Omnibenevolence in the context of "Classical theism"

Zoroastrianism, also called Mazdayasna or Behdin, is an Iranian religion centred on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra Spitama, who is more commonly referred to by the Greek translation, Zoroaster (Greek: Ζωροάστρις Zōroastris). Among the world's oldest organized faiths, its adherents exalt an uncreated, benevolent, and all-wise deity known as Ahura Mazda (𐬀𐬵𐬎𐬭𐬀⸱𐬨𐬀𐬰𐬛𐬁), who is hailed as the supreme being of the universe. Opposed to Ahura Mazda is Angra Mainyu (𐬀𐬢𐬭𐬀⸱𐬨𐬀𐬌𐬥𐬌𐬌𐬎), who is personified as a destructive spirit and the adversary of all things that are good. As such, the Zoroastrian religion combines a dualistic cosmology of good and evil with an eschatological outlook predicting the ultimate triumph of Ahura Mazda over evil. Opinions vary among scholars as to whether Zoroastrianism is monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, or a combination of all three. Zoroastrianism shaped Iranian culture and history, while scholars differ on whether it significantly influenced ancient Western philosophy and the Abrahamic religions, or gradually reconciled with other religions and traditions, such as Christianity and Islam.

Originating from Zoroaster's reforms of the ancient Iranian religion, Zoroastrianism began during the Avestan period (possibly as early as the 2nd millennium BCE), but was first recorded in the mid-6th century BCE. For the following millennium, it was the official religion of successive Iranian polities, beginning with the Achaemenid Empire, which formalized and institutionalized many of its tenets and rituals, and ending with the Sasanian Empire, which revitalized the faith and standardized its teachings. In the 7th century CE, the rise of Islam and the ensuing Muslim conquest of Iran marked the beginning of the decline of Zoroastrianism. The persecution of Zoroastrians by the early Muslims in the nascent Rashidun Caliphate prompted much of the community to migrate to the Indian subcontinent, where they were granted asylum and became the progenitors of today's Parsis. Once numbering in the millions, the world's total Zoroastrian population is estimated to comprise between 110,000 and 120,000 people, with most of them residing either in India (50,000–60,000), in Iran (15,000–25,000), or in North America (22,000). The religion is thought to be declining due to restrictions on conversion, strict endogamy, and low birth rates.

Omnipotence is the property of possessing maximal power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence only to the deity of their faith. In the monotheistic religious philosophy of Abrahamic religions, omnipotence is often listed as one of God's characteristics, along with omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence.

Monotheism—the belief that there is only one deity—is a foundational tenet of the Abrahamic religions, which alike conceive God as the all-powerful and all-knowing deity from whom Abraham received a divine revelation, according to their respective narratives. The most prominent Abrahamic religions are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. They—alongside Samaritanism, the Druze Faith, the Baháʼí Faith, and Rastafari—all share a common belief in the Abrahamic God. Likewise, the Abrahamic religions share similar features distinguishing them from other categories of religions:

• all of their theological traditions are, to some extent, influenced by the depiction of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible, who is explicitly named Yahweh in Hebrew and Allah in Arabic;
• all of them trace their roots to Abraham as a common genealogical and spiritual patriarch.

In the Abrahamic tradition, God is one, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, and the creator of the universe. God is typically referred to with masculine grammatical articles and pronouns only, and is further held to have the properties of holiness, justice, omnibenevolence, and omnipresence. Adherents of the Abrahamic religions believe God is also transcendent, meaning he is outside of both space and time and therefore not subject to anything within his creation, but at the same time a personal God: intimately involved, listening to individual prayer, and reacting to the actions of his creatures.

The problem of evil, also known as the problem of suffering, is the philosophical question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God. There are currently differing definitions of these concepts. The best known presentation of the problem is attributed to the Greek philosopher Epicurus.

Besides the philosophy of religion, the problem of evil is also important to the fields of theology and ethics. There are also many discussions of evil and associated problems in other philosophical fields, such as secular ethics and evolutionary ethics. But as usually understood, the problem of evil is posed in a theological context.

A theodicy (from Ancient Greek θεός theos, "god" and δίκη dikē, "justice"), meaning 'vindication of God', is an argument in the philosophy of religion that attempts to resolve the problem of evil, which arises when all power (omnipotence) and all goodness (omnibenevolence) are attributed to God simultaneously.

Unlike a defense, which tries only to demonstrate that God and evil can logically coexist, a theodicy additionally provides a framework in which God and evil's existence are considered plausible. The German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz coined the term theodicy in his book Théodicée (1710), though numerous responses to the problem of evil had previously been offered.

The attributes of God are specific characteristics of God discussed in Christian theology. These include omniscience (the ability to know everything), omnipotence (the ability to do anything), and omnipresence (the ability to be present everywhere), which emphasize the infinite and transcendent nature of God. Additionally, God is often described as eternal (without beginning or end) and immutable (unchangeable), indicating a constant and perfect existence.

Other attributes include holiness (moral purity), rectitude (righteousness), justice (fairness), love (compassionate care for creation), mercy (forgiveness and kindness), and goodness (benevolent will toward others). God is also described as sovereign over creation.

Alvin Plantinga's free-will defense is a logical argument developed by the American analytic philosopher Alvin Plantinga and published in its final version in his 1977 book God, Freedom, and Evil. Plantinga's argument is a defense against the logical problem of evil as formulated by the philosopher J. L. Mackie beginning in 1955. Mackie's formulation of the logical problem of evil argued that three attributes ascribed to God (omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence) are logically incompatible with the existence of evil.