Theodicy (théodicée, from theós, “god,” and díkē, “justice”) — An attempt to justify the goodness, justice, and omnipotence of God in the face of the existence of evil in the world. The term was coined by Leibniz in the Essays on Theodicy on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil (1710). The problem it addresses, the problem of evil, is ancient: the argument that God, if willing and able to prevent evil, would not permit it is traditionally attributed to Epicurus, though the attribution is debated, and Hume revives it through the character Philo in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (published 1779). Augustine conceives evil not as a substance but as a privation of good and ascribes moral evil to the misuse of free will. Leibniz holds that, among possible worlds, God created the best, and distinguishes metaphysical evil (the limitation of creatures), physical evil (suffering), and moral evil (sin). The thesis was satirized by Voltaire in Candide (1759), written after the Lisbon earthquake (1755). Kant, in the essay On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy (1791), denies that speculative reason can bring such an undertaking to completion. In analytic philosophy of religion, Alvin Plantinga (God, Freedom, and Evil, 1974) formulates the “free will defense,” which aims only to show the logical compatibility of God and evil, without claiming to explain why God permits it. See Leibniz, Augustine, Voltaire, Hume, and theism.
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