LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Theodicy: Evil
built 632 days ago
Theodicy is a branch of theology that studies how the existence of a good or benevolent God may be reconciled with the existence of evil. An attempt to reconcile the co-existence of evil and God is sometimes called "a theodicy." See the article on the problem of evil for examples.
Source:
Theodicy is the attempt to explain God´s goodness and power and reconcile these with the evident evil in the created world. Since most theologians and religious philosophers in the West have assumed both God´s unconditional power and his absolute goodness, the existence and persistence of evil are often held to be inexplicable. In recent centuries the absence of a convincing theodicy and the frequent theological resort to mystery as an explanation have led many to atheism.
Source:
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, in his Theodicy (1710), defended the justice of God in spite of the existence of evil. For him, God is almighty only in that he is able to do that which is logically…
Source:
Theodicy is the branch of theology dedicated to understanding the problem of evil, that is, why evil exists in a world governed by a good, wise, and powerful god. Over the centuries, Persian thought has addressed this question more thoroughly than any other religious tradition.
Source:
Etymologically considered theodicy (théos díe) signifies the justification of God. The term was introduced into philosophy by Leibniz, who, in 1710, published a work entitled: "Essais de Théodicée sur la bonte de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal". The purpose of the essay was to show that the evil in the world does not conflict with the goodness of God, that, indeed, notwithstanding its many evils, the world is the best of all possible worlds (see OPTIMISM). The problem of evil (see EVIL) has from earliest times engrossed the attention of philosophers. The well-known sceptic Pierre Bayle had denied in his "Dictionnaire historique et critique" the goodness and omnipotence of God on account of the sufferings experienced in this earthly life. The "Théodicée" of Leibniz was directed mainly against Bayle. Imitating the example of Leibniz other philosophers now called their treatises on the problem of evil "theodicies".
Source:
The concept of theodicy had been used in the 19th century to extend to broader philosophical contexts than the existence of good and evil, as God was used as an analogy to other philosophical problems. As thinkers such as Georg WF Hegel tried to argue that there was an absolute truth that reconciled different contradictory truths, other philosophers were interested in the same idea from the perspective that Eclecticism was the way to organize and develop philosophical thought. Victor Cousin, for instance, believed that the Christian idea of God was very similar to the Platonic concept of "the Good", in that God represented the principle behind all other principles. Like the ideal of Good, Cousin ... believed the ideal of Truth and of Beauty were analogous to the position of God, in that they were principles of principles. Using this way of framing the issue, Cousin stridently argued that different competing philosophical ideologies all had some claim on truth, as they all had arisen in defense of some truth. He however argued that there was a theodicy which united them, and that one should be free in quoting competing and sometimes contradictory ideologies in order to gain a greater understanding of truth through their reconciliation.[5]
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Evil