A theodicy is an attempt to reconcile the existence of evil with the existence of a morally good, omniponent, and omniscient god. In some cases one attempts only to show that God's existence and the existence of evil are logically consistent. More powerful efforts aim at showing how one could reasonably believe in both. Leibniz, who may have introduced the term, famously attempted to show that the actual world is the best of all possible worlds--a claim that to many seems even more incredible than the claim that a benevolent god would permit some evil.

At EvolutionBlog, Jason Rosenhouse critically discusses William Dembski's recent attempt at a theodicy. Two main hurdles face anyone offering a theodicy: if evil is claimed to be the result of human sin (the Fall) and part of an effort to bring about redemption, why is there any natural evil and why is there so much evil? Though Dembski has a lot to say, his response seems to boil down to this passage (quoted in the Rosenhouse critique).

God's immediate response to the Fall is therefore not to create anew but to control the damage. In the Fall, humans rebelled against God and thereby invited evil into the world. The challenge God faces in controlling the damage resulting from this original sin is how to make humans realize the full extent of their sin so that, in the fullness of time, they can fully embrace the redemption in Christ and thus experience full release from sin. For this reason, God does not merely allow personal evils (the disordering of our souls and the sins we commit as consequence) to run their course subsequent to the Fall. In addition, God also brings about natural evils (e.g. death, predation, parasitism, disease, draught, famines, earthquakes and hurricanes), letting them run their course prior to the Fall. Thus, God himself disorders the creation, making it defective on purpose God disorders the world not merely as a matter of justice (to bring judgment against human sin as required by God's holiness) but even more significantly as a matter of redemption (to bring humanity to its senses by making us realize the gravity of sin). (Page 39)

Like Rosenhouse, I find this completely unconvincing. God disorders the world to bring us to our senses? Notice that this says nothing about why the amount of evil is so disproportionate to--and why the kinds of existing evil are so irrelevant to--the "purpose" of evil. Rosenhouse suggests that a world with no natural evil preceding the Fall would have sent a better message: "Look at what you've lost!" God had the foresight to plan for the Fall, but with any hindsight he must now be regreting such a stupid strategy.

But theodicy and wacky explanations of evil in the presence of a benevolent God are not left to thoughtful philosophers (Leibniz) and feeble wannabes (Dembski). The NYT reported recently on the Pope's visit to Auschwitz.

While he spoke eloquently about "forgiveness and reconciliation," he did not beg pardon for the sins of Germans or of the Roman Catholic church during World War II. He laid the blame squarely on the Nazi regime, avoiding the painful but now common acknowledgment among many Germans that ordinary citizens also shared responsibility.

He said he came here "as a son of the German people, a son of that people over which a ring of criminals rose to power by false promises of future greatness and the recovery of the nation's honor, prominence and prosperity, but also through terror and intimidation."

He then cast the war into a larger theological frame: that the Nazis' attempt to eradicate the Jews was an attempt by man to banish, and replace, God. He said that God set limits on man's power, and thus, the war showed the nightmare of a world without God.

"Deep down, those vicious criminals, by wiping out this people, wanted to kill the God who called Abraham, who spoke in Sinai and laid down principles to serve as a guide for mankind, principles that are entirely valid," he said.

"If this people, by its very existence, was a witness to the God who spoke to humanity and took us to himself, then that God finally had to die and power had to belong to man alone, to those men who thought that by force they had made themselves masters of the world.

"By destroying Israel, they ultimately wanted to tear up the tap root of the Christian faith and to replace it with a faith of their own invention: faith in the rule of man, the rule of the powerful."

This won't count as a full-blown theodicy, but it is something of an attempt to explain how what happened at Auschwitz is compatible with the existence of a loving, Christian God. As an explanation it's rather pathetic, I would argue. I recall that the Nazi's--or most of them anyway--believed God was on their side. The Pope himself was one of the Germans who joined the Hitler youth. But even if they were (perhaps only subconsciously) pursuing a world without God, is the sacrifice of six million innocent Jews (and others) an appropriate (effective? morally responsible?) message that something is wrong. Wouldn't it have been better if the Nazis had suffered more and the Jews less? After all, it was the Nazis' alleged intentions that needed to be addressed. And supposedly God already sacrificed a Jew on behalf of all sinners several millenia earlier. Add to this the fact that it was the "godless" Russians who first entered Berlin and the "god-inspired" Americans who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. It all makes little sense. I'm still no clearer on why a morally good and omnipotent God would permit such atrocious events. But then I am not an infallible Pope.

Twice he asked where God could have been in the face of such destruction. But he could not answer the question. "We cannot peer into God's mysterious plan," he said. "We see it only piecemeal, and we would be wrong to set ourselves up as judges of God and history. When all is said and done, we must continue to cry out humbly yet insistently to God: Rouse yourself! Do not forget mankind, your creature!"

What kind of Pope can't peer into God's mysterious plan? If God was sending a message about the dangers of trying to become powerful masters of the world, surely he would tell the Pope. And what sort of god must be reminded of humanity?

A German Pope Confronts the Nazi Past at Auschwitz - New York Times

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