In the traditional formulation of the problem of God and evil, great power--all power--omnipotence, is what we expect of God. If God were not omnipotent, then the evil that occurs in the world could not be blamed on God. This would be the case if God were unable to prevent evil, if for example, this were the best possible world. God’s omnipotence could not be challenged if we could see how the evil in the world was necessary, that there would be no way to avoid it.

What is it that we expect of God when we call him "omnipotent?"

Both Geach and Griffin would agree that God’s omnipotence is not such that he would be expected to bring about states of affairs expressed by any string of words, or by contradictions. Nor would God’s omnipotence be such that he would be expected to be able to bring about anything that was intrinsically possible.

Absolute Power. One view is that the omnipotence of God should be such that he has the power to do anything and everything--absolutely. In this meaning of omnipotence, our ability to formulate a word or phrase would be sufficient to indicate something that the all-powerful being can bring into existence or endow with meaning. So, God would have to be able to make a round square, or to make a bachelor identical to a married man. As the all-powerful being God would be able to bring about even the kind of impossibility that is based in inconceivability.

God would have to be able to give meaning to gibberish, a syntactically incoherent combination of words, a nonsense syllable or expression. Gibberish differs from an explicit contradiction that has a distinct opposition between the words of the combination. In a married-bachelor or a square-circle contradiction the words are distinctly opposed. Married is the opposite of bachelor and square is opposed to circle. In gibberish the connection is vague and is founded not upon the meaning and the referent but on the connection that any words have to each other in a combination precisely because they are words.

One reason supporting this view, that God should be able to make real whatever can be formulated in language, is the possibility that the logic of the Infinite is much different from our own. How can we say that the Infinite God must follow our human logic? Could it not be that in him all contradictions are reconciled? Could it not be that we are dealing with the polarity of good and evil, ideas that remind us of the duality and opposition with which we as creatures have to work. If we take seriously the oneness of God, then in a definite sense God is beyond all contradictions, and even beyond good and evil. It appears that we must make some concession to this aspect of the Infinite God.

Another reason that might lead someone to claim that God should be able to actualize anything that can be formulated in language is the way in which a discussion that ends up in a contradiction points to something mysterious and elusive about the subject. Note the way in which physicists look upon light both as a particle and as a wave. If our attempt to explain God’s nature should end up in a contradiction, that only points to his mysterious and inscrutable nature. In this view, we can reach his nature by way of mystical intuition.

A third reason is a conviction that limitation as such must be denied of God. To say that God could do the logically impossible is tantamount to saying that all limitation can be denied of God, that God can do anything or be anything, if he so desires. This view has a special attraction for fundamentalist type thinkers who would want God to have absolute power over anything and everything.

A fourth reason for thinking that God can bring about anything formulated in language is that in one way it solves the problem of evil. Evil is a problem for us only because of our limited knowledge. If God has unlimited power over all impossibilities and inconsistencies, then we need not worry about them in our explanation of the problem of evil, for God can overcome any and all contradictions. Although we might not be able to see through our inconsistencies, the all- powerful God who is not daunted by impossibilities would have the answer. The inconsistencies and contradictions in the problem would be just another class of impossibilities that the omnipotent God would surely overcome. We might not be able to spell out the answer to the problem, but we would know that there is an answer favorable to the good and all-powerful God, an answer that he would know. The impossibility that a good God produces evil, even without a reason, would be inconsequential. If God can do the impossible then he can reconcile any opposition between his goodness, his omnipotence and the existence of evil. As long as the critic sees the omnipotent God as being able to do anything, even the impossible, then the critic defeats himself. The impossibility of the existence of evil in a world created by a good and omnipotent God would be no real obstacle.

This view, that God should be able to bring about any and every state of affairs--absolutely, though attractive, is suspect and an oversimplification of the problem. On the surface, this position might be effective for a certain type of religious person who wants to defend God in the face of evil, but deep down it undermines all rational thinking of God. As far as we are concerned, the omnipotent God should not be expected to bring about any state of affairs--absolutely. This is so for two main reasons.

