I am starting a new type of post, philosophy topic of the month. While there will still be occasional posts on specific philosophical positions, I will now be posting a brief overview of a discipline or topic of philosophy each month. This month we will be looking at theodicy.

Theodicy deals with what is commonly known as the problem of evil. in a nutshell the problem of evil is why does evil exist if God is both all-powerful and all-good. Theodicy is the process of answering this paradox without denying the existence of God. Certain poor theologians will say that God is not sovereign and all-powerful, however these statements are both clearly contrary to scripture and contrary to the definition of God. Others will say that God is not good, though this is much less common in modern times. This view is also contrary to scripture and extremely depressing.

Good answers to this paradox involve the acknowledgment that there is a conflict and then seek to explain why God allows evil. Theodicy in this vein almost exclusively seeks to show how greater good came because of some evil.

One of these is the popular free-will argument. This argument states that free will and evil is better than no free will and no evil. Another is the full revelation of God and his glory argument. This argument argues that evil is required so that we may better understand goodness. A third argument is the argument of purpose. this argument asks what the purpose of everything is and why would that purpose require evil. A popular form of this argument says that the world is a story and stories require a villain.

To sum it up theodicy is the philosophical discipline of answering or explaining the problem of evil without denying either the existence of God or evil.