Those words again.

I came across the word theodicy in a review in the LRB (31/3/11, Lord Have Mercy , James Shapiro) of Plague Writing in Early Modern England, by Earnest Gilman. (Smart boy wanted! ...Ed.) In my defence I had never knowingly seen it before and so blundled on for a few paragraphs happy in the belief that the word indicated the idiocy of those who believe in god. Whether by divine intervention or a passing acquaintance with my own limitations the niggle started that I had not quite got that right.
As always, in a spirit of humble scholarship I consulted with my good friends Mr Collins

the branch of theology concerned with defending the attributes of God against objections resulting from physical and moral evil

and Mr Chambers

a vindication of the justice of God in establishing a world in which evil exists.

Ooops. I've done it again.

Even the canting folk of Oxford and Messers Stewart, Coleridge and White quoted in the OED offered me no mercy

...vindication of the divine attributes, esp. justice and holiness, in respect to the existence of evil; a writing, doctrine, or theory intended to ‘justify the ways of God to men’.

So nailed with the wrong word for the right reason!

I blogged previously about teaching with Terry Burke many years ago in a Salford secondary modern school. He asked a small child, weren't they all, what he thought a theodolite was. Despite it being a science lesson and dealing with measurement, surveying instruments etc. and being shown a picture of the bloody thing, the child demonstrated the benefits of a good catholic education.

An instrument for measuring God

He intoned.
Amen!!