God can be God without being all three of the following: all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving.

[RINO Tom]

"God," as the term is used in literally 99.9% of instances, mostly refers to one abstract entity - the creator of the Universe and "first cause" for the material existence in which we find ourselves.  I suppose it is entirely hypothetically possible for God not to check all of those boxes, but most philosophical exercises trying to imagine what such a being would be like leads you naturally toward believing "God" is all three, IMO.  The third one is the most open-ended, but as far as #1 and #2:

1. For God not to be "all-powerful," one of two things would have to be true; either there is another "bulk Universe" or whatever that contains God Himself or God purposely limited what "powers" He has to act upon the Universe.  In the case of the first, you could argue God is "not God," as something else would have had to impose rules on God ... and that would really be "God," wouldn't it?  As far as the second scenario, if God imposed those limits on Himself, could He not just get rid of them at any time?

2. Regarding being all-knowing, I believe He would have to be all-knowing, at least as it relates to the existence we are aware of.  Such a God would have created time and space, and this being's perception of both would be as an "outsider."  It is a literal necessity that this God would have access to moments of time as a dimension, ala the end of Interstellar with the bookcase, and this would logically include the future.  I would have to know all of the rules and possibilities to a board game that I created, and the thoughts of my hypothetically sentient board game pieces would be so laughably limited to contemplate this.

[RINO Tom]

The whole Bible can be read as an extended solution to the "problem of evil." 

God works on cosmic rather than worldly scales.  Any pain or suffering that humans experience in this life is extremely fleeting in comparison to the whole of eternity.  God has secured eternity for us through the atoning work of the cross.  Christus Victor!  O death, where is thy sting? 

Why didn’t God just create us all already in heaven then? What’s the point of the brief prelude in this evil-ridden world?

Would ANYTHING good have a true, meaningful value without something bad?  I genuinely do not think so.

[RINO Tom]

The whole Bible can be read as an extended solution to the "problem of evil." 

God works on cosmic rather than worldly scales.  Any pain or suffering that humans experience in this life is extremely fleeting in comparison to the whole of eternity.  God has secured eternity for us through the atoning work of the cross.  Christus Victor!  O death, where is thy sting? 

Why didn’t God just create us all already in heaven then? What’s the point of the brief prelude in this evil-ridden world?

Would ANYTHING good have a true, meaningful value without something bad?  I genuinely do not think so.

Well, even if that’s true, the problem is that much of the evil that currently exists and has historically existed in the world seems extremely excessive for these purposes; after all, if the amount of good and evil in the world were perfectly balanced by God to bring out “true, meaningful value”, then how could all of our efforts to reduce human suffering — many of which have of course been very successful — be morally justified?

(I'm not speaking of the "Judeo-Christian God" here, necessarily - more vague.)

I just think that applying this type of logic - while theoretically sound as far as human reasoning goes - to a being that created the very logic you are using has an inherent problem.  I admit that is sort of a "mind " or even a copout, but it also makes sense.  Whatever being theoretically created the Universe, EVERY single thought we have would ultimately derive from some base material/idea that did not exist before the moment of creation.  For all I know, in the absolute grand scheme of things that encompasses whatever multiverses might exist or whatever extra-dimensional realms there are or whatever, the suffering in our world isn't extreme at all.

[RINO Tom]

^ Good post.  If anyone, religious or irreligious, is thinking of "God" as anything less than a practically incomprehensible, non-physical consciousness/intelligence that exists outside of space-time, he is already lost in this philosophical exercise.  There is no Post-Axial Age religion that does not present "God" as the primal and eternal first cause of existence ... using independent human logic to try to come up with rules or regulations for such a being is kind of a fool's errand.  What religions claim is to have some sort of (very limited, in the grand scheme of things) insight into the character (or extra-dimensional equivalent, I suppose) of such a being ... not its metaphysical makeup or practical limitations.

[RINO Tom]

What are your thoughts on this topic?

If God is not omnipotent, then there is an open question as to whether a more powerful being than God exists. This seems to contradict a typical definition of God as a being of which there can be nothing greater.

If God is not omnibenevolent, then there is a similar open question as to whether there exists a more morally good being than God. And if we think being morally good is an attribute of excellence or perfection or greatness, then we get the same contradiction of the possibility of a more excellent or more perfect or greater being than God existing.

The replies to this thread seem to be defining God as omnibenevolent but beyond human knowledge, which is not strictly denying God is perfectly good. But I think this creates a different problem of radically destabilising human relationship to God. If we don't know whether lying is evil or good according to God, we don't know if God is lying to us through his revelation and could pull Uno reverse on divine promises and reward the wicked and faithless and damn faithful people to eternal torture for no reason. There would be no surety that any human action has any relation to any part of God's will or judgement at all, therefore no certain reason for doing anything in relation to God.

I think many people are attracted to theism because God provides some explanation or order to the universe and their own lives. God being beyond our moral understanding opens the door to a radically arbitrary universe where nothing happens for any reason at all.

I'm not saying this doesn't make me a bit uncomfortable, but I would not necessarily say it is unrealistic.  Personally, I believe in a "God" (using this term for simplicity's sake) because I happen to find that the most logical explanation for the Universe existing.  The rest is just "working from that point on."