Depends on the Christian religion you belong to. Not all of them believe in Hell or the devil.
It's actually kinda a sticky question in theology. If God is all powerful, then he's directly causing all the bad things in the world to happen - which makes Him kind of a dick. If Satan exists, then God doesn't have to be the cause of bad things . . . but it also means that there's an evil force of equal power to God . . . so God can't be all-powerful.
Without going into the weeds on this, it's not as sticky of a theological problem as is often presented. Certainly is not limited to the two options presented here, at least not within the bulk of Christianity.
Are you talking about the whole 'free will to choose your path' chestnut? That one never stands up to scrutiny. If God is all powerful, he knows what the eventual outcome of all events will be. That means that there's really no such thing as free will. He can give the illusion of choice, but always knows what the final outcome will be . . . so, God is a dick for allowing you to make the bad choice that he knows will happen. If God isn't all powerful, then we can have free will . . . but we've just argued that God isn't all-powerful.
Or the argument that God only gives us as much pain as we can handle? (God's an all-powerful dick.)
Or the non-argument of "Shut up! Just 'cause!" that incorporates the whole 'works in mysterious ways' / 'we are not meant to know God's mind' line of anti-reasoning?
I'd argue that all logically developed arguments regarding "Why does God allow bad things to happen?" eventually boil down to one of two things. Either God is an all-powerful dick, or He's not all-powerful.
I believe this is a sincere question/discussion, so this is in the spirit of trying to provide an honest response. Not trying to win anyone over, just want to try and explain it to the best of my ability (which, admittedly, is lacking). I doubt we'll agree on this, all I ask for is mutual respect and a willingness to agree to disagree.
Christianity by and large (though there is a lot of variation) does not ascribe to a good vs. bad dualism. That is, good does not depend on bad, this is not like a yang thing. So the proper starting place is not to ask "why is there bad in the world?" but rather "why does good exist?" We live in an amazing universe that is dangerous and chaotic, yet here we are on this little spec of dust which is an explosion of awesomeness and goodness. Life flourishes, there's an amazing regularity in how the natural world functions, the coming and going of seasons, variety of life and ecosystems. There is immense beauty and love. These are all incredible things, but why do they exist at all?
This is a fun question to ask, but unrelated to the theological problem that we were discussing.
There's something in the Christian understanding of the divine as a plural unity, something about the liminality (or in-betweeness) of the Godhead, such that the very nature of God is other centered. This other-centeredness is the scriptural understanding of love, which isn't about mere sentimentality, but rather focus on others over self, even if costly. So in this sense the divine is an eternal community of love, a divine cosmic dance. It's out of this outgoing love that all of existence flows and is held together. And it's out of this inherent otherness that God created other beings, both spiritual and physical, to share in his reign and rule.
This is why I always had trouble with the concept of hell when I was attending church. If God is all loving (and as you said, shows this love by focusing on others over self) . . . how could God sit by and watch the people he loves being tormented for eternity?
This includes delegating real authority, and even allowing others to chose bad for themselves and others.
This is the argument I alluded to above then, the 'free will' response.
I get where God allowing other beings to chose bad can be seen as offensive, but if God is going to create real authentic "others" that are not strict automatons then it's part of the deal. Yes, the bad that these beings chose leads to death.
Here's where stuff starts to break down with this response, which pushes it into the 'God is a dick' side of things.
God loves people enough to let them choose what they do for themselves. OK, cool. Sounds innocuous on the surface. But God also allows these people to take away the ability to choose from others. For example, the father who keeps his daugher tied up in his basement . . . regularly raping her and forcing her to have abortion after abortion. I can (kinda maybe) get the concept of loving the father so much that you let him choose his actions. But I don't understand how a loving God could allow that to happen to the daughter. Effectively, God is choosing to allow the father to have free will over allowing the daughter to have free will at any point in her life. That's a dick move any way you parse it.
But OK. Let's ignore that for a moment. Why does God create people without the capacity to think and reason? There are many people born every day who don't have the capability to choose because they become brain damaged. That would seem to fly in the face of the argument that God allows people to choose their own path - why is He removing choice from these people? Did He not love them as much? Did he not trust the choices He knew they would make? I can't think of an answer that doesn't lead to God playing favorites (and therefore being a bit of a dick).
Alright, let's ignore that for a moment and zoom out to the big picture. An all powerful God knows everything that was and everything that will be. Which means that we might think we have free will and are making our own choices, but God knows what the outcome will be before we choose. He controls all the variables that impact our decisions . . . which means that he chooses to let us make the wrong decision every time. Again . . . kinda a dick move.
Again, I expect we'll continue to disagree on this. I understand if you still think this makes God a dick. I just see it from a different perspective.
FTR - I don't think that God is a dick in a malicious way. I think that if a God exists, this God is unconcerned with what human beings do. There's plenty of beauty and complexity in the universe . . . but nothing in the natural world that has ever indicated to me that the creator of the universe is particularly in love with this one species on this one rock in this one corner of the galaxy. Seems like anthropomorphic tinged hubris to assume that the creator of everything would be overly concerned about the actions of humans.
That said, I appreciate you taking the time to respond to me.