_AdjI_ posted...Can always present it as an irreconcilable dichotomy: Either they're saying that the Devil can create and is therefore as powerful as God (not something they're likely to accept), or they're saying that God is lying to us and is therefore not benevolent.
God has always been lying to us. In the same way parents lie about where babies come from. Three year olds don't need to know the truth yet and aren't ready for it yet. Thousands of years ago humans would have needed something simple because they would never believe the truth. Even now some humans won't believe the truth or understand how to reconcile that with what God has said in the distant past, because God had to say it that way, because we weren't ready for the kind of truth that could be accepted.