Someone debate me

[Mister Agenda]

You two little mini superhero types should join forces and become some kind of fantastic duo.

Speaking of mini superheroes, it might be instructive to consider a fictional mini god, like Superman. Although Superman is much more powerful than any human, he is much less (infinitely less?) omniscient and omnipotent than Yahweh is supposed to be. Clearly, the world would have less suffering with Superman in it, as long as the bad guys of the DC pantheon aren't also present. Superman might face a dilemma in balancing his good deeds against the concern that humanity might become too dependent on him to rescue them, like being more careless in construction and pollution and security, and not solving problems they could tackle without him. That is, he could be concerned about stunting humanity's potential and being a moral hazard. So he might do less than he's capable of, prioritizing things like saving the village over capping the volcano or stopping the bombing but not the bomb factories. He would have to strike a balance, using his best (not omniscient but highly aware) judgement.

It seems clear that Superman would be acting immorally if he did not try to prevent some of the suffering that is in his power to stop, but he could be acting morally in not preventing ALL of the suffering that is in his power to stop.

In my opinion, answering the PoE while preserving theodicy, requires this sort of answer: that God is preventing all the suffering he can, consistent with not preventing so much suffering that it stifles our moral development or needed free will or some other highly-important good.

I think this is a very hard case to make, given the amount of suffering that seems so pointless. Superman would be a monster if he let children die by inches as they're slowly crushed by rubble after an earthquake, surely no matter his other concerns, he would save them, even if he didn't intervene in more rapid accidental deaths of children, or at least put them out of their misery.