First, God, who is the source of all necessity, should not be expected to give real existence to whatever can be formulated in language. As far as we can tell, the words that express a nonsense phrase or a contradiction refer only to the reality of language as language. They refer to nothing real, to nothing beyond language. Ordinarily, when someone speaks incoherently to us we suspect an abnormality of some kind. We are inclined to think that the person is not himself and needs help. Incoherence and nonsense in a plan or proposal is a strong signal that we should deny approval.

If for us the contradictory has no distinct referent in reality, then we have no grounds for demanding that God should be able to bring it about. It is difficult to see why we should demand that God be able to do "what in itself cannot be done," as far as we can tell. We do not expect that one of our fellow creatures be able to do something that is described as "nothing." We do not hold it against our neighbor if he cannot bring into existence a contradiction which, in itself, does not allow the instantiation of something real.

To demand that God bring about the referent of nothing goes against reason. If we should expect God to bring about anything--absolutely--we expect God to violate the rule that requires every rational thinker to strive for consistency. And we have no choice here. No matter where one is working--in the physical or social sciences, or in philosophy--one cannot be satisfied with results that end up in contradictions. If we claimed that God could do the logically impossible, then we would be giving the logically impossible an undeserved respect and status. We would thereby undermine the rational endeavor to build up a knowledge of reality. The view of reason is that a contradiction cannot have a real distinct referent. It does not definitely refer to some reality beyond language before a distinction is made.

Attributing real existence to whatever can be formulated in language leads us beyond philosophy and into mysticism. The mystic uses contradictory and inconsistent explanations in the attempt to convey an intuition that cannot be articulated. After having a mystical intuition of God, Thomas Aquinas remarked that all the theology he had written seemed like straw. In this endeavor, if we stay with our conceptual approach and our logic, the chances are that we will be effectively silenced.

Silence, perhaps, is all for the good and in order here, for this epitome of the negative way in which words and concepts are acknowledged as expressing the Infinite God with woeful inadequacy is the next step in our search for insight into reality. We know that language and concepts are not ultimate in our effort to find reality--there is always a part of it that we know but cannot express in words. The frustrating experience of speaking of God in contradictory ways that lead to the silence of the mystics is similar to the stimulation of the Zen approach. It is not inconceivable that absurdities, such as God being able to make another God or God having the power to destroy himself, function as the Zen sound of one hand clapping or the visage of your face before you were born. Hopefully, the result will be a Zen "higher affirmation" and a realization of distinctions that will lead us to a deeper understanding of the Divinity.

The infinite power of the creator God is more properly expressed in his ability to make such distinctions that escape us, not in instantiating a type of negative concept. This appears also to be the proper role for the mystical.

From the philosophical point of view, we cannot accept that God’s omnipotence extends absolutely to anything at all, to the contradictory, to the inconceivable. God should not be expected to be able to do anything that can be expressed in language and be marked less than powerful for not bringing it about.

Contradictions. Contradictions are at the root of the many things God should not be expected to bring about. They show us what we cannot use to express God’s omnipotence. Some of them have a universal aspect, insofar as there is good reason for thinking that they can be recognized in any cultural paradigm found in our universe. The impossibilities of a married bachelor and a square circle, for example, have a special relationship to events and processes that are found in any culture. The possibilities and impossibilities arise from the cultural universals such as birth and death, the influence of the weather, health and illness, friendship and its loss, and a special relation between a human being and his/her mother or surrogate. All humans have these experiences. As we move from culture to culture, the impossibilities that are rooted in such experiences do not disappear, even though they might not be expressed in the same language or in what is ordinarily thought to be language. We might be dealing with some very basic realities of the universe that can escape the perception of a culture whose language is not ready for them. That the linguistic and cultural framework is not totally hostile or unreceptive to such impossibilities can be seen from the fact that we can readily move from one culture to another, learn and express somehow various impossibilities hitherto unrealized there, and teach others.

When we speak of a "bachelor," we must predicate "unmarried" of him. Although "married" and "bachelor" have meaning in themselves (as do "square" and "circle"), the attempt to put them together as a referring expression must fail. "For the past not to have existed" is another of these ideas. The very meaning of one of the terms, "past," is the opposite of "not to have existed." If we recognize the existence of the past (as we find in the example), then for it not to have existed is impossible.

