theodicy

plural theodicies · alternative theodicity

1. human sciencesA justification of a deity or of particular attributes of a deity; specifically, a justification of the existence of evil and suffering in the world; a work or discourse justifying the ways of God.

   God was now nothing more than a distant cause of causes; what mattered was matter, and man acting in nature. The theodicy, the master-narrative, had become secularized.

   2003, Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason, Penguin 2004, page 388

   2 more examples

   2000 [Kluwer Academic], Charles Seymour, A Theodicy of Hell, 2010, Springer, Softcover reprint, page 195, In general, my theodicy of hell is more congenial to those denominations with less rigidly defined doctrinal systems. Does this mean I have allowed theodicy to encroach on theology, contrary to my avowed purpose?

   Distilling the characteristic features of the theodicies of the world religions, Weber identified five varieties or forms that the answers to this problem take, which in his view speaks to the varieties of forms that religion itself takes: a messiah who initiates the end of the world as we know it, the transmigration of souls, a universal day of judgment, predestination, or dual divinities of good and evil.

   2002, Kevin J. Christiano, William H. Swatos, Peter Kivisto, Sociology of Religion: Contemporary Developments, Rowman & Littlefield (Altamira Press), page 129