“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
This is a position many atheists smugly assume.
"Is good willing to prevent evil, but not able?" Perhaps his is willing and actively is preventing evil but our perceptions are so limited in scope and so speculative of short-term futures that we cannot fathom what a Divine Plan may be on an eternal scale encompassing all humanity.
Ex. Assume that the legends are true and that Lucifer thought himself better than God, led a rebellion against Him, failed, and the supporters of the insurrection were banished to a place without God--Hell. Hell would thus be a place without anything resembling dignity, grace, compassion, etc., and possibly become a realm representing a perverse view of the opposite. If God is omnipotent and all-loving, he would feel great pain that His creations lived in such a state. What if this realm in its entirety was meant to become a battleground between Good and Evil; that the Master Plan, so complex, serves the ultimate and unavoidable purpose of making Lucifer, all his followers and all souls that rejected God realize their error to such an extent that they repent? If God is all-forgiving, He'd welcome them into Heaven for all eternity.
Hell would then be a self-constructed prison for those who reject God and what He stands for--but a temporary prison. For perfection would demand that no creation exist in there forever. For all we know, the evils on earth are mere variables that God accounted for which may possibly be due solely to Lucifer's interferance. If this is the case, God allows evil and yet is doing something about it beyond our comprehension that may result in its utter annihilation someday. Since we cannot know one way or another, putting a limitation on God himself as the original claim "Is God willing but not able?" that the rest of this train of thought is manifestly false.
We cannot know, but some atheists think they do.
"Is he able and not willing?" Let's assume this question to be true. Perhaps evil caused by man is a consequence of Free Will and OUR responsibility to deal with. Philosophers have been arguing for centuries if this validates/justifies the absence of benevolent deific intervention. Those arguing on defense of God make a far better more compelling case.
"Is he neither able nor willing?" Sounds like a leading question to me. Is He? What if He is able and willing? Well then I guess it's a perfectly justified reason to call Him God.