The question as to whether God can make another God equal to himself involves the above kind of impossibility. In this medieval question, what is made must be in potency in some way, since it receives its existence from another. But, since it receives its existence from another, it cannot be in pure act, and pure act is proper to God. We can take the "made" other God as an infinite effect, but this infinite effect is in itself a contradiction. The very meaning of "effect" involves dependence upon a cause, and this would give it the status of a possibility that could receive existence. An infinite being, however, cannot be dependent on anything, is one, and cannot be a composed being. Hence, an infinite effect would be a contradiction.

Whatever is made by or dependent on another cause cannot be God, for God is understood here as the first cause who is made by no other. He is the wholly independent being. What is made by God "equal to himself" is not really equal to himself for it is made, an effect. It is dependent upon him and yet as equal would be independent. The trouble lies in the incompatibility of the terms "infinite" and "effect." Note how it is sometimes said that it is impossible to make the best possible world, if we take "world" as an effect and "best possible" as "the infinite being."

God cannot make a triangular figure that is unbounded, for "an unbounded figure bounded by three lines" is a contradiction; nor can God make an "unextended red thing," for to be red and to lack width and length is a contradiction. Nor . . . a cube with less than eight edges. The "possible world" in which they would hold would of necessity have a material basis, and in the case of the red thing, one with color. In an Aristotelian context, the triangle, the cube and the circle would also require a material world since we have to deal with lines as well as (in the cube and the circle) numbers.

It appears that the impossibility of restoring virginity to a person who lost it has something of this character. Keeping and losing virginity involves a temporal sequence. If God sees everything in an instant (atemporally) and grasps the priority of possessing virginity to losing it, then having it restored is irrelevant. The loss of virginity is marked by its instant in a way similar to Socrates sitting at this moment. Though both are contingent events, both give rise to a necessity. Once viginity is lost, it cannot be restored, just as supposing Socrates is sitting at this instant, he cannot be standing at the same instant. The presupposition of turning time back appears to be founded on the basis of real possibility.

Possibles. In the above views we can see that there are some worlds which God is not expected to bring about. If God is not expected to bring about the impossible, then we have no grounds for blaming him if he does not do so. We must then bring our concept of God’s omnipotence in line with such findings. One distinction that plays a central role in a better understanding of what we should expect of God is that between the possible as conceivable and the possible as real.

The possible as conceivable. This is often called the intrinsically possible or the logically possible. It is possible because in it we see no contradiction. But I believe there is more to it than that. What can be seen as not contradictory in itself can lead to a contradiction.

The possible in itself and what leads to a contradiction are rooted in contexts, in theoretical frameworks, some of which are more complex than others. What is impossible in a system depends on the laws of the system. Which system we are in does not matter as long as we judge the impossibilities from the principles and complexities of that order. This kind of possibility has to be considered in a particular world, its conceivability depending on whatever laws apply in that world.

In a science fiction world, for example, there might be no humans and, hence, no contradictions such as the married bachelor. A world without matter would contain no circle or square, and no time. In a science fiction world with different natural laws, what we let go from our hand might go up, not down. Ice might not cool, and the sun might not heat. The trouble with considering such worlds is that what appears as merely conceivable might not be actualized, or upon further insight it might lead to a contradiction. We might not be able to imagine a world in which the conceivable exists without such difficulties, or to imagine it at all.

It seems quite clear that, speaking absolutely, God can bring about such conceivable worlds. While it is true that in the traditional theist view our own world is the world that God has chosen, we do not know how long our world will exist. There is nothing preventing God from annihilating this world and bringing into existence one of those other worlds. His power extends to them. Whether or not he should actualize one or other of them is an interesting question. Certainly, we would not opt for one in which humans did not exist.

Here it must be noted that there is a way in which anything we conceive is based in this world out of all conceivable worlds. All our concepts arise from our existence in this world. We can talk of possible worlds only insofar as we can project them from our knowledge of this world. If we change the laws and articulate a science fiction world, whatever concepts we develop still have roots in our own world. Hence, there is good reason to think that a special status is to be given to what can be conceived and what leads to a contradiction in the present world, to what goes against the present laws of the universe as we know them.

