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.

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.

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.

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 ).

A theodicy ( from Greek theos " god " + dike " justice ") is an attempt to resolve the evidential problem of evil by reconciling the traditional divine characteristics of omnibenevolence, omnipotence and omniscience with the occurrence of evil or suffering in the world.

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.

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

British philosopher John Hick traced the history of theodicy in his work, Evil and the God of Love, identifying two major traditions: the Augustinian theodicy, based on the writings of Augustine of Hippo, and the Irenaean theodicy, which Hick developed, based on the thinking of St Irenaeus.

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.

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

After Kant, Hegel developed a complex theodicy in the Phenomenology of Spirit ( 1807 ), which based its conception of history on dialectics: the negative ( wars, etc.

Ostler presents three different approaches to theodicy ( explanation of why God allows evils ) based upon three very different views of God's relation to the natural universe in Mormon thought -- a naturalistic theodicy, a process theodicy and a Plan of Atonement theodicy.

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.

The central theological themes are " the question of theodicy, God's justness in the face of the triumph of the heathens over the pious, the course of world history in terms of the teaching of the four kingdoms, the function of the law, the eschatological judgment, the appearance on Earth of the heavenly Jerusalem, the Messianic Period, at the end of which the Messiah will die, the end of this world and the coming of the next, and the Last Judgment.

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.

The term theodicy was coined by German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in his 1710 work, written in French, Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l ' homme et l ' origine du mal ( Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil ).

French philosopher Voltaire criticised Leibniz's concept of theodicy in his Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne ( Poem on the Lisbon disaster ), suggesting that the massive destruction of innocent lives caused by the Lisbon earthquake demonstrated that God was not providing the " best of all possible worlds ".

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.

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.

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.

Alternatively, the novel can be treated as a meditation on the theme of theodicy, or the problem of why evil exists in the world.

Yet Daniel himself, in his commentary to Leviticus xxvi., indulges in long reflections on the theodicy and on the suffering of the pious.

Hegel explicitly presents his lectures on the philosophy of history as a theodicy, or a reconciliation of divine providence with the evils of history.

He 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.

Her reason for mentioning it was to emphasise how for Buddhism we exist in a " moral universe " in which actions lead to just consequences according to a natural moral order, a situation she calls a " cosmodicy " in contrast with the Christian theodicy.

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.

Divine Providence is a book published by Emanuel Swedenborg in 1764 which describes his systematic theology regarding providence, free will, theodicy, and other related topics.

Since many of the philosophical concepts, such as his view of theodicy and the relationship between philosophy and religion, are relevant beyond strictly Jewish theology, it has been the work most commonly associated with Maimonides in the non-Jewish world and it is known to have influenced several major non-Jewish philosophers.