Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A vindication of God's goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An exposition of the theory of divine Providence with a view to the vindication of the attributes, particularly of the holiness and justice, of God, in establishing the present order of things, in which evil, moral as well as physical, largely exists.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A vindication of the justice of God in ordaining or permitting natural and moral evil.
  • noun That department of philosophy which treats of the being, perfections, and government of God, and the immortality of the soul.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A justification of a deity, or the attributes of a deity, especially in regard to the existence of evil and suffering in the world; a work or discourse justifying the ways of God.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the branch of theology that defends God's goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[After Essai de théodicée, a work by Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz : Greek theo-, theo- + Greek dikē, order, right; see deik- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the French théodicée, from the Ancient Greek θεός (theos, "god") + δίκη (dikē, "justice").

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  • A long poem by Homer.

    October 23, 2007