Many critics of the good and omnipotent God ignore the importance of the distinction between the possible as conceivable and the possible as real; they thereby muddy the waters of omnipotence. They propose aspects of a system different from the present one, as they discuss the improvements God should have made in the world. They ask that God create a world in which humans do no evil, that God perform more miracles to do away with evils, that God give humans a stronger propensity to virtue, that God warn us of pending disasters. They ask that man not have to struggle for his knowledge and not have to suffer excruciating pain at times . . . that man be able to develop virtue and appreciate the good without suffering. Such changes involve profound modifications in the world as we know it.

Can God produce such modifications? It seems so, for the only states of affairs that he cannot bring about are what involve a contradiction or presuppositions. Surely, God could have made a world without human beings--there is no necessary connection between humans and existence. God could have created a world with human-like creatures who were not free. But who would opt for a world without humans or one in which we were not free?

There is also a sense in which God should be able to do what is impossible in the light of the present natural laws. By operating according to a law, element, or relation hitherto unrecognized by us, he could bring about what appears to us to lead to a contradiction. We might call such events miracles. And although God should be able to do whatever is in accordance with the laws of our own world, this does not mean that he must do so.

We grant that God should be able to bring about a kind of "impossible" by operating according to a law or relation hitherto unknown to man, or that he should be able to bring about something that requires an enhanced character of what already exists. We claim, however, that even if this is so, he would not have an obligation to do so and we would have no grounds to blame him if he did not do so. For we would be demanding that God do something which is beyond the capacity of nature as we know it. That he would do that should be gratuitous and not because of any obligation.

Here we will comment on seven different aspects or modifications to the meaning of God’s omnipotence.

In the context of moral evil, according to Plantinga, God could not create a world in which a person chose to accept a bribe and yet always did the right thing. This means that it is also possible that in any and every world of free beings God would actualize, there would be one or more persons who would do one or more evil actions. A person, indeed, everybody, might suffer from "transworld depravity." Hence, it is possible that God cannot actualize a world in which truly free creatures do only what is morally good. It is also possible that God cannot actualize a world in which there is less moral evil than in our own world, and the same amount of good. If humans are truly free, then it would be wholly up to man to determine whether he/she does what is right or what is wrong. The state of affairs which God can bring about, his omnipotence, is conditioned by human decisions.

Plantinga’s position must be understood within the context of God’s power to give a creature something it does not require in virtue of what it is. It is conceivable that God see to it that a human never do anything wrong in her life by taking away her free will. But this would take away her status as a human being. It is also conceivable that he could preserve her freedom as he influenced her with special divine help. In such a case, God’s help would be a gift, something to which she really had no right. Although it is conceivable that God should help everyone in this way, this would be likewise gratuitous and make it more difficult to appreciate the value of good actions done at a sacrifice.

Indeed, it is conceivable that man be tempted, yet not sin. It is conceivable that God could have made a world in which human beings were free and did not sin. In a way this would be really possible, in accord with what we know of the present world, if we accept the existence of saints. In another way, this would be really possible in a special sense, for a saint is such only because she has received something beyond her nature, a special grace or gift from God. Such a world would be one in which man as we know him would not exist. A profoundly different human being would walk this earth, a person of greater dignity.

The problem with this kind of world arises from the characteristics that are beyond what we expect of humans, the things that we might be but are not, the possible worlds that we can conceive--these cannot be the basis of a demand that anyone, including God, bring them into existence. We would have a reason to complain to God for not giving us something that we expect as a human, e.g. eyes that see or legs that allow us to walk: Or . . . if God, without reason, permanently took away our freedom or our consciousness. However, it is really unjust to fault him for not freely giving us something to which we have no right. There is no basis for the claim that man has a right to whatever is conceivable, and that we should call God less than good or less than all powerful if he does not bring it about. Those who demand that God give humans whatever is conceivable are off the mark.

Other instances in which God would give us something we did not deserve in virtue of our nature as humans would be his seeing to it that we never die, or that we are able to fly. If he did so, in effect he would be bestowing upon us a new status. Immortality would be an elevation to a new level of existence, and being able to fly like a bird would make humans into something beyond what they are. Surely, the claim that God should have created man with a greater inclination to resist temptation is in this class.

