ABSTRACT
Several theodicies solve the problem of evil by suggesting that God's power is limited and that God is therefore incapable of eliminating evil. A denial of the third affirmation, of the complete benevolence of God, will likewise dispel the problem of evil, but at the expense of our traditional concept of God. Generating a theodicy is particularly difficult for the Judaeo-Christian tradition, because it has maintained three affirmations about God: evil exists; God is all powerful; and God is completely benevolent. A variation of the harmony theodicy would be to admit that there is no universal harmony at present, but to maintain that there will be one sometime in the future, and the present distress is necessary in order to bring about this future harmony. The hypothesis of karma violates the hypothesis of omnipotence and thus bypasses rather than resolves theodicy.
