According to Reinhold F. Glei, it is settled that the argument of theodicy is from an academic source which is not only not epicurean, but even anti-epicurean.

Written following the death of his son, Aaron, from the premature aging disease progeria, the book deals with questions about human suffering, God, omnipotence and theodicy.

A theodicy, on the other hand, is more ambitious, since it attempts to provide a plausible justification — a morally sufficient reason — for the existence of evil and thereby rebut the " evidential " argument from evil.

As a response to the problem of evil, a theodicy is distinct from a defence.

The Augustinian theodicy is based on the writings of Augustine of Hippo, a Christian philosopher and theologian who lived from 354 to 430 AD.

The theodicy argues that humans have an evil nature because it is inherited from the original sin of Adam and Eve, and maintains that God remains blameless and good.

An anti-theodicy acts in opposition to a theodicy and places full blame for all experience of evil onto God, but must rise from an individuals belief in and love of God.

According to Reinhold F. Glei, it is settled that the argument of theodicy is from an academical source which is not only not epicurean, but even anti-epicurean.

Exposition and analysis of Ibn Taymiyya's writings on God's justice and wise purpose, divine determination and human agency, the problem of evil, and juristic method in theological doctrine show that he articulates a theodicy of optimism in which God in His essence perpetually wills the best possible world from eternity.

This sets Ibn Taymiyya's theodicy apart from Ash ' ari divine voluntarism, the free-will theodicy of the Mu ' tazilis, and the essentially timeless God of other optimists like Ibn Sina and Ibn Arabi.

The overarching story of the book is that of a satirical theodicy, questioning why human beings suffer from evil and pain, and exploring the ingenuity with which we combat those conditions.

The field of theodicy arose from attempts to answer this question.

Paley's benevolent God acted in nature though uniform and universal laws, not arbitrary miracles or changes of laws, and this use of secondary laws provided a theodicy explaining the problem of evil by separating nature from direct divine action, drawing directly on the ideas of Thomas Malthus.

One of these relied upon the tried apologetic technique ( see the argument for theodicy from free will, for example ) of reconstruing apparent limitations in the Creator as expressions of solicitude towards His creatures, and indeed as tokens of His mercy towards them.

Of particular note were Fathers Gerhard Schneemann, Theodor Granderath and Florian Reiss, who produced a number of important works: the " Collectio lacensis " (" Acta et decreta sacrorum conciliorum recentiorum ", 7 volumes, Freiburg, 1870 – 1890 ); the " Philosophia lacensis ", a collection of learned books on the different branches of philosophy ( logic, cosmology, psychology, theodicy, natural law ) and published at Freiburg, 1880 – 1900 ; and, perhaps best-known, the " Stimmen aus Maria-Laach " (" Voices from Maria Laach "), appearing from 1865, at first as individual pamphlets defending against liberalism within the Roman Catholic church, and from 1871 as a regular periodical.

Human beings are troubled, he says, with the question of theodicy – the question of how the extraordinary power of a divine god may be reconciled with the imperfection of the world that he has created and rules over.

Dr Philip Irving Mitchell of the Dallas Baptist University notes that some philosophers have cast the pursuit of theodicy as a modern one, as earlier scholars used the problem of evil to support the existence of one particular god over another, explain wisdom, or explain a conversion, rather than to justify God's goodness.

Gottfried Leibniz introduced the term theodicy in his 1710 work Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l ' homme et l ' origine du mal (" Theodicic Essays on the Benevolence of God, the Free will of man, and the Origin of Evil ") which was directed mainly against Bayle.

There is this ethical part of religion, including "( 1 ) soteriology and ( 2 ) theodicy.

The concept of " work ethic " is attached to the theodicy of fortune ; thus, because of the Protestant " work ethic ," there was a contribution of higher class outcomes and more education amongst Protestants.

Another example of how this belief of religious theodicy influences class, is that those of lower status, the poor, cling to deep religiousness and faith as a way to comfort themselves and provide hope for a more prosperous future, whilst those of higher status cling to the sacraments or actions which prove their right of possessing greater wealth.

