Replies

Why couldn't an all-powerful God, who created the universe and all the rules governing it, make it so that we could simulataneously enjoy free will AND not have the ability to make the wrong choices?
Because free will means the ability to make choices. There is evil here because this is not Heaven, this is the Fallen world. Adam and Eve essentially did live in the place you wish the world was.

And to those other posters asking why doesn't God make everything right, well, He did already, and we made the choice to "leave" and know death. God performs miracles all the time, not the least of which is what happens every time a new life is created.
Maybe God wants us to learn what true Love is so we will understand what it means to give and trust without question. Maybe if we'd truly loved Him we would have had that trust to obey without question and we'd still be in Eden.

Because free will means the ability to make choices. There is evil here because this is not Heaven, this is the Fallen world. Adam and Eve essentially did live in the place you wish the world was....

Okay, so you are saying this world is not as ideal as Heaven, and the reason our world is worse is because of the mistakes of Adam and Eve. Am I correct?

If so, then I must ask: if God is all good, and all powerful, why did he structure things so that Adam and Eve *could* make a mistake? Why didn't God make the world so that Adam and Eve could have free will, but at the same time make them unable to stain humanity with their mistakes? That could not have been very difficult for an all-powerful being.

...Maybe God wants us to learn what true Love is so we will understand what it means to give and trust without question. Maybe if we'd truly loved Him we would have had that trust to obey without question and we'd still be in Eden.

An all-powerful God could have achieved those objectives without any risk of evil at all. Again, by definition God can do anything. So why did He even give us the slightest chance to mess things up, if He could have reached his desired outcome without the possibility of error?