Theodicy
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A theodicy (from Ancient Greek θεός theos, "god" and δίκη dikē, "justice"), meaning 'vindication of God', is an argument in the philosophy of religion that attempts to resolve the problem of evil, which arises when all power (omnipotence) and all goodness (omnibenevolence) are attributed to God simultaneously.[1]
Unlike a defense, which tries only to demonstrate that God and evil can logically coexist, a theodicy additionally provides a framework in which God and evil's existence are considered plausible.[2] The German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz coined the term theodicy in his book Théodicée (1710), though numerous responses to the problem of evil had previously been offered.
Similar to a theodicy, a cosmodicy attempts to justify the fundamental goodness of the universe, while an anthropodicy attempts similar justification of human nature.
- ^ Pecorino, Philip A. (2000). "Chapter 3: 'Philosophy of Religion', Section 11: Problem of Evil". An Introduction to Philosophy: An Online Textbook. Queensborough Community College. Archived from the original on 6 September 2023.
- ^ A defence is "an effort to show that there is no formal contradiction between the existence of God... and the existence of evil." Michael Rea and Louis B. Pojman, eds., Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology (Cengage Learning, 2015, 7th ed.), 229.