Augustinian theodicy
Fortunatus

Augustine's Acts or Disputation Against Fortunatus the Manichaean, which partly touches on the problem of evil, records a public debate between Augustine and the Manichaean teacher Fortunatus. Fortunatus criticised Augustine's theodicy by proposing that if God gave free will to the human soul, then he must be implicated in human sin (a problem that Augustine had himself considered four years earlier, in Free Will). Quoting the New Testament, Fortunatus proposed that evil exists beyond the evil acts people commit, and that people commit such acts because of their own flawed nature. Augustine replied by arguing that the sin of Adam constrained human freedom, in a way similar to the formation of habits. This was not a teaching on original sin (a view that Augustine was yet to formulate), but on the limitations of human freedom caused by sin. Fortunatus proposed that Augustine was reducing the scope of evil only to what is committed by humans, though Augustine writes that Fortunatus finally conceded the debate when he admitted that he could not defend his views on the origin of evil.
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