Yay my turn for the fun answers!
I haven't played many of the new CV games... OK none. I played SOTN and LoI, the Gameboy (the really old school) ones, and the NES ones. Oh and the SNES ones and Rondo. Anyway, that said, I didn't know there was ever any statement about God needing an opponent or whatever. As soon as I saw that mentioned on page ... whatever... in this thread, it clicked, although the inspiration is probably wrong:
God needs an antagonist. I don't know where that idea stemmed from, but it didn't first appear in Castlevania. In the notorious film Urotsukidouji 2: Legend of the Demon Womb, there is the idea that, if there is a god, so too must there be a demon king. The movie never went into detail about it. There's also the argument posed by believers in exorcism that if demons exist, then God must exist. The opposite could then be posed as well, because the Bible states demons exist, so if God exists, the Bible, which is the word of God, says demons exist and therefore demons exist. Dualism is believed by some to be the predominant original belief in Zoroastrianism, the precursor to Christianity, with Ahura Mazda (the good) and Angra Mainyu (the evil, aka Ahriman). Although there are different interpretations of the Zoroaster scriptures, some saying Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu were twins and Angra Mainyu chose to be good, some saying Angra Mainyu doesn't really exist and his evil doesn't really eixst but perception of it makes it exist (or something), or Angra Mainyu was a creation of Ahura Mazda.
On the topic of free will existing when the creator knows everything, that's an easy answer. It's surprising the question even exists these days. Consider this code:
my_choice = choose( watch_MrX_die, try_to_save_MrX, expedite_death_of_MrX, turn_a_blind_eye )
That's a format from GameMaker. What we see here is the programmer (God) has given the computer (man) the option to choose its next action. Now, the computer doesn't know what will happen next - it hasn't reached that part of the code yet - but God already knows because he programmed the switch condition that follows as well:
switch ( my_choice )
{
case watch_MrX_die:
case turn_a_blind_eye: feel_guilt(); feel_shame(); feel_remorse(); burn_in_hell=true; break;
case try_to_save_MrX: with(MrX) death_by_fire(); with(self) death_by_fire(); burn_in_hell=false; break;
case expedite_death_of_MrX: goto_jail(); burn_in_hell=true; break;
}
The computer (man) makes a choice of his own free will, then man suffers the consequences the programmer (God) set down for that choice. And if you have a problem looking at computers theologically, read the works of Douglas Adams. I think it was in Salmon Of A Doubt.
I like the quotes I see on Google, though. "If God cannot prevent evil, then he isn't omnipotent. So why worship him?" A: Because he can smite your ass in a fraction of a nanosecond, bitch! Cthulhu and his ilk were defeated in ancient times, yet he still had his followers. Stupid people...
