The Problem of Evil (XXVII)

[SteveII]

Steve, I question the notion that natural evil is necessary for gaining knowledge of God. That knowledge could be inherent as in the case of angelic beings.  For that reason, I do not consider your premise for proposed theodicy a sound one. I find the free will argument more persuasive but only when coupled with the notion that because God is eternal He cannot have middle knowledge. For God there is no past or future. Every moment is fully present. So the idea that He knows what anyone will do in the future doesn’t make any sense. He only knows what potentials a free agent will actualize as it is doing it. To paraphrase something I read elsewhere – “God knows what we will do tomorrow, but he doesn’t know it today. He already knows it tomorrow.”

I don't think comparing humans and angels against natural evil give us any conclusions. A couple of differences:

1. Angels appear to have knowledge of God because of personal interaction since their creation (there was no time they did not know God). 
2. Angels are spiritual beings and as such, do not live in a universe full of things that can harm them. It is not clear that we can deny that experiencing, witnessing, or contemplating harm does not add to one's knowledge of God. 

We will have to agree to disagree at this time on the view of God's middle knowledge. However, I think that if God has middle knowledge, that strengthens the argument for permitting naturally-caused suffering.