Something good made something bad possible (though not inevitable). Humans, however, didn't use their freedom well. Instead of using it to honor God in friendship, they used it to rebel.

If man is not special, if he's not deeply different from any other thing, then there's no good reason not to treat him just like any other thing when it's convenient for us to do so.

Our value is built into us, and nothing and no one can take it away.

Trouble, hardship, difficulty, pain, suffering, conflict, tragedy, evil - they're all part of the [Christian] Story. Indeed, the problem of evil is the reason there's any Story at all.

You may be a fantastic person, and you may have some wonderful religious views that might even turn out to be true, but the religion you'd be following would not be Christianity.

In matter-ism (materialism), there can be nothing wrong with the world since there is no right way for the world to be in the first place. Everything is just matter in motion and that's that. In Mind-ism (monism) there's a different route to the same problem. There cannot be a problem of evil, even in principle, since in Mind-ism even morality is maya; illusion. In neither story, then (if we're to be consistent with their principles), can the issue of evil be raised. But in real life the problem comes up all the time. That's the difficulty.

Everyone has a belief system in his or her mind, a story about the way they think the world actually is, even if they haven't thought about it much or worked out all the details.