evaluation of augustine

strength: not morally responsible

• Augustine does not make the mistake of arguing that we are morally responsible for Adam and Eve’s actions. His argument is that a factual consequence of Adam’s sin was that all future humanity became infected with original sin and thus deserve punishment. We deserve punishment for being sinful beings. 

• Augustine's theodicy links closely with the Bible: it makes sense of the opening chapters of Genesis with God creating a good world followed by the Fall of Man; it gives a central importance to the atoning death of Jesus Christ as an expression of God's love and mercy towards human beings. 

COUNTER to not morally responsible

Pelagius objected that Adam’s crime is not a personal crime of his descendants. So, it still seems unfair, unjust and thus incompatible with omnibenevolence to suggest that we deserve punishment for it. This argument is strongest when considering cases like children with cancer. It’s difficult to maintain that a child deserves cancer because it has original sin. Augustine would have to say it is God’s justice for that child to get cancer and that God is still omnibenevolent despite allowing it. That seems logically inconsistent. 

STRENGTH: empirical human evidence

• G. K. Chesterton made this point, arguing that you could see evidence for original sin ‘in the street’. R. Niebuhr said original sin was the one ‘empirically verifiable’ Christian doctrine. 

• When Augustine was 16, he and his friends stole some pears. What Augustine found remarkable on reflection was that he did not steal them because he was hungry (in fact he threw them away). He concluded that he did it just for the pleasure of sinning. 

COUNTER to human evidence: human improvement

• Humans have progressed since Augustine’s time. Martin Luther King said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”.  montgomery boycott + civil rights movement S.L 

• Steven Pinker attributes to the power of human reason that violence has decreased, even considering the 20th century.  

• The average human life seems more secure than at any prior point in history.  

• If Augustine were correct that original sin caused an irresistible temptation to sin, then human behavior could not have improved, yet it has. 

WEAKNESS: discrepancies w/in argumenr

• augustine based his theodicy on the literal interpretation of genesis 3. geologists and biologists have demonstrated that this isnt true and augustines theodicy clashes with the idea of the earths constant development and survival of the fittest 

• also science of seminal inheritance is flawed. we dont pre-exist. 

• in book 1 of de libero arbitrio augustine develops an idea of free will → responsibility of person who performs it 

• in book 3 he talks about ignorance of human nature and we can’t overcome the human condition which is to commit sin.  

• contradiction implies that we don’t actually have free will and is incompatible. 

COUNTER to discrepancies: herbert mccabe

• Herbert McCabe 

• While biblical language paints vivid pictures of God, it should not be taken at face value 

• Emphasises the symbolic and allegorical nature of Augustine’s narratives 

• Argues that we shouldn’t read genesis or augustine’s theodicy as if they were textbooks in paleontology 

• Argues that the ‘perfection’ augustine describes isn’t biological/ geological, but moral and relational harmony between humanity _ god