THEODICY. Why do the righteous suffer? Why do the wicked prosper? Why do innocent children experience illness and death? These are ancient questions, but they have been given new poignancy in our day by the events of the European Holocaust. The fact that many who died in the Holocaust were devout Jews or Christians also poses a special problem for the faiths to which these victims belonged. Traditionally, Jews and Christians have affirmed God's goodness and his absolute sovereignty over history. But how can this faith be reconciled with suffering on the scale for which Auschwitz is the symbol?

Theoretical Positions

The effort to answer questions of this sort is commonly referred to as theodicy. The term was apparently coined by the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) and is a compound of the Greek words for God (theos) and justice (dikē). Theodicy may thus be thought of as the effort...