Robb asked:

Could you please explain how the notion of free-will is used as a way of solving the philosophical
problem of God and evil. Do you think it is an acceptable solution to the problem?

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The problem arises because God is supposed to be all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good. If there
were any evil, he must (if all the above are true) know about it, be able to stop it and want to stop it.
But there continues to be evil in the world. Therefore God cannot be all of the above (and if he needs
to be all three to be God, then he doesn't exist).

The free will solution to the Problem of Evil says that God allows humans to decide whether to do
good or evil. If he just stopped all evil, we would not have free will and would not be human.

Quite apart from questions as to why a supremely good being needs create creatures with free will at
all, if they are only going to bring about evil, this defence does nothing to explain the existence of
natural evil — i.e. evil that arises from sources other than the free decisions of humans (earthquakes,
diseases etc). So, I don't think it works. Note that the Problem of Evil does not prove there is no god,
either — just that any god cannot be simultaneously all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good.

Tim Sprod