Marilynne Robinson:
The [biblical] narrative introduces the idea of divine purpose, relative to humankind, its intention to be realized over vast stretches of time. This is an understanding of God and humanity that has no equivalent in other literatures, God both above and within time, His providence reaching across unnumbered generations. The character of everything, good fortune and bad, is changed when its ultimate meaning awaits the great unfolding of His intention.
One can appreciate that this is an easily assailable position, akin to special pleading, though no less potentially true and significant for it. But also, when put in the context of things that we are regularly aware of throughout history and experience, it becomes less self-protective than a natural and understandable and relatable condition, only one extended to divine implication.
So the problem of evil is not solved but is instead infinitely complicated. When Jesus says of his executioners “They know not what they do,” we can appreciate how very radically his words understate the case. If the same were said of the mythic progenitors of human history, Adam and Eve, or of the splitters of the atom, the creators of antibiotics, and all the rest of us, the truth of these words would overwhelm our power to conceive.