Theodicy and Free Will; Interesting Relationships to Consider

...It is fascinating material to think about; the relationships of free will, the problem of evil and God being responsible for it or not etc. Augustine believed evil is somewhat phenomenal and a result of mankind falling away from a perfectly-in-accord with the goodness of God and his commands lifestyle of human founders Adamas and Eve. So evil is somewhat comparable to a crumbling mountain that resulted from flicking a bic on some short fuse to explosives buried throughout the stone after being warned not to and then philosophically wondering if God is to blame for injuries and deaths resulting from the blasted rock.

A little Augustinian theodicy, some Calvinist predestination; it seems to work out well enough. People do tend to extrapolate about God's relationship logically to responsibility for created elements of the Universe, upon human logic and knowledge that aren't likely to be better than it is on cosmology. The issues of salvation through grace and election or works, or infusion first and then works and then salvation, are related to positions on theodicy. It isn't known of course, if due to predestination and lack of actual free will, if God has a purpose and salutary destiny even for those condemned, or if there is partial free will there can't be some kind of hidden future parole for original and subsequent sin, and hell.

The question of how can God create a Universe with less than what contingent sentient beings in it consider optimal content can be the subject of much thought. Yet is is all theologically interesting and worth considering. Obviously loyalty of 'laity' to church dogma even to the point of violence in the past; persecutions and such are problems in a way separable from the theological investigations in themselves. One must prefer sound theological doctrines drawn from correct hermeneutics to error, so there is a reason for denouncing select, phenomenal false doctrines that arise. Yet schisms and a profusion of varieties of hermeneutics and dogmatics aren't new or too likely to stop. There are important issues such as the problem of homsexual marriage that have occurred that probably stimulate more schism and apostasy than researches into God being responsible for what he creates that humans regard as evil. Especially if evil becomes church doctrine, the question of free will returns.