Theodicy (/θiːˈɒdɪsi/), in its most common form, attempts to answer the question why a good God permits the manifestation of evil. Some theodicies also address the evidential problem of evil by attempting “to make the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good or omnibenevolent God consistent with the existence of evil” or suffering in the world. Unlike a defense, which tries to demonstrate that God's existence is logically possible in the light of evil, a theodicy attempts to provide a framework wherein God's existence is also plausible. The German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz coined the term "theodicy" in 1710 in his work Théodicée, though various responses to the problem of evil had been previously proposed. The British philosopher John Hick traced the his