Free Will?

Recently I had a discussion about God and the problem of evil.  The discussion, as these discussions typically go, eventually came around the concept of free will:  free will is the reason there is evil in the world.  

If you've never encountered the argument before, I'll sum it up briefly:  God gave us free will because (according to the common line) He wants to be authentically loved.  And since no creature who is forced to love can really be said to honestly love, God gave us the ability to choose our own paths.  Because of this, we can either choose God or we can choose evil.  God cannot, by the very nature of the way He created the universe (with free will), interfere in our decisions because that would take away our freedom.  He may influence our decisions with gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) leading, but he does not and will not push us out of the driver's seat and grab the wheel.

That's one of the arguments meant to explain the problem of evil.  And while it addresses the problem and provides a possible answer, I'd like to propose that the reason for free will (God wanting to be loved) is incomplete.  Yes, God wants to be authentically loved, so He gave us free will, but there's more to it.  In fact, that might be the lesser reason.  

The larger reason for free will is found in God's own nature.  God's nature is, amongst other things, perfect, flawless and infinite Love.  As the Bible states:  God is Love.  And love--true love--must allow freedom.  Were God to pre-program us, we would be nothing but puppets in His hands.  Lumps of living flesh:  able to think, but not able to think freely.  Our thoughts would be scripted, crippled. Our words, our days, our years all would be pre-planned, pre-ordained, and unchangeable.  

In short, we would be toys.  Complex, and beautifully created, yes, but still only toys. 

If we had been created with the capacity to think rationally, but without the freedom to choose our own path (good or evil), God would not be a loving creator.  Instead, He'd be nothing but an exaggerated and perfected (in all the diabolical qualities) Dictator.  (After all, Dictators want nothing more than to control thoughts and actions.  God, being God, would be able to effortlessly accomplish with utter perfection what our commonplace dictators only dream:  complete, scripted, perfect control over the actions of His subjects.)

And no matter how much you may like the idea of a "Benevolent" dictator, there's no reasonable way we could ever affix the quality of "love" to His actions.  He would simply be using us for His amusement.  Our lives with all their struggles and all their pain and all their joy would simply be a game God was watching or playing.  

He'd be the Grand Manipulator, the All-Powerful Author, Our Benevolent Dictator.  But He wouldn't be the lover of our souls.  For love--to be true love--requires the gift of freedom.

***UPDATE***

QUESTION/COMMENT 1:  What if God had decided against creating man, would he then be  incapable of being truly loving without us; does he need us to be that  or to do that?  If so, doesn't that suggest that God is not as  all-powerful as we thought?

If God decided not to create us or, had created us instead as  non-rational animals, then He can choose to impart no freedom of will  and still keep His infinite and perfectly loving nature untarnished.

However, if He created not us, but another type of being that was,  nevertheless, rational, then that being NEEDS to be free to use that  rationality for God to continue to be TRULY loving.  For one reason:  to give a gift and absolutely limit it's use, is not loving. 

Secondly, to create a being capable of rational thought, but to  manually prevent that being from reaching any undesirable conclusions  (even for that being's good) necessarily removes the concept of "True  Love" from the equation.

If I could control my kids' thoughts as God undoubtedly is capable of  doing, I could ensure absolutely the fact that they never do anything  wrong, that they never make any mistakes, that they never suffer any  sorrow or pain.  However, if I were capable of that and actually did  it, few (if any) of us would label my actions as the actions of a  loving father no matter how vehemently I argued that true love was my  motivation. Even if I could only semi-adequately accomplish something  like this through hypnosis, nowhere would my actions be thought of as  healthy, loving and imitable.

God isn't a father like that.  Our rationality and God's loving nature  makes it necessary that He give us free will.

QUESTION/COMMENT 2:  On a side note, is the love we feel for our pets not true? What level  of depth is necessary for truly satisfying love? Is the standard the  same for everyone? Can puny creatures such as ourselves, ever measure  up and satisfy God's need for love? Or is the fact that He doesn't  need much from us in the way of love a function of his greatness?  Again, does God need our love?

God needs nothing from us at all.  He made us from nothing for our own  benefit, not His.  It took Him no effort and enhanced His being not  the slightest.  So no, He doesn't need our love.  He wants our love  because loving Him is good for us.  It's concern for us that drives  this, not concern for Himself.