Theodicy is a theological and philosophical study which attempts to prove God's intrinsic or foundational nature of omnibenevolence

Omnibenevolence

Omnibenevolence is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "unlimited or infinite benevolence". It is often held to be impossible, or at least improbable, for a deity to exhibit such property along side omniscience and omnipotence as a result of the problem of evil...

 (all-loving), omniscience

Omniscience

Omniscience omniscient point-of-view in writing) is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc. In Latin, omnis means "all" and sciens means "knowing"...

 (all-knowing), and omnipotence

Omnipotence

Omnipotence is unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence to only the deity of whichever faith is being addressed...

 (all-powerful). Theodicy is usually concerned with the God of the Abrahamic religions

Abrahamic religions

Abrahamic religions are the monotheistic faiths emphasizing and tracing their common origin to Abraham or recognizing a spiritual tradition identified with him...

 Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, due to the relevant assertions of their respective holy texts. The fundamental dilemma of theodicy is the problem of evil

Problem of evil

In the philosophy of religion, the problem of evil is the question of how to explain evil if there exists a deity that is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient . Some philosophers have claimed that the existences of such a god and of evil are logically incompatible or unlikely...

: its continuing existence and God's apparent inability or unwillingness to eradicate it. The most common theodician argument that maintains God's three 'omni' qualities is that evil does not in fact exist as we define it, and that even what seems to us to be uttermost evil will somehow result in good as God has supposedly foreseen and ensured. Some sources use the term as meaning an explanation or justification of God's behavior in general.

History

The term theodicy was coined in 1710 by the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 philosopher Gottfried Leibniz

Gottfried Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in different languages, primarily in Latin , French and German ....

 in a work in French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 entitled Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal

Théodicée

Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal , more simply known as Théodicée, is a book of philosophy by the famed polymath Gottfried Leibniz...

 (Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil).
The purpose of the essay was to show that the evil in the world does not conflict with the goodness of God and that, notwithstanding its many evils, the world is the best of all possible worlds

Best of all possible worlds

The phrase "the best of all possible worlds" was coined by the German polymath Gottfried Leibniz in his 1710 work Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal...

. Leibniz wrote his Théodicée as a criticism of Pierre Bayle

Pierre Bayle

Pierre Bayle was a French philosopher and writer best known for his seminal work the Historical and Critical Dictionary, published beginning in 1695....

's Dictionnaire Historique et Critique

Dictionnaire Historique et Critique

The Dictionnaire Historique et Critique is a biographical dictionary written by Pierre Bayle , a Huguenot who lived and published in Holland after fleeing his native France due to religious persecution. The dictionary was first published in 1697, and enlarged in the second edition of 1702...

, which had been written not long before. Bayle, a skeptical

Skepticism

Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...

 Protestant philosopher, had seen no rational solution to the problem of evil and had argued against three notable attempts at such a solution. His view was that since Scripture clearly asserts both the perfection of God and the presence of evil, we must take up an attitude of acceptance in the face of their coexistence.

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1914) gives a different definition:

Non-Catholic post-Holocaust theodicy

In Judaic theological circles much of post-Holocaust theology

Holocaust theology

Holocaust theology refers to a body of theological and philosophical debate and reflection, and related literature, primarily within Judaism, that attempts to come to grips with various conflicting views about the role of God in the universe and the human world in light of the Holocaust of the late...

 is devoted to a rethinking of God's goodness in connection to holocaust and also child abuse

Child abuse

Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...

. David R. Blumenthal in his book "Facing the Abusing God" (1993) has drawn on data from the field of child abuse

Child abuse

Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...

 and has proposed "worship of God through protest" (which could be characterized as misotheism

Misotheism

Misotheism is the "hatred of God" or "hatred of the gods" . In some varieties of polytheism, it was considered possible to inflict punishment on gods by ceasing to worship them...

) as a legitimate response of survivors of both holocaust and child abuse.

The other is John K. Roth, whose essay "A Theodicy of Protest" is included in Encountering Evil: Live Options in Theodicy (1982).

Two Jewish post-Shoah

Shoah

Shoah may refer to:*The Holocaust*Shoah , documentary directed by Claude Lanzmann * A Shoah Foundation...

 thinkers, Emil Fackenheim and Richard Rubinstein, are cited by Zachary Braiterman who coined the term anti-theodicy, explaining that "Although it often borders on blasphemy, antitheodicy does not constitute atheism; it might even express stubborn love that human persons have for God. After all, the author of a genuine antitheodic statement must believe that an actual relationship subsists between God and evil in order to reject it; and they must love God in order to be offended by that relationship."

See also

• Cosmodicy
  Cosmodicy
  A cosmodicy is any attempt to justify the fundamental goodness of the universe in the face of evil. The term is modelled on theodicy, and is used by those who see cosmodicy and theodicy as being analogous disciplines...
  
  
• Problem of evil, answers and theodicies

External links

• Brown, Paterson. "Religious Morality", Mind, 1963.
• Brown, Paterson. "Religious Morality: a Reply to Flew and Campbell", Mind, 1964.
• Brown, Paterson. "God and the Good", Religious Studies, 1967.
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Theodicy
• The Polkinghorne Reader : Science, Faith, and the Search for Meaning (Edited by Thomas Jay Oord) (SPCK and Templeton Foundation Press, 2010) ISBN 1-59947-315-1 and ISBN 978-0-281-06053-5