Theodicy comes from the Greek words for God and justice. One definition of theodicy is “the question of how God can exist when there is evil in the world, or a good reason or explanation for this” (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus).
Common answers to this question start with the supposed reality of evil and reason backward in seeking a cause for evil. But trying to reconcile God’s justice with evil only obscures that justice. It is Genesis 2 thinking—the erroneous belief that God created both good and evil. Right reasoning starts from the premise given in Genesis 1: “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (verse 31).
In the book of Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar all attempted to explain why God was allowing Job to suffer. Then Elihu arrives and declares the scientific truth: “Far be it from God, that he should do wickedness” (Job 34:10). Grasping at last the infinitude of God’s goodness, Job was healed.
