Theofane's comments contradict the notion of free will, hence my question. Reiterating the premise of the problem doesn't answer it.
He doesn't inflict anything on us. Suffering exists because sin exists. And sin exists because the devil exists. I know the common question is "Why doesn't God just remove the devil then?". Because as you stated in response to your first question... free will.
First, God is omnipotent, so he
de dicto necessarily can get anything he wants. If he what he wants is to remove the devil's influence without violating free will, he can do that. So if the devil and sin exist, it can only be because God wants them to.
Second, that question wouldn't be the first I'd ask. The first question I'd ask is, "Why make the devil in the first place, if he knew it would fundamentally pollute everything?".
Finally, remember what it was I was responding to: Theofane (and John 9) claimed that God was actively maiming people so that others would have a chance to act charitably. Theofane cited John 9, and implied that God actively maims people so that others would have to rush to their aid, and thus have a chance to display God-like qualities. So whatever happened to free will? Why didn't the maimed individual get a choice in the matter? If free will is so iron-clad that even God refuses to touch it, why is it so carelessly (and callously!) ignored in this instance?
If he stopped anything from happening like the apple being bitten. Then we wouldn't have free will because He would have interfered.
That's a trade I'd be willing to make. I'd happily, gladly, instantly and without second thoughts, trade in my free will if it meant even a single child could be forever free of suffering.
Besides, God stops plenty of things from happening. He actively designed the human brain in such a way that I cannot comprehend objects in four spatial dimensions. It's just impossible for my brain to do. Does that inability mean I have no free will? Probably not. So why couldn't God do the same thing with, say, murder, or rape? Why not make those actions just utterly incomprehensible, so that the human brain would never be able to even consider the notion? We'd still have free will - "Chicken or fish? Rowing or cycling? Art or science? Christianity or atheism or Islam or...?" - and there'd be much less suffering in the world.
So just like that, I, a mere mortal, have come up with a way to remove human-caused suffering
and maintain free will (or keep it as intact as it is now, at least). Why couldn't God have done that?
So that above answer I got makes these other questions null and void. God doesn't make us to be armless for example. He doens't say "Mark over there is going to be born and end up with a bad mental illness in life!".
I disagree. It would violate no one's freedom of will if he quietly corrected a zygote's faulty DNA. The zygote doesn't have any will, neither the mother nor father had any say in the zygote's DNA, etc, so free will would remain intact.
God could, if he so wished, correct whatever it is that made Mark have mental illness... but he chooses not to. God may not have directly caused the mental illness, but by deciding not to help, he becomes a cause of the illness. If I could save someone from a burning building, but instead look on impassively, I am at least partially responsible for their subsequent death. I may not have started the fire, but my inaction has made me culpable.
But all that is moot, as John 9 quite clearly states that people are maimed
so that God might be glorified. It doesn't say that people are maimed, and God has a way to get glory out of it (which is pretty sick in itself); it explicitly states that they are maimed
for a purpose.
But because sin exists, bad things happen. What God does do though is tries to make the best out of out situations. Sometimes it means healing, sometimes it doesn't. He has a path He would like us to go down of course, but because we have free will He can't say "You must go down this path because you will have a better life if you do!". He does for lack of better words hints at a path to take or tries to lead us.
Of course we don't always see the hints or paths. But none the less God cares for us. I go back to that "Why didn't God remove the devil then?" question. Another answer to add would be also that God could have simply let us all die and go to hell if He wanted. But He found a way to bring us a chance to go to heaven. A chance that doens't interfere with our free will, but does give us a choice in which we must decide.
So Jesus was sent to pay for our sins. And by doing this we can become saved and go to heaven. Some say many things in response to that but again I say He didn't have to send Jesus down. But He did. Thats love on a scale beyond we can even comprehend.
If a cruel slavemaster throws a gnawed bone to a hungry slave, would you say the slavemaster is showing incomprehensible love to the slave? After all, the slavemaster didn't
have to throw the bone!
Obviously the answer is no, the slavemaster is showing nothing but contempt, callously reinforcing the 'I'm better than you' mindset.
So I disagree that God sending Jesus to die for 3 days is at all loving - it's not an inherently loving act, and it changed absolutely nothing about the state of the world.
What
would be loving is if God snapped his fingers and wiped out malaria. But he doesn't, and so hundreds of thousands die each year (which incidentally makes him a horrifyingly wicked being in my books). Can you explain to me exactly, specifically, how free will stops God from wiping out malaria?
There's also the issue of choice: suppose If I wake up in gallows, and a nearby man says "I'll let you out if you make the choice right now to love me. If you don't, I'll do nothing, and you'll die." The choice is unfair, because the threat of suffering is strong-arming me. The choice is also impossible, as humans don't come with switches that suddenly make them love something, or believe something. And yet, this is the same thing that Christians profess. So why is God's demand of "Love me or burn" not equally an unfair (and impossible) choice for him to ask us to make?
