>>77054670>Reconcile the benevolence of God with the existence of sufferingThere's no logical incompatibility. It's not logically incoherent to say, for instance, that the present suffering is incompatible with some greater good, even if no one knows what that good is.
Now of course this doesn't show that God is good, but it does pull the teeth out of the argument from evil.
>Defend the concept of the inheritance of sin. Aquinas has it that original sin is the withdrawal of "grace," which is the supernatural favour that God shows to those who stand in right relation to himself. Of course God owes us no such special favour in the first place, and can withdraw it as he wills. Lacking such favour and relying only on our own strength, we are subject to the frailty inherent in our nature. This leads to ignorance, vice, death, and everlasting spiritual death. Damnation is letting our orphaned nature run to completion.
> how does the finite suffering and death on the cross equate to the entirety of all the infinite suffering of all human beings in hell?Jesus didn't come to take our sins exactly in kind. After all, he was just one man, and one man's damnation, if it helps at all, wouldn't outweigh that of the vast bulk of mankind.
Rather, Jesus offers a superior sacrifice precisely because he is not man only, but God incarnate. In the death of Christ, God the infinite good, suffers to be murdered for the sake of his creations. This infinite indignity is the final culmination of human evil, for evil can produce no greater alienation than to be the murderer of God, not even damnation.
The death on the Cross makes our deaths redundant, but Jesus rising again completes God's answer to death- it shows not only that sin is exhausted, but that God intends new and everlasting human life in its place, fully reconciled to himself. So the Resurrection is necessary for a complete answer to the problem of alienation from God, which lies at the root of sin and death.
