Replies

"So you’re telling me God has as much control over us as a parent has over a rebellious child. Doesn’t sound very powerful, does it?"

While God has more control, in both cases the rebellious child could be prevented, but in context, the analogy only refers to how you can be grieved by the actions of person even though he could have prevented the person from exercising his will. Why the child is so is another aspect.

"Also, a parent has little control over the inborn traits of his offsprings, whereas God supposedly has total control, so why does YOUR all powerful, all loving god create imperfect and even evil beings and let them run amock?"

Supposedly? You mean you find that having total control is contrary to allowing man much control? That is simply not rational. Of course, neither the devil nor Adam and Evil were rebellious by nature in sinning, while as said, man is only judged for what he is culpable for, and to that degree, not for sins of his parents or consequences, but for what he does with what he has. As in giving "it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not." (2 Corinthians 8:12)

That’s something only a sadistic SOB would do. No?""

Rather, your irrational rage seems to be against God allowing perfect beings to be able to make moral choices, and thus sin, and become morally prone to sin, and to continue to make choices, and to allow them to affect others.

Which is simply reiterating the irrational anti-theist rant that a good God is inconsistent with allowing evil, as if exceedingly finite minds as mere specks in this exceedingly vast, well-ordered, systematic universe, exquisitely finely tuned for earthly life with its extensive diversity and astounding complexity, are in any kind of position to even judge what is ultimately evil.

But perhaps you in your presumed omniscience have a better plan, in the light of all that can be known, in time and eternity. So as offered, let us consider some alternatives:

God could have,

1. made us (and angels) with no moral standard or sense or deprived us from the moral ability to respond to or choose good [morally insensible, even as with clouds].

2. granted us free moral agency, but never have given us anything to choose between [negation of moral choices, and no devil or God].

3. left man only with recourse to finite competing sources as his ultimate object of spiritual affection and allegiance and source of security, and supreme judge of what is good [atheism and atheistic governments].

4. called man to make the Creator their ultimate object of spiritual affection and allegiance and source of security as being what is right and what is best for man, versus finite created beings or things being one's "god," and provided moral revelation and influences. Yet always have moved us to do good, and never have allowed us to choose evil (even if as by making believing in God and choosing good so utterly compelling — like God appearing daily and always doing miracles on demand, and preventing any seeming evidence to the contrary - so that no man could attempt to make excuses for not believing in Him [effective negation of any freedom to choose]).

5. allowed created beings a negative alternative to faithfulness to the creator, and the ability to choose evil, but immediately reversed any effects and not penalized such [negation of consequences to choices].

6. allowed us to do bad, but restricted us to a place where it would harm no one but ourselves [isolated consequences to choices].

7. allowed us to choose between good and evil, and to affect others by it, but not ultimately reward or punish us accordingly [negation of judicial and eternal consequences, positive or negative].

8. given us the ability to choose, and alternatives to chose between, and to face and overcome evil or be overcome by it, with the ability to effect others and things by our choices, and to exercise some reward or punishment in this life for morality, and ultimately reward or punishment all accordingly [pure justice].

9. restrained evil to some degree, while making the evil that man does to work out for what is Good, with justice yet with mercy, and grace, towards those who want good, and who thus the One who is supremely Good.

10. in accordance with 8, the Creator could have chose to manifest Himself in the flesh, and by Him to provide man a means of escaping the ultimate retribution of Divine justice, and instead receive unmerited eternal favor, at God's own expense and credit, appropriated by a repentant obedient faith, in addition to the loss or gaining of certain rewards based on one's quality of work as a child of God. And eternally punish, to varying degrees relative to iniquity and accountability, those whose response to God's revelation manifested they want evil, [justice maintained while mercy and grace given].