Leo Braddock: Now, you created the entire universe: the uh, stars, the planets, Earth, plants, animals, people, everything. Did you not?
God: I did, yes.
Leo Braddock: Then must you not then assume complete responsibility for everything that happens here: the good and the bad?
God: This is a very complex question and I'm going to have to give it a yes and a no answer.
Leo Braddock: Well, how yes and how no?
God: Yes, because both good and bad flow from the will of people, from their freedom. Now, inasmuch as I made people free, inasmuch as I work within them to enhance that freedom, to that degree, I'm responsible for what flows from it.
Leo Braddock: And how no?
God: I did not create a race of robots, you know? I created a race of human beings. They can think for themselves, choose for themselves, and in a very real sense, the good or the bad that they do is their own because they freely create it. No one else is responsible for it.
Leo Braddock: Didn't you take a terrible risk when you made people free?
God: I decided to live dangerously.
Leo Braddock: Would you mind telling us why you did it?
God: No, not at all. You see, I enjoy living. I always have. I enjoy knowing. I enjoy loving so much so, that I decided that I wanted to share my joy. That's why I created people. I wanted to share my joy with them. Now, as you know, there's only one way to get joy and that's by loving. And as you also know, love must be free or it is not love at all.
Leo Braddock: Are you saying then that you made people free so that they could love and thereby, share in your joy?
God: That's right.
Leo Braddock: Well, conversely, could we also say that evil comes about when people misuse their freedom, when they use it not to love other people, but to degrade and exploit them?
God: That's it, in a nutshell.
Leo Braddock: Thank you very much. Your witness, Ms. Durban.