I don't believe that all suffering is necessary, and I wouldn't need such a belief in order to believe in God. As I said, the problem of evil has never been much of a sticking point for me. I believe that God exists because reason dictates that He must. If you want an example, Aquinas' argument from motion is the most clear and convincing for me. But if you want to bring up things like children being raped, that is a reflection on man's choices. It's not necessary at all. It is a result of free will. As I said in my post, the problem of evils that result of man's choices is pretty easy to understand. That's why I didn't spend much time on it, and instead focused more on the harder question of evils that occur outside our control. Do you really not grasp the idea that God gives us free will in order to make moral choices possible, and that means that people have the ability to choose to do evil things like rape children? The fact that people choose this is no argument against God at all.
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If not all suffering is necessary, such as the rape of a child, so therefore free will is also not necessary, it would suffice limited freedom, which allow only the existence of the necessary suffering and would save children from being raped.
Free will is necessary for the existence of free choices. We cannot freely choose the good without the freedom to choose evil. If we did not have the ability to freely choose, it would be meaningless to ascribe morality to them. I feel like I'm repeating myself. Did you read the third paragraph of my post? If so, what exactly doesn't make sense about it? Or do you not believe in the existence of free will?
I agree with you that in the field of thoughts, ideas, we should really be 100% free to think what we want because the simple thinking is unable to cause unnecessary suffering. But in the field of actions, many of these ideas can and should be restricted, without prejudice to any free thinking.
Are you referring to the restriction of human action in society? Because that's a different issue (though an important one) from metaphysical free will. I am asking whether you believe that mankind actually has the ability to choose his actions freely, not whether or not they should be able to. And as to your point below, about people who believe in the necessity of police (I am not one of them), and the apparent contradiction between a belief in free will and the belief in the necessity of restricting man's free choices, that is related, and I attempted to draw a correlation between the libertarian idea of free will and the Christian idea of free will. Apart from whether you believe free will exists at all, I'd also like to ask, are you a libertarian/anarchist?
I am a libertarian
Then, as a libertarian, do you believe that mankind has free will? Not that he should have free will, but that he actually does have free will? As in the ability to make choices, in action and in thought?
Our ability to make choices is limited to the circumstances, our brain state (children, crazy and drunk are not sober to make choices). And since time and space are no longer separate entities but are entangled in the space-time fabric, I seriously suspect that what we call free will is just an illusion. And research indicates that magnetic fields applied in your brain can interfere with your choices between raising the right or left arm, for example.
https://steemit.com/discussion/@discernente/babies-do-not-have-free-will
So you lean toward determinism, then? You believe that our actions are not the result of free choice, but rather the result of our biology, chemistry, and ultimately quantum fluctuations? If that's the case, then we can't pass moral judgement on the actions of any person, as he was simply acting according to his biology and had no choice in the matter. In fact, according to determinism, we cannot judge truth claims at all, as our brain states themselves are merely a product of material circumstance. Therefor, the words that you and I are writing, the discussion we are currently having, has no meaning whatsoever. This line of reasoning seems problematic to me, but if you believe this, then why would you be engaging in debate with me at all, much less about moral values in the world?
Those who believe in the necessity of the police, in practice does not believe in the necessity of free will.
I've noticed that too. Your point being?
My point is that there is a discrepancy between what is defended as a value in theory, and what is done in practice to restrict that freedom. In practice the theory is another.