The Problem of Good

[GUBU]

If they're understood, they aren't mysterious. It's a tautology.

I'm not great with words, but I think you've misused the word "tautology."  Perhaps you mean that I've used a contradiction of terms?  Anyway, I'm using the word mystery in the sense of something that was previously hidden (a mystery) but has now been revealed.

This is just a matter of spin. You can spin anything to sound good or bad. Concepts of mercy and justice are going to have contexts. It stops being simply "good" when it's weighted against the notion of an all powerful being that can take any action.

Sure, and the context here is our legal debt before God as a result of breaking His law.  If He is merciful to us and forgives us our legal debt that is a good action.  If He justly punishes us for our lawbreaking, that is good too.

This is even further complicated when other actions can be depicted as "merciful" or "just". For example: is an abortion merciful? If it sends the soul straight to heaven by bypassing all the suffering on earth, it would certainly seem that way. Does this make the end result "good"? Is killing someone just? It brings them immediately before God's perfect justice. Does that make the end result "good"?

This is an excellent illustration of the compatibilist fee will we have been talking about.  A person makes a choice to kill an unborn child.  God chooses to be merciful and redeem that child and thus brings him/her into His presence for all eternity.  The action the person did was wrong and he/she is accountable for it.  The action God did was good and He is responsible for it.  The wills of the two beings involved are compatible.

Now to address the question: is an abortion merciful?  Within our context [of mercy] the person choosing to have the abortion isn't the one being merciful (mercy is a result of being forgiven the legal debt to God).  Therefore no, an abortion is not merciful.  If you want to expand the context of 'mercy' to include 'preventing suffering,' then sure it could be considered merciful.  Although that definition is misleading.  First, it makes it appear as if a wrong action is right only from the assumption that a life of 'no suffering' is better than a life involving suffering.  Second, there is the problem of foreknowledge.  How do you know it's better for a person to not be born?  You can't.  Maybe the child who was killed would have developed a renewable energy source that eliminated poverty.  Would it not then be more merciful to let the child live [to alleviate the suffering of the impoverished]?  

The end does not justify the means.  The end (a child in heaven) does not justify the means (murder).  This is ultimately an abuse of God's mercy.  Doing a wrong knowing that God will right it, doesn't make the wrong right.

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Well then, we don't have fee will if he exists. Free will entails giving us independent action, which limits gods ability to know everything. For god to know everything every single action by every single thing must be set in stone at the very instant of creation, which negates the possibility of free will.

You're confusing foreknowledge and determinism.  If I, living in the United States, somehow was able to know what a Russian woman was going to eat for breakfast tomorrow, does that mean that I determined what she was going to eat?  No.  Foreknowledge of a free-will choice does not determine the choice.  I do agree that at the moment of creation every single choice is set in stone, but again, a being's knowledge of future events does not necessitate he/she has causally determined said events.

I'm not confusing foreknowledge and determinism, you're just redefining words to try and make impossibilities possible. As Lorenz showed even small variations will quickly baloon out in unforeseen and unforseeable ways. And giving about 20bn people free will is introducing masses of huge changes into the system.