Christians, "free will" cannot be your only or ultimate response to the problem of evil because of what I call the "informational problem of evil" (short thread):
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Many evil events can be averted by simply offering a person more information: that bridge is unsafe, your brakes don't work, your door is unlocked, etc. This information is often utterly banal and is often possessed by other human beings (i.e. it doesn't require omniscience). 2/
Giving a person this information obviously doesn't impinge on their free will: they are free to ignore it. And when a fellow human being tells us this information, we never accuse them of taking away our agency. So the atheist can ask: why doesn't God give us this information? 3/
For this reason, "free will" can be part of the answer to the question "why does God allow evil?" but it cannot be the only or ultimate answer. I think a better answer is that evil exists to show God's glory in redeeming, healing, and punishing it. 4/
But even if you reject that solution, it's worth wrestling with the question, since "the justice of God in light of evil" is a major biblical theme. Wrestling will push you towards a more robust theology and towards the cross of Christ, where evil is ultimately conquered. 5/5
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