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The finite God theodicy maintains that God is all-good (omnibenevolent) but not all-powerful . The best of all possible worlds theodicy, a traditional theology and defended by Leibniz, argues that the creation is the best of all possible worlds. The original sin theodicy holds that evil came into the world because of humanity's original sin.
Théodicée title page from a 1734 version. Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal (from French: Essays of Theodicy on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil), more simply known as Théodicée [te.ɔ.di.se], is a book of philosophy by the German polymath Gottfried Leibniz.
Leibniz's theodicy has been defended by Justin Daeley, who argues that God must create the best, [23] and James Franklin, who argues that goods and evils in creation are interconnected with mathematical necessity and hence cannot be separated by divine power. [24]
Theodicy is an "intensely urgent" and "constant concern" of "the entire Bible". [3] The Bible raises the issue of theodicy by its portrayals of God as inflicting evil and by its accounts of people who question God's goodness by their angry indictments. However, the Bible "contains no comprehensive theodicy". [4]
The Irenaean theodicy does not, as the Augustinian theodicy does, attempt to protect God from being responsible for evil; rather, it argues that God is responsible but justified for it because of the benefits it has for human development. Both theodicies stress the perfection of God's creation, but differ in why the world is seen as perfect.
The Irenaean theodicy was first identified as a form of theodicy by John Hick in Evil and the God of Love, written in 1966. For Augustine, humans were created perfect but fell, and thereafter continued to choose badly of their own freewill.
The idea of a finite God has been traced to Plato's Timaeus. Plato's God was not an omnipotent Creator but a Demiurge struggling to control recalcitrant "stuff" or "matter". To Plato, matter was infected with evil, uncreated by God. [6] William James (1842–1910) was a believer in a finite God which he used to explain the problem of evil.
Theodicy is the attempt to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil.Theodicy attempts to resolve the evidential problem of evil by reconciling the traditional divine characteristics of omnibenevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience, in either their absolute or relative form, with the occurrence of evil or suffering in the world.