Does Presence of Pain Mean Absence of God?

"Whatever arguments you use, they are all excuses or rationalizations for the pain and suffering we see in this world where God is the ultimate expression of 'love.'"

This statement is made by our friend Skepie. The equation says "if Pain, then no God." The rationale is that loving parents would never subject their children to pain.Neither would a loving God. The very presence of pain disphttps://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20240608_ASP002.jpgroves the existence of God because loving God would never allow pain. Should we think that's true?

The rationale behind the equation (if Pain then no God) is the assumption that the most important value in all of existence is to be free of pain, or to be comfortable.God would never allow extreem discomfort. Is this true? No, I think there is a higher value. It's More important to be free than to be comfortable.

These are competing values so comfort is not the highest value. But there is a reason to think freedom is a higher value than comfort, and this can be proven. The reason is because without freedom, and I include free will, you can't have love and you can't have a moral universe; and that would negate what I think are God's two major reasons for creating.If true this means freedom is a higher value a priori.

At this point the regular Free will defense kicks in. God must allow free will, which means he risks causing pain through our bad choices, and thus free will necessities pain and freedom outweighs comfort as a value.

Skeptics often make the argument that no parent would willingly subject his/her child to suffering. Thus God, being the ultimate parent, would never subject his children to pain. That is directly contradicted by many examples where parents do subject their children to pain. Parents regularly subject their children to emotional pain not understanding  what it means to be a child. they do this because they love them and whatever the issue is, the parents are doing what they think is best for the child. Forbidden friendships they think are harmful when the child is emotionally bound to that person, all kinds of embarrassment from going to school to getting off drugs and so on. The drug example, if a child is known to the parent to be a drug addict the parent will insist the child get off drugs. Of course this could be very painful. It is a pain a loving parent would impose it doesn't make the paret less loving.

I hear the skeptic saying all of those examples are done for the good of the  child. How is a world of pain for the good of humanity? I am dealing with pain related to the choices we make. Natural disasters are a different issue* Freedom, including free will, is for the good of humanity. God has to allow pain as a consequence of free will,  They might ask why does God allow natural disasters? That is not a question of will But it is a consequence of a naturalistic world

. A Naturalistic world (although one in which God intervenes at times) is necessitated by the search for truth and good. This is why God keeps a world that can run on its own by naturalistic laws. If we were super naturally protected from all pain we should have no need to search for the truth of God. But in searching one develops the values of the good. That's why the search is important.A naturalistic world where there is no pain and suffering negates the need for a search for thinking God's action would be obvious.This all indicates that the existence of pain in the world is not proof against God's existence,especially when he provides the means to endure.