> > I know this doesn't really answer your question of free will, but I think it illustrates the point that we CAN'T see everything. I don't know why bad things happen to people, but God does.
>
> The problem with that analogy is, within the context of my original post, it doesn't address the question: why is there any reason for evil to exist at all?
>
> In other words, why would god allow the pirates or the evil Arab to come into existence in the first place? The implication is that their existence has some purpose that we can't see.
>
> Mia's parable essentially says that humans can't understand god's plan. I'm willing to grant this premise, but it becomes problematic if we assume that there are things that happen that god does not want to happen. It's my understanding of Christian theology that these sorts of things do happen, which appears to me to be a contradiction given my computer program analogy. More importantly, why would god have, say, eternal punishment for those who did bad things? Within the context of my simulation analogy, such action doesn't make sense, since god is directly responsible for the actions anyway (he controls the starting state of the universe as well as the rules of interaction for the things inside the universe).
>
> Stephen

Well, I actually heard Mia say this in chat the other day: you can't have joy without the existence of evil. Joy is the absence of evil, and said evil must be known for said joy to be knowable. The existence of evil, I think, helps to cause an increased appreciation for those joyous/good things, and appreciation that would be lacking were evil to not exist. This appreciation also helps lead to an appreciation for and desire to know God. If all was "good" and not evil, there would be little to no desire for anyone to seek out a good God. If there was no evil for us to ask God's guidance from, then no one would ask it. And seeing as our desire for God/eventual service is what is pleasing to Him, He allowed evil to exist as a means to push us to seek him, a decision that was still left up to us to make. If he wanted us all to seek Him out and serve him regardless, He would've made sure of it. I think the active decision by a human to know God is what is most pleasing to Him.

Of course, this fails to address how that will that I keep referring to can really be "free", as per your question. That'll require a bit more thought on my part.

The Other "Certainly no theologian, seeing as I pretty much came up with this on the spot, and am no doubt erring somewhere" Matthew