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This is my revision of Professor Keith Yandell's account of it in ‘Greater Good Defense’,Sophia, Vol. XIII, No. 3, (October, 1974), 1–16.
In the discussion that follows there will be no need to observe the distinction made in the second conjunct betweena good state of affairs andgood states of affairs which logically require some evil.
John Hick,Evil and the God of Love, rev. ed., p. 239.
Ibid., John Hick,Evil and the God of Love, rev. ed., p. 244, n. 1.
According to Lovejoy, in the early church it was the practice of the deacon to write his own hymn of praise to the Easter candle, a custom which is traceable back to Augustine,Essays in the History of Ideas (Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1948). p. 286, n. 23.
Charlton Walker, ‘Exultet,’The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. V (New York: The Encyclopedia Press, 1909), p. 730. Cf., John Hick,Evil and the God of Love, rev. ed., p. 244, and Arthur Lovejoy,Essays in the History of Ideas, p. 286.
Arthur Lovejoy,Essays in the History of Ideas, p. 286, n. 23.
Ibid., Arthur Lovejoy,Essays in the History of Ideas, p. 286, n. 23.
Ibid., Arthur Lovejoy,Essays in the History of Ideas, p. 286. Cf.,Augustine's City of God, 15, 22, p. 416,Great Books of the Western World, Vol. 18 (ed. Raymond Hutchins) (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952). Dennis R. Danielson inMilton's Good God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 209, translates a passage from Francis Roberts'Mysterium et Medulla Bibliorum (The Mysterie and Marrow of the Bible, London, 1657) that in the original contains the “O felix culpa” locution. According to Danielson, Roberts attributes the passage to Augustine: “August. in meditat. lib. cap. 6. Tom. 9”, p. 264, n. 20, but Danielson admits that it was probably not written by Augustine, p. 264, n. 20.
Ibid., Arthur Lovejoy,Essays in the History of Ideas, pp. 285–286. Cf., Charlton Walker, “Exultet”, p. 731.
Ibid., Arthur Lovejoy,Essays in the History of Ideas, p. 286.
John Hick,Evil and the God of Love, rev. ed., p. 254.
Ibid., John Hick,Evil and the God of Love, rev. ed., p. 254.
Ibid., John Hick,Evil and the God of Love, rev. ed., p. 257.
Ibid., John Hick,Evil and the God of Love, rev. ed., p. 259.
Some theologians prefer to speak of the decree rather than the decrees of God.
L. Berkhof,Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1959), p. 119.
Ibid.,, pp. 119–120.
Ibid.,, p. 120.
Charles Hodge,Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1952), Vol. II, p. 316.
L. Berkhof,Systematic Theology, Systematic Theology (, p. 118.
Here I should note from the point of view of Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas that Adam's having been confirmed in uprightness prior to his fall—had he not sinned—would have been a greater good than his redemption, involving as it does the perdition of many of his descendants.
The view that Adam and Eve's fall provide opportunity for a greater good then if they had remained innocent has never characterized the mainstream of Christianity. According to Arthur Lovejoy in ‘Milton and the Paradox of the Fortunate Fall’, the number of theological writers and religious poets who gave clear expression to thefelix culpa principle itself has never been very large, p. 279. But it is noteworthy that some who endorsed the principle also held that the fall provided an opportunity for God to bring about a greater good than if Adam and Eve had not fallen. John Milton (17th c.), for example, held that three greater goods spring from the fall: 1) greater glory to God; 2) greater benefits to man from God; 3) manifestation of God's grace as predominant over his wrath, Ibid., p. 285 (Cf. the passage taken from Milton'sParadise Lost, p. 329). The list of those who agreed with Milton that a greater good results from the fall includes: St. Ambrose (4th c.), Pope Leo I (5th c.), Gregory the Great (6th c.), John Wyclif (14th c.), Du Bartas (17th c.), Francis de Sales (17th c.).
Romans 6:1.
Romans 3:8.
Romans 6:2, my own paraphrase.
Romans 5.
Romans 5:21, ‘So that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’, (RSV) might be viewed as suggesting that the fall provides an occasion for redemption.
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Stewart, M. O felix culpa, redemption, and the Greater-Good Defense. SOPH 25, 18–31 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02781070
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02781070