Why did God make bad people?

Today I listened Greg Gilbert preach on injustice from Psalm 10. In his sermon, he related how his son had asked him,

"Dad, why did God make bad people?"

That's one of the many good questions that kids ask - and parents are often at a loss to answer. As I've been reading Augustine's City of God, I'm beginning to get a handle on what I believe is the Biblical answer, and how to explain it to kids.

Augustine's consistent answer to this question is that God did not make bad people. From creation, we affirm that God made all things good. He made humanity with a good nature. So He is the author of good.

Accordingly God, it is written, made man upright, and consequently with a good will. For if he had not had a good will, he could not have been upright. The good will, then is the work of God, for God created him with it. But the first evil will, which preceded all man's evil acts, was rather a kind of falling away from the work of God to its own works rather than any positive work. (City of God p457).

Evil is not an entity opposed to God, but what we call anything that turns away from God as its supreme good.

So there are two appropriate answers to the child who asks, "Why did God make bad people?" The first is that God created good people. He is the author of good. Those good people then became bad by turning away from God. The second answer is that we must look at ourselves, as well as others, when we ask why God made bad people. The Bible tell us, and our experience confirms, that we are bad people. So why did God make us? He made us to glorify Him and enjoy Him for ever, but we turned away from Him both corporately (or, more precisely, federally) and individually.

The great privilege of a parent who receives this question is to help their children see that God was good in creating good people, and that the blame lies only at our own feet for turning away from Him. So He is all the more merciful and glorious in granting forgiveness through Jesus.