I'm sure we are all familiar with the problem of evil: If God is good, and God created the world, then how is there evil?

The standard answer is that the evil in the world is justified by a greater good. Perhaps this is free will, or perhaps its nature is knowable only to God. God remains good, because the evil he created is justified.

This implies that evil actions, if justified, do not attach to the being who commits them. God can remain perfectly good despite committing evil actions, because those actions are justified. It follows that evil also does not attach to humans who commit evil but justified actions.

Consider the human (other than Jesus) who, of all humans, has committed the least amount of evil in reaching adulthood. For this human, the only way to commit less evil would have been to stop living - which is to say, to commit suicide. But this is itself an evil action. So this human, and in fact an entire category of humans who have committed a lesser quantity of evil to reach adulthood than the evilness of suicide, can fully justify all their evil actions because they were all required to avoid a greater evil. Because their evil actions are justified, no evil has attached to them.

Now, let's suppose for a moment that the terms "sin" and "evil" have the same meaning. Christians know from theology that no human (other than Jesus) reaches adulthood without a sinful nature, which is to say, without evil attaching to them. We already shown that a human (other than Jesus) to whom no evil is attached must exist, but we have now also shown that such a human cannot exist. This is a logical contradiction, and therefore our assumption that "sin" equals "evil" must be wrong.

However, if "sin" does not equal "evil", then some sins must be good. However, God punishes (or at least requires redemptive sacrifice for) all sins. Why does God punish people for good actions?