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Looking for help with an ancient theological puzzle

"Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; Or he can, but does not want to; Or he cannot and does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. But, if God both can and wants to abolish evil, then how come evil is in the world?"  Epicurus (341-270 bce)


This quote was offered today in the comment threads of one of my earlier posts. 'Martin' suggested that this mystery cannot be solved without  one "miring themselves in confused, byzantine, and self-contradictory poraxisms of illogic."

I would appreciate some input from others in the blogosphere in formulating an answer to this question, either in the form of suggested reading or perhaps a proposed answer that you might wish to propose.

I responded by suggesting that the problem inherent in this conundrum is that it imposes on God the limitation of existing in time - a conclusion I tried to back up using Einstein's formula of relativity (something that I have been pondering for a while as it seems to support classical formulations on the qualities of God)

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