Theodicy

Theodicy

Theodicy, being a subunit of both philosophy and theology helps in explaining what evil is. Coming from the Greek word dike meaning justice and theos meaning God, the phrase original meaning translates to "the justice of God."  Theodicy gives a defined explanation of the structure, goal, and nature of evil believed to be created by a supreme being, God.  Theodicy gives a detailed explanation for its existence in our lives and aims at bringing to light its key principles. Theodicy also brings in the challenge that displays when merging the concept of the seen evil in the world with the existence of a benevolent and omnipotent God.

Theodicy is presenting itself in the present world in various forms. For the most part, theodicy brings suffering and pain despite it presenting itself in the form of natural evil such as diseases, genetic defects, earthquakes, tornadoes, and lightning, or moral evil such as murder, kidnapping, abuse of all forms. Murder, for example, would be presented as a moral evil in which questions if God was all powerful and all knowing why would he allow such to happen (Davis).

Theodicy is considered a monotheism religion because they believe in the existence in only one God. They believe that the God they worship is the one true creator of heaven and earth and all that is in it. They believe that the God they worship is all powerful, omnipresent, all knowing and is full of life and thus making theodicy a monotheism religion since they one true God cannot be contested.

The importance of salvation in Theodicy is that it acts as a deliverance tool for the believers from negativity and suffering of this world. It is also associated with the restoration of a person or a community from the natural world to a whole new state of the Christian community.

An individual can perceive salvation in three main aspects; resources required to attain utmost salvation, the steps involved in being saved and the actual definition of living in salvation. The resources required in attaining salvation and the step involved can be attained through inner resources. These include aspects such as good deeds, righteousness, asceticism, meditation and knowledge and wisdom of the religion. In some instances, salvation can be manifested through an external agent like in the case of God’s intervention to a someone like and turns him or her around to salvation. Cases of one being their agent have also been manifested in the way to salvation where someone recognizes that is their duty to accept God and embrace salvation and live a righteous life. And since God is all loving and forgiving they believe that if they turn around their lives, they will receive the favor of God grace and love and accept them if they repent their sins and embrace salvation. Sin acts at the main barrier to salvation. This can be eradicated by elimination any form of sin that acts as a barrier to salvation and working toward a good communication to God. In some religions, salvation is perceived as being liberated from ignorance. That sinners lack the required knowledge of God, and once they get the good news and exercise a righteous living, they have gained knowledge of God and have embraced salvation.

Works Cited

Davis, Stephen T., ed. Encountering Evil: Live options in theodicy. Westminster John Knox Press, 2001.