The pupil would not accept that “God wants what’s best for us” that would limit God. Any time we give God human feelings He is diminished.
I like what you said otherwise, but I don’t feel that I have a good argument yet
Let me take another stab, then.
God isn’t (as many Eastern religions define Him) simply the universe or the collection of everything. It’s possible for God to be both infinite and bounded, just like there are an infinite number of numbers between 1 and 2, but 3 isn’t one of them.
In this case, God is infinitely good, but He isn’t evil at all.
We can know what God is in part by looking at the things which exist vis-a-vis the things which are defined by their absence. For example, there is no such thing as darkness (like you can’t have a “darkbulb”) - it’s just the absent of light. Likewise, evil is just the perversion or absence of good. Others have explained this much better than I do, but hopefully you see the line of thought I’m trying to explain.
So if God is the infinite of a finite number of things (infinitely loving, just, merciful, good, powerful, knowledgeable, wise, etc.), this explains why He behaves in a particular way.
Even the presence of evil shows God’s goodness. God is good because He *chooses *to be good. If He had no will in the matter, and could be no other way, there would be no way to place a value judgment about Him. Making a value judgment in the absence of any choice in the matter would be silly and arbitrary (even though it’s destructive, a hurricane isn’t “evil,” since evil is chosen).
Since God is good, and desires goodness, He made us with the capacity to choose good, because it is the only way for us to be morally good, rather than simply a good work. (Which is to say, all of creation is good in the sense that a painting or a good work is good, as a product and not as an action – God wishes us to be something even more than that). Since He gave us free will, the ability to choose good (and choose Him), this necessarily entails the ability to choose evil. It’s the reason that tree is named as it is in Eden. So evil, it seems to me, entered the world, because we choose evil pretty constantly, while our choosing ability was given to us as a gift from God, so we may be, in some lesser way, truly good.
I don’t think this is the perfect answer – I don’t know why God doesn’t make one more person (or for that matter, infinitely more people), knowing perfectly that they’ll end up in Heaven. There are certain questions which you just say, “I know as much as I can know from my viewpoint down here.” And that’s the answer I have the hardest time giving.
