To admit that God uses power is to concede that God has problems, needs and physical challenges. Why drown the human race with a flood? Why not just make them disappear? Why make the earth split open to swallow the followers of Korah? (Numbers 16) Why not just whisper to Moses to expel them from the tribe? (One answer is that maybe God gets a kick out of seeing people tortured in horrible ways—“That’ll show you not to question the authority of Moses!” That certainly weakens the claim of omnibenevolence.)
