St. Augustine's election VS free will Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

St. Augustine's election VS free will - Essay Example According to St. Augustine sin is the consequence of free will of human. In the words of Allen (2003), â€Å"According to St. Augustine's free will theodicy (AFWT), moral evil attends free will†. It is also believed that God has created human with the eligibility of enjoying free will. Free will in this sense denotes having the capability to cooperate with God, i.e. to do the right as well as wrong thing. Thus, unlike other beings such as plants and animals, human beings are different as they are free to make their choices. However, the major question concerning this context can be recognized as based on the perplexity that if humans have the capability to make every decision in their life. The passage of Roman 9:16 depicts that God who demonstrates kindness to human is much prevalent rather than human will. Thus, while human hold the ability to enjoy certain free will, they are not entirely free which further indicates that ultimate consequence is not dependent on humans (Kni ght, 2010). The paper intends to describe the election on the free will as explained by St. Augustine based on the religious beliefs affirmed in the Bible. Thus, the objective of the paper is to develop a rational understanding about human free will from a religious point of view. Biblical Criticism St. Augustine is also known as Austin being regarded as one of the greatest ‘Fathers of Church’. He was known as a renowned philosopher who later became familiar as an outstanding leader of Christian conviction (Coptic Church, 2005). His idea of election has been drawn from the ‘doctrine of salvation’. On one hand, his religious opinions about the characteristics of Church and the rites significantly impacted the development of Roman Catholic spirituality. On the other hand, his religious opinions about the characteristics of real sin exhibits the utter requirement of elegance in the salvation of determined preparation of several central policies of Western Chri stendom. St. Augustine’s theodicy stated that the election of God is not unfair. According to him, the offenders are not eligible to enjoy the right of elegance from God. The decision of God as to about extending the elegance is entirely within God’s independent will and privilege. Above all, St. Augustine assumed his thought on election is simply reflecting the rich philosophy of the passage of Roman 9 (Allen, 2003). St. Augustine firmly accepted that God’s elegance was the most prominent basis of salvation. He has termed that if a person is destined, his ‘free choice’ seem to be extracted at best trivial. He further stated that everything which exists is developed by God and yet God cannot be reflected as the origin of sin. St. Augustine’s theodicy of human free will also provides the central and crucial solution by stating that the free will of human is the responsible source of sin. Apparently, it can be depicted that human conduct sinful activities in harmony with the decision condensed by their thoughts and thus are led by their free will. Based on this notion, in his theory, St. Augustine perceives no exclusiveness between free will and celestial support. However, it is often considered that God was negligent by providing will to the human who had brought evil. St. Augustine also depicted that although sin happens by free will, human must not believe that God delivered