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the world is good for one who possesses freedom

How can the world be created by God if there is so much suffering?

One approach to an answer is to ask if the world is good: that is, is it better that there be this world rather than none at all?  

If the answer is yes, then that goodness--a goodness that withstands the problem of pain--is a goodness that points to God in some way.

One may object by coming up with situations of extreme suffering for individuals.  To this objection we can reply by asking: is it possible for the world to be good for this person even with such suffering?  That is, is it better for that person to be rather than never to have been at all?  We might be tempted to answer this question for another person, but it is a question that we must first answer for ourselves.  And I venture that the answer would be that if I can exercise my freedom in a meaningful and good way, then the world is good for me even in my situation.

Furthermore, one who has found meaning while having to face  life's struggles can plausibly reply to another who objects that his situation makes it meaningless that the latter is lacking comprehension of reality, is possibly mistakenly focusing on pleasure rather than freedom and moral beauty.

Of course, there are cases to which the above responses are helpful: the child that is murdered for sport, for example (see Brothers Karamazov).  We do not know what sort of meaning can be attached to a life cut short in such a way.  But that is not to say that it was meaningless from the start.  Rather, it is more on target to say that this life was prevented from achieving the kind of meaning we recognize in our adult lives.  This frustration of achievement, however, does not contradict the claim hat life is meaningful.

It is easier to see how life is meaningful even if some are not able to achieve that meaning if we consider the Goodness of God in metaphysical terms.  Let us abstract from the question of Providence as something to be argued for later.  Let us look at God as Plato looked at the Good: as a metaphysical reality.  Babies who are denied the chance of achieving a meaningful life still share in the good, they still in some way proceed from and return to the Good.  A rational account of the world as seeking the good can be given, and it can account for the infant that dies young even if the infant does not itself acheive a grasp of this meaning.  Life is already a drama.

Providence adds a great deal to such an understanding.  But the appreciation of Providence  is the culmination of a rational process that has already recognized the meaningfulness and goodness of the world.

And materialism is a denial of the evidence that lies before us that life is good, meaningful.

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