God is omnibenevolent, then why is there evil in the world?
All you say in your counterpoints is def. true and quite articulate. However, to respond to your second/last counterpoint: “but God also created our minds and our intelligence. He could also have made us in such a way as to have an understanding of His plan, and thereby removed the obvious cruely in giving us free will which neccessarily implies evil” This last point of yours- that God could have created our minds with intelligence which to understand his plan to remove cruelty/evil in the world is where at least Judaism breaks against. I’m pretty sure Christianity would agree as well…. The reason God can’t/or doesn’t make us in a way to understand his plan is that if he were to do so, we’d be more like God..of course, that isn’t a bad thing-our goal in life may be an eternal almost earthly search for what transcends us and our desires–it is a search for God and the good in our lives.
