I enjoyed reading James Wood's essay on the problem of evil in the New Yorker. He captured well at the end of the essay a question I've had for a long time, namely, why do we have go through life on earth when we have heaven as the ultimate destination? If it's the exercise of human free will that enables evil to take hold on earth, how will heaven not be earth redux in which freedom will lead again to a fall? And if heaven is some special place in which freedom is fully consonant with the impossibility of human evil, then why does God put us on earth in the first place? Or maybe we won't be truly free in heaven at all.

I've never seen a satisfactory answer to the question that Wood poses. The essay made me think that it would be a great idea for New College Berkeley or my church First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley to host a class -- or at least a talk -- on the topic.