[DavidL]

Three-toed-sloth: "Freewill almost seems like a limitation of God."

Omnipotence is perhaps paradoxical. Being omnipotent supposedly gives one the ability to divest one's omnipotence, if one chooses to do so. In this sense, one is still omnipotent, in that one always retains the choice to divest, or (potentially) "regather".

The world is a million miles from being perfect, even from our "un-infinite" perspective. I believe that a loving being shares in the pain of those whom it loves. Yet somehow it is more pleasing, more worthwhile, to God to give each of us the opportunity to create good of our own, to in some small way redress poverty, injustice, oppression, etc than if He was to sovereignly and effortlessly stamp it out Himself. When one individual sides with God, even in the smallest possible way, He rejoices: the whole creation process was somehow worth it.

The alternatives seem to lie at the crux of the matter: beings with complete free will, beings with partial free will, automatons, or no creation at all. If you were God, what would you have done? :-)