JORAS - Nigerian Journal of Religion and Society

Gottfried Leibniz is a household name whenever Theodicy is the subject of philosophical or theological analysis. He searched for a way to reconcile the existence of both good and evil in the world, an idea he referred to as Theodicy. Theodicy, according to Leibniz, attempted to defend the existence of God, who was assumed to be good, despite the existence of evil in the world. Theodicy operated on the ideas that: God is good, all-knowing, and all-powerful; the universe was made by God; there is evil in the world for unknown reasons. The question that perennially is to be answered is: Why does God permit senseless suffering? If God is good and all-powerful, why does evil exist? The problem of evil perennially vexes theology, but many theologians have abandoned the project of theodicy, or the theological explanation of evil, as either fruitless or hopeless. Academic studies on theodicy, moreover, typically succumb to theological deficiency and abstraction, often devoid of any concrete connection to Christian life and practice. This paper reinvigorates this stalled debate in philosophy and theology through a detailed reassessment of the problem of evil and the task of theodicy through a careful analysis of the Plotinian Theodicy. Of all the ancient philosophers, Plotinus stood out with his philosophy of Neo- Platonism and theodicy. Plotinus argued that God is good personi?ed, who remains untouched, undiminished, and unmoved. Evil, according to him, is a non-being and total absence or privation of good. This position is evaluated with the lenses of Philosophy and Theology.

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