In Hesiod, the story of Prometheus ( and, by extension, of Pandora ) serves to reinforce the theodicy of Zeus: he is a wise and just ruler of the universe, while Prometheus is to blame for humanity's unenviable existence.

In all literary versions, however, the myth is a kind of theodicy, addressing the question of why there is evil in the world.

For Weber, religion is best understood as it responds to the human need for theodicy and soteriology.

Distinctive of the soul-making theodicy is the claim that evil and suffering are necessary for spiritual growth.

A perceived inadequacy with the theodicy is that many evils do not seem to promote such growth, and can be positively destructive of the human spirit.

A third problem attending this theodicy is that the qualities developed through experience with evil seem to be useful precisely because they are useful in overcoming evil.

Philosopher Stephen Maitzen has called this the " Heaven Swamps Everything " theodicy, and argues that it is false because it conflates compensation and justification.

Another general criticism is that though a theodicy may harmonize God with the existence of evil, it does so at the cost of nullifying morality.

From this line of thought one may conclude that, as these conclusions violate our basic moral intuitions, no greater good theodicy is true, and God does not exist.

St Augustine of Hippo ( 354 AD – 430 ) in his Augustinian theodicy focuses on the Genesis story that essentially dictates that God created the world and that it was good ; evil is merely a consequence of the fall of man ( The story of the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve disobeyed God and caused inherent sin for man ).

Unlike a defence, which tries to demonstrate that God's existence is logically possible in the light of evil, a theodicy provides a framework which claims to make God's existence probable.

Other philosophers have suggested that theodicy is a modern discipline because deities in the ancient world were often imperfect.

As an alternative to theodicy, a defence may be proposed, which is limited to showing the logical possibility of God's existence.

A theodicy is a response to the evidential problem of evil, the challenge that the occurrence of evil in the world counts as evidence against the existence of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity, making God's existence unlikely.

Gottfried Leibniz coined the term ' theodicy ' in an attempt to justify God's existence in light of the apparent imperfections of the world.

For theodicies of suffering, Weber argued that three different kinds of theodicy emerged-predestination, dualism, and karma-all of which attempt to satisfy the human need for meaning, and he believed that the quest for meaning, when considered in light of suffering, becomes the problem of suffering.

The book is a theodicy, an attempt by one Christian layman to reconcile orthodox Christian belief in a just, loving and omnipotent God with pain and suffering.

The claim that the actual world is the best of all possible worlds is the central argument in Leibniz's theodicy, or his attempt to solve the problem of evil.

This experience inspired the text, which reflects on how evil can exist in a world governed by God ( the problem of theodicy ), and how happiness can be attainable amidst fickle fortune, while also considering the nature of happiness and God.

German philosopher Max Weber saw theodicy as a social problem, based on the human need to explain puzzling aspects of the world ; sociologist Peter L. Berger argued that religion arose out of a need for social order, and theodicy developed to sustain it.

A theodicy is often based on a prior natural theology, which attempts to prove the existence of God, and 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 happen.

In The Catholic Encyclopedia ( 1914 ), Constantine Kempf argued that, following Leibniz's work, philosophers called their works on the problem of evil ' theodicies ', and philosophy about God was brought under the discipline of theodicy.

German philosopher Max Weber interpreted theodicy as a social problem, and viewed theodicy as a " problem of meaning.

As an alternative to a theodicy, a defence may be offered as a response to the problem of evil.

This issue is somewhat related to theodicy, the " problem of evil ", except that the solipsist himself is the all-powerful God who has somehow allowed imperfection into his world.

The emergence of Karma as a central doctrine of the late Vedic and early Hindu tradition is due in part to the problem of theodicy.

In monotheism, the sentiment arises in the context of theodicy ( the problem of evil, the Euthyphro dilemma ).

Thus Koons concludes that the problem of theodicy ( explaining how God can be good despite the apparent contradiction presented in the problem of evil ) does not pose a challenge to all possible forms of theism ( i. e., that the problem of evil does not present a contradiction to someone who would believe that God exists but that he is not necessarily good ).

Malebranche's theodicy is his solution to the problem of evil.