How do you live in this world - filled with wars and chaos - with no hope of redemption or things getting better, and just thing “yep, this is all there is, life is good”. As Christians, we have assurance, certainty and comfort in that Jesus is coming back to judge the world, destroy all the wicked and bring us to eternal life. Atheists don’t have that. Even worse, some even prefer to insult this God. What’s keeping me grounded in this life is the knowledge that God dictates when my life ends- not me.
God did explicitly create evil.
The fruit of the tree was the fruit of the “knowledge” of good and evil, not the “seed” of good and evil.
But he probably created evil so that there could be good, the same way he created darkness so that there could be light, the way he divided the waters from the land and the earth from the sky.
“Author” is probably the better term. The fact of the matter is, the evil on this earth isn’t God’s doing. It’s man. Yes, God gave us free will, but that makes US accountable, not Him.