" Meaning is reference to states of affairs. "

That sounds about right, in terms of D.M. Armstrong's "States of Affairs" ontology. Meaning seems to be a set of relations between various mental constructs (including feelings).

It seems to me, an objective Trump supporter ought to acknowldge Trump's deficiencies even if he embraces most of what Trump does. We will always have political differences, but we should be able to agree on what constitutes inappropriate, or alarming, behavior.

"They are in heaven because they freely chose not to fall with the rest of creation, not because God made it impossible for them to fall."
Is it impossible to fail in heaven, or are the souls in heaven changed in some way?

Consider a world identical to this one except it lacks intelligent life. Does "meaning" correspond to anything that exists in that world? "Meaning" refers to relations among elements of the mind. If there are no minds, there is no meaning.

Does that make reality arbitrary? It probably makes the ontological foundation of reality arbitrary, in that it is a brute fact. What follows from the foundation is out of mathematical necessity - so that is not arbitrary.

So your dilemma reduces to the foundation of existence. Isn't any foundation arbitrary -including God? Why is there a God, rather than not?

Knowledge entails information,and information entails encoding. The encoding of omniscience would be of infinite complexity.

"Who is to say that the pain and suffering is 'needless'? Suppose it serves a greater good? Suppose when we all get to heaven we agree that a little suffering helped us to grow closer to God? Isn't God and only He, the ultimate judge on what is needless or not?"

This is the heart of the problem of evil. We see evil all around us, with no apparent good coming out of it. A committed Christian can always rationalize it in terms of God "having a plan" beyond our understanding, but that is a non-answer to the question of "why?" The simplest answer to the " why? " is: the Creator is indifferent or he lacks the ability to prevent it. So while I acknowledge that strong faith can provide a reason to reject the argument from evil, it doesnt satisfy those who develop doubt and seriously entertain the possibility there is no God.

"Your argument is that God can make us free but determine the outcome of that freedom. "
That is not my argument. If God's knowledge of the outcome entails being determined, then the non-sinning souls in heaven do not have free will. But if there are non-sinning free-willed souls in heaven, then such beings can exist without contradiction. Omnipotence implies God can create any contingent thing that does not entail a contradiction.

Epistemological justification for adopting this form of argument:
it is a valid deductive proof (as far as I can tell, although I admittedly skipped a couple steps - such as from 4 to 5, because they seemed trivial), so the conclusion is necessarily true if the premises are true. Further, the truth of the premises is more plausible than the converse - so it's reasonable to believe them (again, as far as I can tell).

I'm not claiming the argument has dialectical efficacy - i.e. that it can persuade a Christian. Rather, it is reasoning that a person should consider who is having doubts about God as a result of considering the problem of evil. The free-will defense is often presented as a defeater of the argument from evil, and I'm presenting this as a defeater of THAT defeater.

I agree it doesn't defeat all possible theological arguments, just the one I alluded to. I'll add that the "free will defense" only addresses the evil performed by free-willed individuals; there are other evils in the world - but that's beyond the scope of this discussion.

There is a tension between God's omnipotence and his inability to create free-willed beings that do not sin. It's the crux of my argument, and it also has bearing on the atonement. This also is beyond the scope of the present discussion.

Premise 4 is based on Romans 6:7:
" anyone who has died has been set free from sin"

1John3 also supports this. It also shows that we will be like Christ, glorified and pure - i.e. improved and therefore not diminished in any way, while a lack of free will would be a diminishment.

EnPassant/Rank Amateur -

Please address the actual argument and tell me what premise(s) you disagree with.