That is an independent issue. Requiring optimality from God is one thing. What creatures with freewill means is another. If God allows freewill he must allow wrong choices, allowing wrong choices mandates suffering.
You're employing the same mistake that Alvin Plantinga makes in his book "God, Freedom & Evil." There is no reason to assume that to have free will means to have the capacity to inflict harm; and furthermore, deliberately providing the capacity to inflict harm is still malevolent.
Imagine God creates a world for instance where there is no ability to cause harm to one another, at least physically -- suffering isn't potentiated in this world, in other words. Trying to stab someone turns the knife to silly putty, trying to hit someone causes your arm to lose all inertia, whatever, you get the idea.
Are you seriously implying the residents of this world aren't free? They aren't able to choose whom to love? Whether they'd like to see a movie (and which movie) or play a video game? Whether they want to hang out with friends or take a walk in the park?
What about being ABLE to hurt people makes you say "aha! only NOW are we free?"
Is it because the total actions available to people would be less? Why do you not object right now, then, that we're... say... not free to walk on the ceiling or teleport or fly?
Go back to that world where suffering isn't potentiated, and now assume that I step into that world and release special weapons that circumvent the physics of that world which finally allow people to hurt one another.
Am I not unquestionably malevolent for having done so?
And do you really believe that
only AFTER I have done so the people have "free will?"
If you can agree with me that the people are still free agents BEFORE the introduction of the special weapons -- that they can make real choices of their own volition, even if they can't make choices to harm people any more than you or I can make a choice to walk on the ceiling -- then you need to come up with a different argument; because clearly being able to harm isn't necessary to have free will any more than being able to walk on the ceiling is.
(Now, it can be pointed out that some forms of harm are unavoidable in order to make free will possible: for instance, unrequited love. Possibly insults. Those sorts of things. THAT is a legitimate point and not one that I dispute: it's not possible for God to make a world without that while also containing free agents, so God is NOT culpable for those sorts of things specifically. However, God IS culpable for physical suffering since there is a logical alternative that still allows free agency!)
Robin 1 said:
The most common mistake non-theists make concerning God is they include some irrational derivatives based on his attributes but never include purpose and will. God created the universe and man for a purpose. He wants beings who will freely chose to love him. That necessitates freewill, freewill necessitates wrong choices, wrong choices necessitates suffering, sufferings purpose is to indicate right from wrong. God's purpose mandates the existence of suffering as a part of his passive will. He allows it, he does not desire it, but just as a circle must be round, his purpose mandates freewill and so on. The fact he eliminates suffering, death, sin, etc... in heaven indicates he does not like suffering but that it has a function given his purpose.
As I pointed out, free will does *not* necessitate physical suffering. So why is it there?
Without physical suffering, mankind would still be free to choose to love God or not -- so why is physical suffering there?
Without physical suffering, mankind would still be free to choose right or wrong in dealing with each other (will I insult you? will I cheat while playing a friendly game? will I cheat on my loved one? so on and so forth), so humans are still culpable and can still learn to be good through their lives -- but physical suffering is still irrelevant to all this. So why is it there?
There is no explanation for physical suffering to be there, and it's logically possible for it not to be there, so it was certainly
malevolent to put it there.
If you just throw up your arms and say "Physical suffering is there because God
wants it to be there as part of his plan," well, then that's just saying "God is malevolent." Simple.
Robin 1 said:
He could do so. He could not do so and still meet his purpose. It is one of the most futile things I can imagine to sit around and try and think of ways God could have done better given purpose, and especially when purpose is ignored. God's purpose was not to maximize happiness, human flourishing, luxury, and comfort in this life. It was to reveal himself, his nature, the nature of morality, and allow free choice based on comprehension of those things.
Creating the capacity for suffering to allow "moral choice" is the same as saying it's good to create smallpox to allow for the creation of a vaccine. It's self-referential, absurd, and ultimately -- still malevolent. That's fine. From what I understand about what you're saying, you're simply just okay with God being malevolent because God wanted to potentiate suffering as part of his plan. And that's fine. That does solve the Problem of Evil. It's just not... I guess, a very subjectively appealing way to do it. (But hey, I can't make that as an argument -- that would be the fallacy of arguing against adverse consequences).
Robin 1 said:
Who would believe in sin if sin had no effect? Who would believe in God if God did not judge? Who would believe in love if love was al there was? Up is meaningless unless down exists. Left is meaningless unless right exists. Right is meaningless unless wrong exists.
Sin would have effect -- refer above to where I talked about how God isn't culpable for things like people insulting one another: the culpability for that would be on the insulters alone (just as an example), and would have an effect.
God would still be able to judge people and their intentions.
Why do you assume everyone would HAVE to love? Love wouldn't be all that existed.
What doesn't HAVE to exist for ANY of these reasons you've been talking about, though, is physical suffering.