Imagine Earth as a giant halfway house, for those who are defective in some way, who have lived somewhere, and moved away from order, into chaos. Imagine Earth as a compassionate offering to souls which would otherwise have no chance at redemption. Imagine it as a source of light in the darkness, and a welcome respite from eternal wandering.
Theodicy is not so hard then. I feel keenly all the things mortal flesh is heir to. We can be raped and killed, tortured, imprisoned, separated from love and our loved ones, made to wander without rest. And if we live in peaceful times, we are slowly separated anyway from those we love, and eventually our health and life.
Imagine the plan for this planet is to create a place of relative calm and peace, for souls to be born and die, having learned how to be better. Imagine realities much better than this one, which we simply cannot yet see.
This is the universe as I believe it exists. It is an odd thing, believe in immortality. It is absent from our science. It is posited, mostly, as fantasy in our TV-based indoctrination. But if you drive through most American cities, you will see churches–edifices and, at least at one time, a body of people–dedicated to the proposition that we are eternal creatures.
As I move through the world, I feel much pain and confinement, but I also see possibilities.