Indeed, it is conceivable that man be tempted and not sin, but this conceivability does not give rise to an obligation on the part of the Creator. We have no right to call God less than good or less than omnipotent if he does not protect us in this way. Just as we cannot rightfully ask that God create a world in which we never die, or a world in which we can flap our arms and fly, so, too, we cannot demand that he preserve us from sin.

At the heart of this question is God’s freedom, that perfection which the Creator should have. God should be able freely to give or deny something without conforming to any obligation to do so. If we accept the basis of God’s action as his goodness which alone necessitates his will, then nothing other than God’s goodness can be a criterion for judging any of his actions. That is, we cannot judge the Creator by the worlds that he could have produced but did not. We cannot call him less than good because he has not made humans with a stronger bias toward good or a better knowledge of himself.

We are dealing here with the distinction between the order of nature and the order of grace. If we insist that God was obliged to give what religious people call the gift of grace, then we destroy its nature as a gift. How can it be a gift if it had to be given? What God gives is his to give or not to give. It is actualized at God’s will, accordingly as God freely chooses to do so or not. Nobody can demand that God actualize such a possibility under penalty of being called less than all powerful or less than all good.

The point is that the perfect God should have the perfection of being able to genuinely give something, that is, to give it of his own free will. This precludes his being obliged to do so. To obligate God to give us something that is not due us would make it impossible for him to give something merely because he wanted to give it. If we claim that he is not good or not powerful because he did not give it, then we effectively deny that perfection to him.

In answer to the question, "Could God have made a world of men who did not sin?" we have to answer, "Yes." And yet, we cannot rightfully call God less than good or less than omnipotent if he does not do so. We cannot say that God is not good because although he could have given each of us a special power to avoid doing any evil action, he did not do so. What God can do in the order of grace is conceivable, but in no way can be the foundation of an obligation.

We do not accept Griffin’s "independent" entities nor his rejection of the traditional creation. However, our own view agrees with the non-absolute character of Plantinga’s and Griffin’s views. We propose here a traditional theist variation which would have the complex and multivariant nature of the world justified by its contribution to our knowledge of the divinity. God created the many different creatures in the world, each with its own nature, to manifest the infinite richness of his being and to give humans a better means of getting some idea of it. Our true goal is to gain an insight into the divine being, the mystery of all mysteries, as we live together with all other entities of the world. This means that humans are not absolutely the highest beings in existence. God allows the entities of the world to function according to their natures. The various creatures that might harm us have, then, a kind of right to exist and act according to their nature, and it is not unusual that we suffer evil when we cross their paths.

5. Can God make something that he cannot destroy? We know that it is logically possible that a human make something that he cannot destroy. For God, however, this would be another impossibility that would not lessen his omnipotence. Any created being receives its existence from God who at any time can withdraw it and annihilate the creature. To say that God could never destroy a creature would be to say that the creature had existence in its own right (independent existence), and existence not in its own right (dependent existence)--existence due to God--at the same time. This would be a contradiction. A similar kind of argument can be used to show that it is impossible for God to make something too heavy for him to lift. Such a creature would then be greater than God and, as a creature dependent on him, it would be less than God: Again . . . a contradiction. Or, it could be seen as a contradiction because the Creator would see to it that the object had dependent existence and independent existence at the same time. In the strange request of the spiritual God lifting something or moving a material object from place to place, we could conceive of him removing existence from it in one place and giving it existence in another. In this sense a thing that God could not lift would be a contradiction.

6. Could God bring about a world in which ‘humans’ were not free but were mere automotons? We do not see anything preventing God from having the power to bring about a world wherein everything, including man, is rigidly determined. In such a universe, it would be impossible for humans to do anything other than what they do. It would be a world in which there is no freedom, a world in which whatever happens, happens necessarily, and what does not happen is impossible.

If the world were so determined, then the evil that men do to their fellowmen would not be really attributable to them, but is to be blamed on God who set up the rigid system of cause and effect. Of course, in such a world it would be questionable whether humans were really humans--rather, we would be more like robots without responsibility, definitely a lesser kind of being. Although we cannot prove that our universe is so determined, nor that our projects are to proceed in such a way, we still see that God the Creator could bring about such a world.

