The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2479 page)

see
CHILDREN OF GOD
.

 
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Theism
.

The doctrine that there is one transcendent, personal God who freely created all that exists out of nothing, and who preserves and governs it. He is believed to be self-existent, present everywhere, all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good, and therefore worthy of human worship. Theism is nowadays distinguished from
Deism
: the latter denies God's personal governance of the world, usually by ruling out the possibility of providence, miracles, and revelation.

 
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see
PALIAU MALOAT
.

 
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Theodicy
.

The justification of God, in response to the charge that the evils of the world are incompatible with his omnipotence and perfect goodness. The word was coined by
Leibniz
in his
Theodicy
(1710), in which he argued that this world is the best of all possible worlds. John Hick, in his
Evil and the God of Love
(1966) claimed to discern two traditions of Christian theodicy: the
Augustinian
, which stresses the role of the
Fall
, seeing evil as either sin or the result of sin; and the
Irenaean
, which regards evil more as a feature of an evolving universe and the result of human immaturity: the world, with its tests, becomes ‘a vale of soul-making’. Both positions (though without the specific appeal to the Fall) can be found in all theistic religions.
In Eastern religions, the issue of theodicy is not so acute, either because the understandings of cosmogony are diffused, or because there is no belief in a God who is responsible for creation (Jains and Buddhists). For Indian religions, the understanding of
karma
in any case gives more direct answers to the questions of the occurrence and distribution of suffering. For Hindus, the sense of God participating in the conquest of evil is strong (e.g.
K
a
in
Bhagavad-g
t
).
The term ‘theodicy’ received a different analysis in the work of
Weber
, for whom theodicy is central in his understanding of religions. In his view, religions offer theodicies, not simply as abstract solutions to intellectual puzzles, but as programmes for action.
From the adopted theodicy of a particular religion flow social consequences which give to different societies their characteristic forms and actions (or lack of them). His extension of the concept of theodicy drew attention to the dynamic consequences of theodicy and the quest for salvation (or its equivalent) in the forming of religious societies. See also
EVIL
.

 
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