A loving and omnipotent God whose goal is the reconciliation of the world need only prevent every harm that not even omnipotence could repair at some future time.

So what, theoretically, would make things right or fully satisfy justice in the event that someone should commit murder or otherwise act wrongly? Whereas the Augustinians insist that justice requires punishment, other religious writers insist that justice requires something very different, namely reconciliation and restoration (see, for example, Marshall, 2001). Only God, however, has the power to achieve true restoration in the case of murder, because divine omnipotence can resurrect the victims of murder just as easily as it can the victims of old age. According to George MacDonald, whose re...