St. Augustine’s Free Will Theodicy and Natural Evil

Abstract

The problem of evil is an obstacle to justied belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God (O3G). According to Saint Augustine's free will theodicy (AFWT), moral evil attends free will. Might something like AFWT also be used to account for natural evil? After all, it is possible that calamities such as famines, earthquakes, and oods are the effects of the sinful willing of certain persons, viz., `fallen angels.' Working to destroy our faith, Satan and his cohorts could be responsible for the natural disasters that bring us to grief. Here, I develop this account alongside AFWT.