3. Who is responsible for the evil on the earth?
Summarizing: God is responsible for what He created, and humans are responsible their choices and the effects of their choices.
Four creations of God are important here:
God created the three parts of evil (See the definition of evil.),
and fourthly, God created the cause and effect reality on the earth.
This fourth creation means that every human choice on the earth,
impacts the earth according to the God-determined effects of choosing that option … good or bad.
Humans have three responsibilities:
1. Each choice made,
2. Each action taken, and
3. Each effect of each choice and action, both good and bad, help and harm, blessing and cursing, happening on the earth.
Notice, that while God creates the evil or 'bad stuff', a human must choose a bad option
in order for any evil, harm, or damage to happen on the earth.
This means that God is not responsible for any evil on the earth, even though He creates every bad consequence.
Knowing these responsibilities for evil does not solve the problem of evil.
Questions remain because much evil hits the earth, and if God could stop the evil effects before they hit the earth,
then it seems that He should do so. But He does not stop it, and we wonder why. Therefore, God's existence with evil is still an unanswered question.
Believer's explain that God has purposes to bring even more good out of evil, and that is usually true, but it still leaves us without an answer.
Thankfully, God revealed an authority structure (#4) that helps complete the answer. He established that structure for our reality on the earth.