This kind of thinking is what is known as an \"old saw\", and is alien to the very mindset of the mystical theology of the Orthodox Christian Church.
It would be easy to get caught up in that tar baby by failing to point out that these questions are simply not the fruit of an Orthodox paradigm.
Blind theologizing here won't do any of us any good, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt, as I am not a teacher but simply a fellow traveler.
I can only offer an analogy, but to me, it's a powerful one:
Evil is not in any way to be compared with love as one would compare apples and oranges, or as one would develop a mathematical equation.
The uncreated God defines Love through His very existence. God was Love and God Loved and God Loves and is Loving and God will Love and God will be Love \"from ages to ages\".
This thing WE call free will is not some fork in the road we can read on a map.
Yes, the teachings and canons of The Church DO help us get a finite grasp on what is infinitely good for us, buy providing clear guidance as to what should and should not be done.
But even the very canons of The Church are administered by Grace through The Bishop.
It's not simply the job of The Bishop to be a traffic cop and ticket us for our transgressions.
Quite the opposite.
The Bishop is compelled to administer the Grace of our Lord in the face of that which is \"evil\".
And why is that?
Because \"evil\" is not the opposite pole of love.
Fully impure evil is a vacuum of Love.
Evil does not share the same sort of definition as does Love, for evil is NOT \"from ages to ages\".
Every evil thought and deed is in itself a creation of a vacuum of Love.
Yet God is Gracious, and The Church is compelled to administer Grace
In doing so, The Church provides us a way to escape the inexorable pull of the evil singularities which we, ourselves, construct and embrace at the encouragement of the father of lies.
God is not proving Himself to be schizophrenic.
Rather, we prove ourselves to be spiritually and mentally and emotionally schizophrenic every time we embark on the creation of a new vacuum of Love--an evil black hole--and thus make the choice to follow the great deceiver, who also made the same choice, which resulted in lucifer's fall from grace.
\"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy on Me, a Sinner!\"
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