Omnipotence in the context of "Natural evil"

Omnibenevolence is the property of possessing maximal goodness. Some philosophers, such as Epicurus, have argued that it is impossible, or at least improbable, for a deity to exhibit such a property alongside omniscience and omnipotence, as a result of the problem of evil. However, some philosophers, such as Alvin Plantinga, argue the plausibility of co-existence.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

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.

Sovereignty of God in Christianity can be defined as the right of God to exercise his ruling power over his creation. Sovereignty can include also the way God exercises his ruling power. However this aspect is subject to divergences notably related to the concept of God's self-imposed limitations. The correlation between God's sovereignty and human free will is a crucial theme in discussions about the meaningful nature of human choice.

Conceptions of God in classical theist, monotheist, pantheist, and panentheist traditions – or of the supreme deity in henotheistic religions – can extend to various levels of abstraction:

• as a powerful, personal, supernatural being, or as the deification of an esoteric, mystical or philosophical entity or category;
• as the "Ultimate", the summum bonum, the "Absolute Infinite", the "Transcendent", or Existence or Being itself;
• as the ground of being, the monistic substrate, that which we cannot understand; and so on.

The first recordings that survive of monotheistic conceptions of God, borne out of henotheism and (mostly in Eastern religions) monism, are from the Hellenistic period. Of the many objects and entities that religions and other belief systems across the ages have labeled as divine, the one criterion they share is their acknowledgment as divine by a group or groups of human beings.

The right hand of God is a phrase used in the Bible and common speech as a metaphor for the omnipotence of God and as a motif in art. In the Bible, to be at the right side "is to be identified as being in the special place of honor". In "The Sheep and the Goats", one of the parables of Jesus, the sheep and goats are separated with the sheep on the right hand of God and the goats on the left hand.

It is also a placement next to God in Heaven, in the traditional place of honor, mentioned in the New Testament as the place of Christ at Mark 16:19, Luke 22:69, Matthew 22:44 and 26:64, Acts 2:34 and 7:55, 1 Peter 3:22 and elsewhere. These uses reflect use of the phrase in the Old Testament, for example in Psalms 63:8 and 110:1.The implications of this anthropomorphic phrasing have been discussed at length by theologians, including Saint Thomas Aquinas.

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.