming together to win a football match or does the team has to learn from its mistakes or the bad things that have happened?

Does the end justify the means? The suffering involved cannot justify the ultimate joy, for example in wars there is more pain and suffering for people than there is joy for people the negatives out way the positives.

A number of criticisms involve suggestions of better ways to achieve the process. For example why does creation have to be done over a long drawn out period of time involving suffering for many, why did God not just click his fingers and then everything would be there? Equally if we have to go onto another life to reach our maturity why not just make our life spans much longer so then we could reach our perfect maturity here on earth instead of having to do it in our after life.

There are of course criticisms for this Irenaean theodicy and these are some.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 969
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Religion

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Problem of Evil

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