Solved Theodicy?

[robvalue]

Hello! This would be my first post here. Let me try to offer some alternatives:

1st, the reality of free will and God being all knowing doesn't have any contradiction. For, seeing contradiction here is to confuse the knower with a causer. An analogy can help us here. Scientist can well predict the weather, because they can know things from the sky by gathering information. We can therefore say the scientist are all knowing in this weather case. But, does it follow that the scientists are the ones who causes the storm or the good weather? Of course not. Same with God. God knows everything, even our choices and the consequences of our choice, without causing it.

2nd, we know that we cannot judge the whole plan based from the little we have. Borrowing some points from Bishop Robert Barron, suppose a page from the The Lord of the Rings have been separated from the book. Suppose too that that page was torn into pieces, such that a piece of it which has a paragraph where doesn't make any sense was read by someone. It will be unjust for the one who read that paragraph and to say something like that this is a senseless piece of writing which just show despair and suffering. So with the whole of God's plan. We can only look at the smallest detail of the whole history of creation which is still ongoing. We cannot therefore judge God's work with a small piece of what we know. Further, since the existence of God can be proved through sound argumentation, it follows that it is logical to believe His revelation, for He is all knowing and all good and therefore He can't lie and He knows all the correct answer to all questions. But, one of His revelation is the afterlife. If there is afterlife, then injustice and suffering and death will not have the last word.

Hello, welcome!

I find these analogies very flawed. To begin with, as is usual, God is being compared to a human and as such expected to be allowed the excuse of a human's lack of capabilities.

Scientists attempt to predict the weather. They do not know what the weather will be. God does know. And he did indeed cause it all, because he made all this, knowing what would happen. I don't know how he could be any more responsible. The constant efforts people make to try and relieve god's responsibility for his own creation seem to reveal the obvious gap between what one would expect and what one sees. Is this his plan, or not? He made it and he knows its future. Scientists neither made the weather, nor actually know its future. The anology doesn't work.

Secondly, you're suggesting God has some sort of restrictions and that if we understood them, suffering would make sense. If there are restrictions, either he made them himself, or they were imposed on him. In the first case he's still responsible. In the second he's not all powerful. Could he achieve whatever bizarre plan he wanted, with all of the positive outcomes, without the suffering? If yes, he's choosing the suffering. If no, he's not all powerful.

You can't have it both ways, I'm afraid.

What does he need with a plan, or outcomes? He can do anything, instantly. He has no barriers or adversaries.