# Theodicy A theodicy is an attempt to justify belief in a good and all-powerful God given the reality of evil and suffering. The word was coined by Leibniz (*Théodicée*, 1710) from the Greek *theos* (God) and *dikē* (justice): literally, "the justice of God." ## Intro If God is all-powerful and perfectly good, why is there so much evil? That is the [Problem of Evil](/codex/problem-of-evil/). A theodicy is a *response* to it, an account of why a good, all-powerful God would permit the evil we see. It helps to distinguish two jobs. A **defense** only tries to show that God and evil are not logically contradictory; it does not claim to know God's actual reasons. A **theodicy** goes further and offers a positive story about what those reasons might be, greater goods, human freedom, spiritual growth, and so on. You can win the defense (showing the atheist has no contradiction) without committing to any single theodicy. No serious Christian thinker claims to have the complete answer for every particular evil. The point of a theodicy is more modest and more honest: to show that suffering and a good God can coexist, and to sketch the kinds of reasons a good God could have, while admitting we do not see all of them. ## In full ### Defense versus theodicy The distinction, sharpened by [Alvin Plantinga](/codex/alvin-plantinga/), is decisive for how much you are on the hook to prove. - A **defense** answers the *logical* problem of evil (the claim that God and evil are strictly incompatible). It succeeds if it offers even a *possible* reason God might permit evil. Plantinga's [Free Will Defense](/codex/free-will-defense/) does exactly this and is widely regarded as having settled the logical problem. - A **theodicy** answers the *evidential* or *existential* problem (the claim that the *amount* or *kind* of evil makes God unlikely, or that suffering feels pointless). It offers positive, probable reasons. It carries a heavier burden and is always partial. ### The major theodicies The main lines, most of which have their own hub in the codex: 1. **Free-will theodicy.** Much evil is the price of genuine creaturely freedom; a world of free agents who can love is worth the risk of agents who can sin. Handles *moral* evil best. See [Free Will Defense](/codex/free-will-defense/). 2. **Soul-making theodicy.** Suffering is the necessary environment for growing virtue, courage, compassion, perseverance, that could not exist in a pain-free world (Irenaeus, John Hick). See [Soul-Making Theodicy](/codex/soul-making-theodicy/). 3. **Greater-good theodicy.** God permits an evil only where it secures a good that outweighs it or is otherwise unobtainable. 4. **Privation theodicy.** Evil is not a positive "thing" God created but a lack or corruption of good, like blindness is the absence of sight (Augustine). This addresses evil's *ontology*, not its permission. See [Evil as Privation of Good](/codex/evil-as-privation-of-good/). 5. **Skeptical theism.** A limiting case: given the gap between our minds and an omniscient one, our failure to see a good reason for an evil is not good evidence that there is none. See [Skeptical Theism](/codex/skeptical-theism/). 6. **Christological theodicy.** God does not merely permit suffering from outside; in Christ He enters and bears it ([Isaiah 53](/codex/isaiah-53/); the cross). See [Hypostatic Union](/codex/hypostatic-union/). 7. **Eschatological theodicy.** Present suffering is set against a final restoration that outweighs and erases it ([Romans 8:18](/codex/romans-8-18/); [Revelation 21:4](/codex/revelation-21-4/)). Most Christian responses are a *composite*: no single theodicy carries the whole weight, but together they cover moral evil, natural evil, the amount of suffering, and the pastoral reality. ### Moral evil and natural evil Theodicies divide by target. The free-will family handles *moral* evil (harm caused by free agents). *Natural* evil (disease, disaster, animal suffering) needs additional accounts: natural-law theodicy (a lawful, stable world is a precondition of agency, Swinburne, Reichenbach), Fall cosmology ([Genesis 3](/codex/genesis-3/); [Romans 8:20-22](/codex/romans-8-20-22/)), and the causation analysis in the [God Causes Cancer Objection Defeater](/codex/god-causes-cancer-objection-defeater/). ### The anti-theodicy critique Some theologians (Kenneth Surin, D.Z. Phillips, and in a different key Marilyn Adams) warn that theodicy can become *pastorally callous*, turning a screaming child's agony into a tidy premise in an argument. The reply is not to abandon theodicy but to keep it in its lane: it answers the *intellectual* challenge to God's existence, while the *pastoral* response to a sufferer is presence, lament, and hope, not a syllogism. Job's friends were condemned precisely for weaponizing theodicy at a bedside ([Job 42:7](/codex/job-42-7/)). ## See also - [Problem of Evil](/codex/problem-of-evil/), the challenge theodicy responds to - [Free Will Defense](/codex/free-will-defense/), the defense that settles the logical problem - [Soul-Making Theodicy](/codex/soul-making-theodicy/), the Irenaean growth account - [Skeptical Theism](/codex/skeptical-theism/), the epistemic-humility limiting case - [Evil as Privation of Good](/codex/evil-as-privation-of-good/), evil's ontology - [Evidential Problem of Evil Defeater](/codex/evidential-problem-of-evil-defeater/) and [God Causes Cancer Objection Defeater](/codex/god-causes-cancer-objection-defeater/), applied natural-evil defenses - [Nietzsche Concedes Problem of Evil](/codex/nietzsche-concedes-problem-of-evil/), the moral-realism turn
## Common questions this page answers **Q: What is a theodicy?** A theodicy is an attempt to justify belief in a good, all-powerful God despite the existence of evil, an account of why God would permit the suffering we see. The word comes from Leibniz (1710), combining the Greek words for "God" and "justice." **Q: What is the difference between a defense and a theodicy?** A defense only shows that God and evil are not logically contradictory, offering a *possible* reason God might permit evil; it does not claim to know the actual reason. A theodicy goes further and offers positive, probable reasons (free will, soul-making, greater goods). A defense is easier to establish and, in Plantinga's free-will defense, is widely thought to have solved the logical problem of evil. **Q: What are the main theodicies in Christianity?** The major ones are the free-will theodicy (evil as the cost of genuine freedom), soul-making (suffering as the environment for growing virtue), greater-good (evil permitted only for an outweighing good), privation (evil as a lack of good, not a created thing), skeptical theism (we cannot see all of God's reasons), Christological (God bears suffering in Christ), and eschatological (final restoration outweighs present suffering). Most Christian responses combine several. **Q: Isn't explaining suffering with a theory heartless?** It can be, if aimed at the wrong target. Theodicy answers the *intellectual* question of whether God can exist given evil; it is not the right tool for comforting a person in acute grief, whose need is presence and hope, not an argument. Scripture itself condemns Job's friends for treating his suffering as a debate to win ([Job 42:7](/codex/job-42-7/)).