If God is absolutely good, then why is there evil? How can an absolutely good God be compatible with evil? Is God  not all powerful an can destroy evil and all knowing and should destroy evil? Further, God is all knowing and created the world aware of what would happen. Lastly He created the world freely so he could have done otherwise.

    So we have all these questions. Why did God allow evil to exist. I do not want to trivialize the effects of evil and come across as unfeeling or uncaring about the suffering that comes from evil.. Lets start with a four part summary taken from the Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics.

If this is the case, then there seems to be no solution to the problem. Lets expand on the idea of the perfect creature. One of the perfections God gave some of his creatures is the power of free choice. Some of the creatures freely choose to do evil. Therefore a perfect creature caused evil.

 So the good creation of free will gave arise , indirectly to evil. It is a good thing to be free. It's what gives meaning to life. If we were not free to chose, then we would be puppets and not responsible for our sins or evil.

 So God made evil possible but we are responsible for making it actual. God is not responsible for our exercise or our free will even though he created us this way. God neither wills evil to be done or wills in not to be done.

    The nature of evil. 

 Evil is not a thing or a substance but it is a corruption of a good thing. Like rust on a Ford or a rotten spot on a apple. Although something cannot be totally evil. If it where as in the example of the apple. A apple that is totally rotten becomes compost and ceases to be a apple but turns into dirt. Therefore evil must have a good thing in order to exist and everything that was created is good.

Some purposes of evil

    Even the evil that we see that appears to have no good purpose. A  omnibenevolent being will have a good purpose for evil even if we cannot understand it with our limited minds.  

    Evil sometimes is a byproduct of a good purpose. Like a cattle beast has to die so we can eat steak. Typhoons occur but they replenish the land. So on the surface these think may look evil but the main purpose is good. .C.S Lewis wrote that "pain is God's megaphone to warn a morally deaf world." Pain warns us so we don't destroy ourselves.

 Much more can be said about the existence and nature of evil.  If you would like to know more The Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics is an excellent resource. Your can also contact me if you have any questions. The book can be purchased from the Christian Research Institute