A theodicy (from Ancient Greek , "god" and , "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.
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.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. The German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz coined the term theodicy in his book (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 a similar justification of human nature.
Definition and etymology As defined by philosopher Alvin Plantinga, a theodicy is "an answer to the question of why God permits evil". In this view, theodicy is a theological construct that attempts to vindicate God in response to the problem of evil, which appears inconsistent with the existence of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God.
Another definition of theodicy is the vindication of divine goodness and providence in view of the existence of evil. The word theodicy derives from the Greek words , and . is translated as 'God', and can be translated as either 'trial' or 'judgement'. Thus, theodicy literally means 'justifying God'. People who promote theodicies are known as theodicists.
In the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, philosopher Nick Trakakis proposes three additional requirements that must be included in a theodicy: Common sense views of the world Widely-held historical and scientific opinion Plausible moral principles
As a response to the problem of evil, a theodicy is distinct from a defense. A defense attempts to demonstrate that the occurrence of evil does not contradict God's existence, but a defense does not propose that rational beings are able to understand why God permits evil. A theodicy shows that it is reasonable to believe in God despite evidence of evil in the world, and it offers a framework that can account for why evil exists. A theodicy is often based on a prior natural theology, which seeks to prove the existence of God; a theodicy seeks to demonstrate that God's existence remains probable after the problem of evil is posed, by giving a justification for God's permitting evil to occur.Geivett 1995, pp. 60–61 Defenses propose solutions to the problem of evil, while theodicies attempt to answer the question.
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a Greek philosopher and theologian, defines evil by those aspects that show an absence of good. Writers in this tradition saw things as reflecting "forms", so evil was a failure to reflect the appropriate form adequately—as a deficit of goodness where it should have been present. In the same vein, the theologian and philosopher St. Augustine also defined evil as an absence of good; the theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas defined evil similarly, stating that "a man is called bad insofar as he lacks a virtue, and an eye is called bad insofar as it lacks the power of sight." The issue of the bad as an absence of the good resurfaces in the work of the philosophers Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Martin Heidegger, in addition to the theologian Karl Barth. Similar views are held by the Neoplatonist philosophers, such as Plotinus and the contemporary Denis O'Brien, who state that evil is a privation.
The worldview of Marxism, "selectively elaborating Hegel", defines evil in terms of its effect. The philosopher John Kekes states the effect of evil must include actual harm that "interferes with the functioning of a person as a full-fledged agent".Kekes 1998, 217 Christian philosophers and theologians such as Richard Swinburne and N. T. Wright also define evil in terms of effect, stating that an "act is objectively good (or bad) if it is good (or bad) in its consequences". Hinduism defines evil in terms of its effect, saying that "the evils that afflict people (and indeed animals) in the present life are the effects of wrongs committed in a previous life." Some contemporary philosophers argue that focusing on the effects of evil is inadequate for a definition, since evil can observe without actively causing harm, while remaining evil.
The philosopher Susan Neiman states that "a crime against humanity is something for which we have procedures, ... [and it] can be ... fit into the rest of our experience. To call an action evil is to suggest that it cannot [be fitted in]".
The philosopher Immanuel Kant was the first to offer a purely secular theory of evil, giving an evaluative definition of evil based on its cause, which is having a will that is not fully good. Kant has been an important influence on philosophers such as Hannah Arendt, Claudia Card, and Richard Bernstein. "Hannah Arendt... uses the term ['radical evil'] to denote a new form of wrongdoing which cannot be captured by other moral concepts." Claudia Card says that evil is excessive wrongdoing; other philosophers such as Hillel Steiner say that evil is qualitatively, not quantitatively, distinct from mere wrongdoing.
The philosophers John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, in addition to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, define good and evil in terms of pleasure and pain. Others such as the philosopher Richard Swinburne find the preceding definition to be inadequate, saying that "the good of individual humans ... consists ... in their having free will ... the ability to develop ... character..., to show courage and loyalty, to love, to be of use, to contemplate beauty and discover truth... All that [good] ... cannot be achieved without ... suffering along the way."
