The term theodicy ( /θiːˈɒdɪsi/ from Greek theos - "god" + dike - "justice") has no universally agreed upon definition, but usually refers to an attempt to resolve the evidential problem of evil by reconciling God's traditional characteristics of omnibenevolence, omnipotence and omniscience (all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing, respectively) with the occurrence of evil in the world. Although some arguments existed previously, the term 'theodicy' was coined in 1710 by German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in his work, Théodicée.

A variety of theodicies exist. The Augustinian theodicy suggests that evil does not exist, except as a corruption of good, and occurs because of the free will of humans and angels. According to this tradition, evil occurs as a punishment for human sin. The Irenaean theodicy proposes that human suffering exists for human development. The theory proposes that humans are created imperfect, and that moral perfection is only attainable through the experience of suffering. The Holocaust has prompted reconsiderations of theodicy in Jewish philosophy; some philosophers have proposed alternative responses to evil. Similar to a theodicy, a cosmodicy is an attempt to justify the fundamental goodness of the universe in the face of evil and suffering.

Dinesh D'Souza (Konkani: दिनेश डिसूज़ा: born April 25, 1961) is an author and public speaker and a former Robert and Karen Rishwain Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is currently the President of The King's College in New York City. D'Souza is a noted Christian apologist and conservative writer and speaker. He is the author of numerous New York Times best-selling books. He was born and raised Catholic, but is now an Evangelical Christian.

D'Souza was born in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, to Goan Catholic parents from the state of Goa in Western India. He arrived in the United States in 1978, originally through a Rotary International program, attending Patagonia Union High School in Patagonia, Arizona, and then Dartmouth College, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in English in 1983.

According to Boston Globe journalist Peter S. Canellos, in 1981, D'Souza published the names of officers of the Gay Student Alliance in an article for The Dartmouth Review, including the names of those who were still closeted.

Terence Francis Eagleton FBA (born 22 February 1943, Salford) is a British literary theorist and critic, who is regarded as one of Britain's most influential living literary critics. Eagleton currently serves as Distinguished Professor of English Literature at the Lancaster University, and as a former Visiting Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

Formerly Eagleton was Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford (1992–2001) and John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at the University of Manchester until 2008. In the Fall 2009 semester, Dr Eagleton returned to the University of Notre Dame as a Distinguished Visitor in the Department of English.

He has written more than forty books, including Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983);The Ideology of the Aesthetic (1990), and The Illusions of Postmodernism (1996).

Professor Eagleton delivered Yale University's 2008 Terry Lectures and gave a Gifford Lecture in March 2010, titled The God Debate. He gave the 2010 Richard Price Memorial Lecture at the historically radical Newington Green Unitarian Church, speaking on "The New Atheism and the War on Terror".

Professor John Harwood Hick (20 January 1922 – 9 February 2012) was a philosopher of religion and theologian. In philosophical theology, he made contributions in the areas of theodicy, eschatology, and Christology, and in the philosophy of religion he contributed to the areas of epistemology of religion and religious pluralism.

John Hick was born on 20 January 1922 to a middle class family in Scarborough, England. He developed an interest in philosophy and religion in his teens, being encouraged by his uncle, who was an author and teacher at the University of Manchester. Hick initially pursued a law degree at the University of Hull, but converted to Evangelical Christianity from the fundamentalist Christian beliefs with which he was raised, and decided to change his career and enrolled at the University of Edinburgh in 1941.

During his studies he became liable for military service in World War II, but, as a conscientious objector on moral grounds, enrolled in the Friends' Ambulance Unit.

After the war, he returned to Edinburgh and became attracted to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and began to question his fundamentalism. In 1948 he completed his MA thesis, which formed the basis of his book Faith and Knowledge. He went on to complete a D. Phil at Oriel College, Oxford University in 1950 and a DLitt from Edinburgh in 1975. In 1953 he married Joan Hazel Bowers, and the couple had three children. After many years as a member of the United Reformed Church, in October 2009 he was accepted into membership of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain. He died in 2012.

Karl P. Ameriks (born 1947) is an American philosopher. He is the McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. Ameriks studied at Yale University, A.B., summa cum laude (1968), Ph.D. (1973), where he wrote his thesis under the direction of Karsten Harries. He is regarded as one of the foremost scholars of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and has written widely in the history of continental and modern philosophy. Ameriks co-edits the series Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009.