God created man to share friendship with Him and share in His happiness.

Man had freedom to choose the good, but this same freedom also allowed him to choose the bad. This is called moral freedom.

Two things have been bothering me for a long time. The first is the tendency of people in general - and that includes Christians - to "relativize" religion. Any religious belief is only "true for," so to speak - true for you or true for me or true for those people on the other side of the world. Second, I've been bothered by how poorly believers understand their own Story. They have bits and pieces, of course, but they're missing enough that they can easily become prey to ideas that sound spiritual, but end up being foolishness in the end.

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

Sometimes (at least in principle) God might allow some evil because doing so will prevent a greater evil, and sometimes He might allow evil because it will produce a greater good.

Almost everyone agrees the world is not the way it ought to be. It's called the problem of evil.

Our reasons for believing Jesus existed and also that He was who He claimed to be - the God who came down - are the same reasons for believing any fact of history: the documentation is substantial and it passes all the tests of historical reliability. Scholars - both liberal and conservative - overwhelming agree that Jesus of Nazareth was a man of history and the Gospels, on the main, tell His story accurately.