Theodicy

A theodicy is a theory about why an omnipotent God allows evil to exist in the world. In other words, a theodicy contains speculations about God's actual purposes in allowing evil to exist in the world. A theodicy is required to explain how an omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omniscient God can have allowed terrible evil to occur, as these three attributes appear to be in opposition to each other. A theodicy is not required if God is not held to be either omnipotent, or omniscient, or omnibenevolent.

In order to be a successful theodicy, the purposes stated must be wholly consistent with the notion that God is all-loving, if at the same time also all-knowing and all-powerful. So what is called for is an explanation of the purposes that a loving God with such power and knowledge might have in permitting evil to exist.

The word is taken from the title of a work that supplied one theodicy, namely that this is [The Best of All Possible Worlds]?: the Theodicee? by Gottfried Leibniz.

See also the problem of evil.