My apologies, Mnemosyne, for disregarding your name. I think I had a moment of "fast" typing, wherein I glossed over the specific "who-said-what."
Now, the example of Job: I am simply stating that since your personified "Satan" is out of the equation, and therefore it is one of God's good guys judging Job, testing him ,if you will, then it may be even harder to put God in an exonerated stance. One is forced to come up with another workable hypothesis, notwithstanding taking in regard the Hebrew grammar.
No, when you think of 'God" in an anthropomorphic sense, this limits his All-Power, and the moment God either 1) gives up his "omnipresent" being for anthropomorphism or 2) temporarily withdraws at least one of his attributes, he ceases to be the "Supreme" ontological being. In the ancient world, function/relationship determined existence, not the modern structure/origins.
Therefore, Galadriel55, it must be insisted that we drop our modern preconceptions of structural creation. In all of the ancient texts, man did not necessarily describe "creation from nothing" thereby assuming universe origins. That was not what was important to them.
In the book of Genesis, it is not describing a creation ex nihilo. Why? The primordial waters of chaos already existed. It is not "water" in the literal sense, it is a metaphysical term for the Void; that which is Orderly Chaos, or that which has no boundaries. Once you ascribe physicality, we have boundaries, limits. How is it to describe God? It is rather better to be silent, implies Dionysius the Areopagite. For in Silence you cannot negate God by describing him as Love, Holy, Good, or any other attribute the human mind attributes in limited form. God is not Love, Holy or Good. He (even 'He' is negation) is Not That Which Is, a universal paradox; because the paradox is precisely the Mechanism by which Ages are Not Which Once Was.
I'm not sure why there is a need to hang on to the notion of 'free will.' As Eru, the One is that which is between the two extremes of chaos and order, then you are a product of His limitation, Which Is Not Limitation? Why? Because That Which Is Not Limitation is negation, the other cosmic balance. All things with limitation (physicality) dissolve into One. It's the cyclical process of Nature.
Inziladun, thank you for pointing out those references I forgot to cite! Still, it is good to cite your own articles you produce! However, it is indeed interesting stuff to engage in, isn't it
I was hoping it would prod someone to study further for the sources. It lets me know someone is active in pursuit of truth!
Now, respectively, I think you missed my point about "allowable suffering." Regardless of whether suffering is allowed or not, the point is maintained that had God let suffering perpetuate, or even much more so that he actually does not allow suffering, neither can withstand it, he is still the author of it. He is the author, the root of evil, for simply being the only uncreated One. Even if evil (suffering as the result in most cases) was inactive (that is, not fully consumated in real time) it was still conceived as a static thing of the Mechanism. Evil, I contend, is simply the gaping hole of primordial Chaos, that did indeed exist at each successive Creation catastrophe that brought about new Ages. Good can only really be defined as something which has limits or boundaries (see above for my explanation of physicality as boundaries) - indeed, "definition" is a bounded term. Something can only be defined by separating a physicality with another.
Bethberry, good question about the Buddhists. Buddhists ought not to be religionists. Buddhism was not established by Guatama as a religion but as a philosophy. In other words, ethical standards to live by. When religion comes in it is always pervaded by propaganda (propaganda, ironically was a term invented by the Church to spread about its dogma) which in itself is coerced in a fashionable manner by dogma. Therefore, your Buddhists that worship Buddha as a god are practicing coercive dogma, which is false. Not all Buddhists follow this, however, which is "good."