It is sometimes felt that the
"problem of pain" really depends very strongly on what we might call a "three-legged stool" of an idea of the
God are
1) omnipotent, 2) omnibenevolent, and 3) omniscient. If the
Divine is all of these things, then the existence of suffering -
no guilty suffering, that is- becomes a problem. An inviting "escape" from this issue is to toss one of the three "legs." For instance, it is feasible don’t believe that the
Divine is all-powerful.
Each human being has his own power, which
he can use to increase joy, or to increase pain, and his choices matter and are real. From this perspective, the man's "job", as the sapient part of the universe, is to do what he can to make God’s gamble worth it: to make the joy greater than the pain. After all, the gods are present in all things,
feeling the joy and the
sorrow.
The gods’ all good applies to all things equally, and that they hold all creatures’ interests in equal regard. So
a god who loves men so much will allow disease to make them ill because the bacteria have to survive as well as man.