Book excerpt: As Christians, we believe that our Lord is a loving, kind, and merciful God. Because of that belief, many Christians as well as non-Christians find it difficult to understand how a loving God can permit evil and sin in the world. The role of sin in Gods divine plan is a complex, mysterious, spiritual issue, which humans can only partially understand. The acceptance of the belief that God is perfect in love and sent his only son to suffer and die for our sins can give us small insights and understandings of the role of sin in his divine plan. The purpose of this book is to examine those small insights in order for us to better appreciate why our loving God would allow sin to be a part of his divine plan.