An all-powerful god who creates subjects that are capable of failing a test of his own devising, even though he totally could make everyone adequate if he so chose, such a god is an evil sadist.
It'd be like making up rules for what constitutes an evil pixel in Conway's game of life and punishing those pixels for their transgressions. You controlled every parameter. Those pixels failed the test because you set them up for preordained failure.
The only way to square this away is to assume that god isn't unwilling to intervene, but is unable to.
That wouldn't be called a test. That would be perfect beings who follow the commands of god. (which already exist and are called angels)
> It'd be like making up rules for what constitutes an evil pixel in Conway's game of life and punishing those pixels for their transgressions. You controlled every parameter.
If we set the rules and command those pixels you to follow the rules otherwise we punish you. And those pixels had free will but still chose to transgress. Wouldn't be fair to punish them?
> Those pixels failed the test because you set them up for preordained failure.
You have free will. You chose to transgress and revoke god even though the signs were obvious. God knows the outcome because he is all-knowing but you now have the freedom to do whatever you want. Your actions are not forced.
About 4000 religions that all have a different opinion of what it means to transgress and what god might be is 'obvious'?
There has to be objective morality that was commanded by god to know what is good and what is bad.
Now for me, it's Islam and the Quran. I can say with certainty that the Quran is the word of god and there is plenty of proof. We just need to do a bit of research.
So now we have established that there are perfect beings (angels), subjects under tests (those who have free will) and NPCs (those who suffer from the actions of the aforementioned subjects).
You don't have to pretend he is perfect or justify all his actions. Just admit that any human who made the decisions he did would be rightfully judged as an evil person, but since "might makes right" I guess god is infallible.
Mental gymnastics only helps you sleep at night and won't change the rest of our minds.
Also this discussion went off topic real fast and my comment doesn't help.
Or maybe it is unwilling to intervene because he is immensely powerful but not omniscient. And so, if he wants to create the perfect world, he has to run tests first. The same way we break materials to know their physical properties, that god is breaking humans to test their limits, so that the next iteration will be better. He is not sadistic, we are just unlucky to be in the cancer test batch.
On the contrary. Setting up "tests" is often a sign of perverse malevolence.