Although it's way too late to write coherently about the "problem of evil" (How is it possible that a perfectly good and omnipotent God allow evil?), I did want write a bit about one particular spin on the problem that I've been particularly puzzled by as a Christian. If there is a heaven, then why do we have to go through this present age of suffering? It seems to me that heaven (or the new earth) will be a place in which humans will be not do evil but who are still free beings. So if such a state can exist, why could not God have been created right from the start? Genesis 1-3 shows that humans were created innnocent but ultimately fell, leading to the rest of history. But was the fall inevitable? That is, are free beings destined to become corrupted. No, according to traditional Christian teaching -- Jesus is an example of a free but perfectly good God/Man.

The reason I dwell on this particular spin on the problem of evil is that evil is often explained as the consequence of having beings having real freedom. So I picture a time in which we will be gloriously free but gloriously not wanting to sin -- that heavenly state. But can such a state really exist? In heaven, will humans never do wrong again? What's so special about heaven?

But is history the journey that must be taken to get to the glorious future? So it would seem that there is something very special about history, about our lives, our journeys that God deemed as worthwhile in some sense.

I have rambled here, struggling to express the question I have. Maybe I have to try again later....