The Augustinian Theodicy

The Augustinian Theodicy

The Augustinian theodicy is one of the two great classical Christian responses to the problem of evil (the other being the Irenaean theodicy). Rooted in the theology of St Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE), it offers a comprehensive account of the origin, nature, and purpose of evil that has shaped Christian thought for over 1,600 years. Augustine’s approach is fundamentally soul-deciding rather than soul-making: humans were created perfect but fell into sin through the misuse of free will, and evil entered the world as a consequence of this fall. For AQA A-Level Religious Studies, the Augustinian theodicy is an essential topic that students must understand in depth.

Augustine’s Life and Context

Augustine was born in Thagaste (modern-day Algeria) in 354 CE. Before his conversion to Christianity, he was a follower of Manichaeism, a dualistic religion that explained evil by positing two co-eternal principles: a good God of light and an evil God of darkness. Augustine eventually rejected Manichaeism because he came to believe that dualism was philosophically untenable — positing an independent principle of evil equal to God undermined God’s sovereignty and omnipotence. His mature theodicy, developed in works such as Confessions (397–400 CE), City of God (413–426 CE), and On Free Choice of the Will, sought to explain evil without compromising God’s goodness, omnipotence, or the essential goodness of creation.

Privatio Boni: Evil as Privation

Augustine’s most foundational claim is that evil is not a substance or a thing in itself. Drawing on the Neoplatonist philosophy of Plotinus (204–270 CE), Augustine argued that evil is a privatio boni — a privation of good, an absence or lack of goodness in something that should properly possess it. Just as darkness is the absence of light, and disease is the absence of health, so evil is the absence of the goodness that a thing was created to have.

• Evil has no independent existence — it is parasitic on goodness. There can be good without evil, but there cannot be evil without some underlying good for it to corrupt.
• God did not create evil — since evil is not a thing, it was not created. God created everything good, and evil entered the world through the corruption of what was good.
• The world was created wholly good — Genesis 1:31: “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”

This move is crucial because it allows Augustine to maintain that God is the creator of everything that exists without being the creator of evil. Evil is real — it causes genuine suffering — but it is not a positive substance created by God. It is a corruption, a falling-away from goodness.

The Fall: The Origin of Evil

If God created everything good, where did evil come from? Augustine’s answer centres on the doctrine of the Fall. Evil entered creation through the free choices of rational beings who turned away from God:

• The angelic fall: Satan and the rebel angels, created good by God, freely chose to turn away from God through pride. This was the first instance of evil in creation.
• The human fall: Adam and Eve, created in a state of original perfection and placed in the Garden of Eden, freely chose to disobey God’s command not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 3). Through this act of disobedience, sin and death entered the human race.

Augustine emphasised that the fall was a free choice. God did not cause or will the fall. Adam and Eve were not compelled to sin — they chose to sin through their own free will. The responsibility for evil therefore lies not with God but with the creatures who misused their freedom.

Original Sin and Seminally Present

Augustine developed the doctrine of original sin to explain how Adam’s sin affects all subsequent human beings. Augustine argued that all human beings were “seminally present” in Adam — we were all, in a sense, present in Adam’s loins when he sinned. As a result, all humans inherit Adam’s guilt and his corrupted nature. We are born with a tendency towards sin (concupiscence) and are unable to achieve salvation through our own efforts. Only God’s grace, mediated through Christ, can restore the relationship between humanity and God.

“In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” This Augustinian principle means that humanity is collectively responsible for evil. God is justified in permitting suffering because humanity brought it upon itself through the primordial act of disobedience.

Natural Evil and the Cosmic Consequences of the Fall

Augustine extended the consequences of the fall beyond moral evil to encompass natural evil. The entire natural order was disrupted by Adam’s sin: