A School Boy's Analysis of Augustine and Ireaneus' Theodicies of Evil (the Problem of Evil)

Augustine and Irenaeus both focus on the problem of evil. One of the main differences between the theories is who is responsible for the evil. Augustine's theory states that we are responsible for the evil in this world due to our misuse of free will shown by the parable of Adam and Eve eating the apple which lead to "the fall" due to Adam and Eve choosing to disobey God which evidentially caused the world to succumb to natural evil and our free will now allows us to choose to be evil. Irenaeus however states that the evil is a test. This would mean that we are not entirely responsible for the evil in the world as God created humans imperfectly and made it their task to develop into perfection (thus being closer to God). Therefore we are not responsible for the evil in this world as God put evil in the world to allow us to see the difference and to make the right decision.

This point could be taken further by stating it is a matter of free will. Although both theodicies state that we have free will there is the matter of if we were given the free will to make the right decisions. For example, if God were to make us perfect and then give us free will; wouldn't this bare the better results than to see if we can do it with large imperfections and watch us cause anarchy? Irenaeus' theodicy has free will within the moral boundaries that God has set within his/her own test. The counter argument to this however would be that if we were perfect then those moral boundaries would have been set and we would not be given the freedom to be evil; therefore that is not free will. However, is everyone being set as imperfect anymore free as everyone being perfect? We can't state that we have free will if we are all part of a test. Augustine's theodicy states we have free will because we misused our original free will; hence we gained more free will?

This leads to a lot of confusion as before Adam and Eve ate the apple they had less awareness therefore their free will wasn't entire, but they had enough to choose to eat the forbidden fruit? The main difference in free will between both theodicies is that our free will caused evil at different points but: Augustine's theodicy states evil was caused when the free will was misused by the very first two humans in existence and we deserve it, for our evil exists for the greater good; therefore the only solution is to abolish free will, which could be deemed as evil itself. Irenaeus theodicy states that evil is caused by our present free will but the evil is important to "build character" therefore the evil is a balance and without it good can not be known; the solution to evil according to this theory (from my point of view) seems to be non-existent as Irenaeus feels evil is an important essence of existence to our free will.

So overall the two main differences are based around the idea of free will: who is responsible and at what point is free will our downfall. Both however state that it is better that we have evil and take into account natural evils unlike other theodicies (such as Peter Kreeft who only has a moral explanation to evil that is not vague). Seeing as the clear differences are in the free will of evil they both seem to point towards free will being the root of evil. Therefore both are paradoxically linked in their differences.