“The Epicurean paradox: Premise (1) God and evil cannot coexist. Premise (2) Evil exists. Conclusion (3) Thus, God cannot exist,” Em asked, “how do we respond to the criticism that in an ideal world, where God is all good and all powerful, there should be no evil? In reality, we observe evil, and at that, seemingly needless evil!”
“The fallacy lies in the 1st premise,” Mandy replied, “The atheist has to argue they not only emotionally dislike God and evil coexisting, but that it is logically impossible. C.S. Lewis says to those who believe God and suffering are incompatible, ‘have they never been to a dentist?’”
“Also, have they never heard of S&M 
?” Mandy giggled.
“You naughty girl!!” Blaire replied, “Totally something we’d expect coming from your mouth, Mandy!”
“Because of our limitation of perspective, a God who providentially orders history through free decisions of humans is simply, incomprehensible,” Blaire adds, “akin to Chaos Theory explaining how a butterfly fluttering can cause a hurricane.”
“God has given humans free will, which must severely restrict Him,” Mandy replied, “there’s nothing to say this isn’t the best of all possible worlds.”
"Also, the Christian purpose of life is not happiness, but knowledge of God, which is happiness not only here on earth, but into eternity,” Mandy continued, “in the context of eternity, living 60 instead of 100 years may be analogous to saying ‘oh dang, just then, I blinked for one second rather than two’. It’s just as silly!”
“By looking at the evil in the world; and the bitterly cruel and shameful suffering Jesus endured on the cross so that we could overcome sin and death,” Mandy continued, “it becomes evident the true problem of evil is our evil, and not how God can justify Himself to us, but paradoxically, how we can justify ourselves to Him.”