7. All of this supposes that God has a special comprehensive knowledge which gives him power over the epistemic impossibility that limits human knowledge. Epistemic impossibility arises from man’s inability to know some things that are theoretically knowable, e.g the number of snowflakes that fall in a storm, which, though knowable in itself, is beyond the known epistemic powers of humans. However, nothing is noetically impossible for God. We do not accept the view of the process philosophers who claim that God cannot know the future because the future does not exist.

Since God knows everything, he can know what appears as an exception to the laws of nature. God could know a particular refinement of a law of nature or even another law of nature that is as yet unknown to humans. This can be considered the basis of a special power over the order of nature which allows him to bring about what we ordinarily call miracles.

In the above pages, we have noted a number of things that God cannot do and is not expected to do, and hence should not be blamed for not doing. We believe that their metaphysical basis is sound.

Where does this leave us? What is the meaning of God’s power? How is God omnipotent? A possible answer follows:

God ought not to be expected to bring about any state of affairs whatsoever, such as contradictions and the meaningless, or a purely arbitrary morality.

God can withdraw his existence from this world and bring about what we would call a science fiction world with laws markedly different from our present laws.

God as Creator of the world has set the order of the world. He has decided to create this world rather than some other. He can preserve the world or annihilate it and bring into existence a world other than our own.

God could have brought about ‘humans’ who had no freedom, who were creatures subject to a rigid determinism.

God’s power presupposes a profound knowledge of the future.

God can draw creatures to himself as the ideal, the good, the perfect.

God has the power to give us a true gift, something that goes beyond what we have and expect as humans. This is sometimes expressed as the power to raise man above his nature. Among these gifts which God can but need not bestow are the strengthening of a person in virtue, the protection of a person from doing anything morally wrong, the guarantee of our existence after death, the enlightenment of humans by a special revelation.

The meaning of God’s power to overcome evil is a challenge. It seems to depend upon the willingness of humans to commit themselves by reason and faith to seek out and bring about all that is good and true.

In the next chapter we will consider the power of God to bring about the best possible world.

1. Nel Noddings, Women and Evil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 24-25.

2. David Griffin, Evil Revisited--Responses and Reconsiderations (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), pp. 100, 156.

3. Alan Watts, Nature, Man, and Woman (New York: Vintage, 1970), p. 43.

4. David Griffin, Evil Revisited, p. 55.

5. Peter Geach, Providence and Evil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 3-5.

6. Thomas Flint and Alfred Freddoso, "Maximal Power," The Existence and Nature of God, ed. Alfred Freddoso (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), p. 84.

7. "Two Strands in Natural Theology," Process and Divinity, ed. Wm. Reese and Eugene Freeman (La Salle, Ill. Open Court, 1964), p. 486.

8. Leibniz, Theodicy,Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil, ed. A. Farrer, trans. E. M. Huggard (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951), par. 176, 181-183. pp. 236-237, 240-241.

9. Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, trans. James Anderson (Garden City: Doubleday, 1956), II, 25.

10. Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1964), pp. 60-61.

11. Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, II, 25.

12. Cf. E.J. Khamara, "In Defense of Omnipotence," The Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 112 (July, 1978), pp. 215-228.

13. Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 150.

14. Thomas Aquinas, De potentia, Quaestiones disputatae, cura P. Bazzi et. al. (Taurini: Marietti, 1949), vol. II, q. 1, art. 5, c.

15. Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism, p. 150.

16. Aquinas, De potentia, q. 1, art. 5, c.

17. William McMahon, "The Problem of Evil, and the Possibility of a Better World," J. of Value Inquiry, vol. 25 (1969), pp. 81-90. Pp. 86-87.

18. Griffin, Evil Revisited, p. 91.

19. Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), pp. 43-57.

20. Cf. Antony Flew, "Divine Omnipotence and Human Freedom," New Essays in Philosophical Theology, ed. A. Flew and A. MacIntyre (london: SCM Press, 1955), pp. 144-169.

21. David Ray Griffin, p. 59.

22. Ibid., p. 57.

23. Ibid.

24. Griffin, God, Power, and Evil (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), p. 268.

25. Griffin, Evil Revisited, p. 99.

26. Ibid., p. 103.

27. Ibid., p. 104.

28. Cf. Peter Geach, Providence and Evil, p. 15.