Some theorists define evil by the emotions that are connected to it. "For example, Laurence Thomas believes that evildoers take delight in causing harm or feel hatred toward their victims (Thomas 1993, 76–77)." Buddhism defines various types of evil, one type being defined as behavior resulting from a failure to emotionally detach oneself from the world.
Christian theologians generally define evil in terms of both human responsibility and the nature of God: "If we take the essentialist view of Christian ethics... evil is anything contrary to God's good nature... (character or attributes)." The Judaic view, while acknowledging the difference between the human and divine perspective on evil, is rooted in the nature of creation itself and the inherent limitations in matter's capacity to be perfected; the action of free will includes the potential for perfection from individual effort and leaves the responsibility for evil in human hands.
As Richard Swinburne notes, "[It is] deeply central to the whole tradition of Christian (and other western) religion that God is loving toward his creation and that involves him behaving in morally good ways toward it." Within Christianity, Swinburne continues, "God is supposed to be in some way personal ... a being who is essentially eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, Creator and sustainer of the universe, and perfectly good. An omnipotent being is one who can do anything logically possible... such a being could not make me exist and not exist at the same time but he could eliminate the stars... An omniscient being is one who knows everything logically possible for him to know". Swinburne adds that "God's perfect goodness is moral goodness."
Purposes Theodicies are developed to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil, thereby resolving the problem of evil. Some theodicies also address the problem of evil "to make the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good God consistent with the existence of evil or suffering in the world".
The philosopher Richard Swinburne says that "most theists need a theodicy, [they need] an account of reasons why God might allow evil to occur."
According to the theologian Andrew Loke, theodicies might have a therapeutical use for some people, though their main purpose is to provide a sound theistic argument rather than succeed as therapy. However, theodicies do "seek to provide hope to the sufferers that... evils can be defeated just as minor tribulations can be defeated."
History The term theodicy was coined by the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in his 1710 book (Essays of Theodicy on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil).Leibniz 1734 Leibniz's was a response to skeptical Protestant philosopher Pierre Bayle; in his biographical dictionary , Bayle wrote that he saw no rational solution to the problem of evil, after rejecting three attempts to solve it. Bayle argued that this state of affairs must simply be accepted, because the Bible asserts the coexistence of God and evil.
In The Catholic Encyclopedia (1914), Constantine Kempf made the following argument: inspired by Leibniz's work, philosophers called their works on the problem of evil "theodicies", and philosophy focusing on God was brought under the discipline of theodicy. Kempf argued that theodicy began to include all of natural theology, meaning that theodicy came to consist of the human knowledge of God through the systematic use of reason.
In 1966, the British philosopher John Hick published his book Evil and the God of Love, in which he surveyed various Christian responses to the problem of evil and then developed his own.Cheetham 2003, p. 40 In his book, Hick identified and distinguished between three types of theodicy:
Plotinian, which was named after Plotinus Augustinian, which had dominated Western Christianity for many centuries Irenaean, which was developed by the Eastern Church Father Irenaeus, a version of which Hick subscribed to himselfHall 2003, p. 132
In the dialogue "Is God a Taoist?",Smullyan 1977, p. 86 published in his book The Tao Is Silent (1977), Raymond Smullyan claims to prove that it is logically impossible to have sentient beings without allowing "evil", even for God—just as it is impossible for God to create a triangle in the Euclidean plane having a sum of angles other than 180 degrees. Therefore, the capability of feeling implies free will, which may allow for "evil", understood here as hurting other sentient beings. The problem of evil happening to good or innocent people is not addressed directly in this dialogue, but both reincarnation and karma are hinted at.
Ancient religions In his book God and Evil, the Jewish philosopher and theologian David Birnbaum states that "Writings and discourses on theodicy by Jews, Greeks, Christians, and Eastern religions have graced our planet for thousands of years." For example, in his book The Search for God in Ancient Egypt, the German scholar Jan Assman writes that theodicy was an important issue in the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (2000–1700 BC), as "in Ancient Mesopotamian and Israelite literature".
Philip Irving Mitchell of Dallas Baptist University notes that some philosophers have cast the pursuit of theodicy as modern, since earlier scholars used the problem of evil for other purposes—to support the existence of one particular god over another, explain wisdom, or explain a conversion—rather than to justify God's goodness.