caa a22 4500 38638729X CHVBK 20180307112102.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e198903 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0034412500019685 doi S0034412500019685 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0034412500019685 Wetzel James Colgate University Hamilton, New York Can Theodicy be Avoided? The Claim of Unredeemed Evil [Elektronische Daten] [James Wetzel] Theodicy begins with the recognition that the world is not obviously under the care of a loving God with limitless power and wisdom. If it were, why would the world be burdened with its considerable amount and variety of evil? Theodicists are those who attempt to answer this question by suggesting a possible rationale for the appearance of evil in a theocentric universe. In the past theodicists have taken up the cause of theodicy in the service of piety, so that God might be defended against libel from humans, particularly the accusation that God's reign lacks justice. Contemporary practitioners, who live in a world where the existence of God can no longer be presumed, tend to favour theodicy as an exercise in securing the rationality of religious belief. Their hope is that one crucial theoretical obstacle to responsible belief in God will have been eliminated, once the idea of God has been reconciled with the reality of evil. What has commonly united theodicists, at least since the Enlightenment, is that they must answer to a non-believing antagonist. Until relatively recently, theodicy has been a debate between apologists for theistic faith and their cultured detractors. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989 Religious Studies Cambridge University Press 25/1(1989-03), 1-13 0034-4125 25:1<1 1989 25 RES https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412500019685 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412500019685 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Wetzel James Colgate University Hamilton, New York NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Religious Studies Cambridge University Press 25/1(1989-03), 1-13 0034-4125 25:1<1 1989 25 RES CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge