Epicurus riddle.

[Mudhammam]

The riddle doesn't account for the notion that this is the best of all possible worlds. It also doesn't address the role of kenosis, if there is one.

I can easily imagine better possible worlds. A start would include the elimination of natural evil, such as excessive suffering and death as a necessary mechanism for the evolution of species, and catastrophes such as tsunamis, tornadoes, earthquakes, etc. Even if you argue that suffering of this sort, that a more perfect God could easily rid the world of (as we are told in many religious traditions that eventually he will), is needed for greater acts of goodness to be realized, it still remains unreasonable to believe that none of the evil observed could have been reduced without the loss of opportunity for such acts. Of course, your point is valid if you concede that God is not omnipotent. Otherwise, you can only hold out on faith that the simplest and most evident explanation is incorrect, though consequently this is by definition an irrational belief to hold.

To clarify my earlier post, objections that rely on the Problem of Evil fail to undermine the Sovereignty and Might of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Taken collectively, the following clarifications show that the objections are naïve, at best:

The supposed refutation presupposes that God may act contrary to order. Unlike the pagan notions of the Divine, our Lord does not govern His creation by magic; but rather, according to an order that reflects His own intelligibility (Romans 1:20, Psalm 19: 1-6).

If that's the case, that God's creation is "according to an order that reflects His own intelligibility," we should not expect to find ourselves inhabiting an atom in which the infinite amount of space surrounding us is both hostile and chaotic. Aside from the fact that it is only due to our ability to adapt that we are able to survive what are otherwise rather harsh conditions, we actually cannot adapt to basically anywhere else in the known universe, minus these few continents that we do indeed possess. So, appearances would suggest that creation reflects anything but the work of an orderly, intelligent, or benevolent creator... at least insofar as it concerns human beings and any judgments we are able to make about morality, beauty, order, etc.

By necessity, the creation cannot equal or exceed the perfection of God. (Revelation 1:8, Isaiah 43:10) Without some privation, creation would be a second God identical in all ways, a violation of the Law of Identity.

If you cannot imagine some privation without the excessive and unnecessary suffering present in the world, you lag even behind the ancient who fantasized Isaiah 11:6.

A world with the possibility of voluntary love is better than one in which love is compelled or absent. (Duet 10:12, 1 John 4:7, John 15:12, John 3:16)

Non-sequitur

Our Lord is Just and will restore His order when disrupted by either moral or natural order (Rev 21:4, Job 34:12)

My first paragraph rebuts this to the extend that it requires blind faith in an elaborate scheme in place of a far simpler explanation, but even if it were true, it wouldn't establish the necessity of most or all of the present disorder.

The Passion of Our Lord shows that He does not stand aloof from our pain; but rather participates in it (Matthes 27:32-56). Pain is a given; suffering is optional.

Non-sequitur.

Additionally, the argument tacitly accepts that there are moral absolutes. If the skeptic holds that moral values and judgments can be mitigated by circumstance then he places his own incredulity above Divine Judgments.

I don't know what you're trying to say here, but why shouldn't there be moral absolutes simply because there is no God, whether he's omnipotent and morally indifferent or evil, or benevolent but restricted in his powers? If you mean that we're not in a position to determine good and evil, without divine guidance, you're argument is simply question begging, and further, it disallows yourself from making any such judgments.

Clearly, you have failed to invalidate Epicurus' paradox.