Do theodicies explain why God allows evil in the world?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Do theodicies explain why God allows evil in the world?
Position‹3 of 5›: Yes, evil occurs as the absence of good and God is testing us.
Argument‹2 of 5›: Humans have free will

God gave us free will. God accepts evil as a necessary consequence of human free will.

The argument

God protects human free will above all else. While they have the ability to end evil, God chooses not to because to do so would infringe on humans’ ability to choose evil over good, and in doing so would remove human free will. God wills that humans should have free will more than he wills that evil should not exist.

Context

God gave humans free will. While God is benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent, through the preservation of free will humans are able to choose evil over good.

Premises

[P1]God values human free will above preventing evil. [P2] Ending evil would require removing humans' ability to choose evil over good, thereby eliminating free will. [P3] Preserving free will therefore requires permitting evil to exist. [C] Therefore, God allows evil because doing so protects the greater good of human free will, explaining why evil exists in the world.

Counter-arguments

If God permits evil to protect free will, God cannot be exclusively good. For God to be benevolent and exclusively good, nothing can be more good than God. If we can imagine an alternative divine being that did not permit evil, even if it meant sacrificing an element of free will, then this supreme being would be “more good” than God. Because we can contemplate another supreme being “more good” than God, God cannot be the “most good” divine being we can imagine. Therefore, God cannot be all good, and therefore, cannot be benevolent. This leaves a situation where either God is not exclusively good or does not exist. Either one is catastrophic for our understanding of God. Additionally, while the preservation of free will above all else adequately explains evil as a result of human behaviour, it cannot account for evils that lie beyond our control. For example, childhood cancer is not the result of human free will. It could be eradicated without infringing on our free will.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] That God ranks free will above the prevention of evil is stipulated to fit the conclusion rather than independently established. A being that valued both more highly is readily conceivable, and would on the argument's own terms be greater. [Rejecting P2] Free will requires the ability to choose evil, not that evil choices succeed. A world in which malicious intentions were reliably frustrated would preserve the choice while preventing the harm, so the trade-off the premise treats as necessary is not. [Rejecting P3] Even granted, this covers only suffering that results from someone's choice. Childhood cancer, earthquakes and famine involve no exercise of will and could be removed without touching anyone's freedom, so the largest part of the problem is left unaddressed. [Rejecting C] The theodicy therefore accounts for part of the problem at best, and does so by ranking free will above suffering in a way the argument asserts rather than defends.