Reconciling God and Evil

We talked in class the other day about some apparent problems with Christianity, faith and reason being in the forefront. We were able to reconcile some things and merely talk about others, but I think the greatest question that plagued us all is the problem of evil. Any thinking person can see through reason immediately that there is a problem. God created everything, evil exists... Therefore God created evil?
If I may quote Ronald Nash in one of my favorite books, Worldviews in Conflict:
"1. If God is good and loves all human beings, it is reasonable to believe that he wants to deliver the creatures he loves form evil and suffering.
2. If God is all-knowing, it is reasonable to believe that he knows how to deliver his creatures from evil and suffering.
3. If God is all-powerful, it is reasonable to believe that he is able to deliver his creatures from evil and suffering."
So through reason, we see that God wants to eliminate evil, knows how to do so, and has the power to do so. Hence the problem, evil exists. Therefore, once again through reason, either God wants evil to exist, doesn't know how to stop evil, or doesn't have the power to stop evil. Some would take this and say, therefore God doesn't exist. However, I hope no one in this class would give up so easily.
Let me break it down further in the words of Nash:
"1. God exists.
2. God is omnipotent.
3. God is omniscient.
4. God is omnibenevolent.
5. God created the world.
6. The world contains evil."
We would all agree with these things, quite obviously. There is not an *explicit* contradiction in them. For there to be a logical contradiction, one would have to add as 7, "The world does not contain evil." That would make it illogical. But, most people, deducing from statements 1-5, would say that they insist upon the statement, "The world does not contain evil," therefore, creating the problem once again. The world does not contain evil, but this is not true; it does contain evil, yet it was made by the God described above. This necessitates a missing proposition, one that can make it logically consistent, agreeing with reason, and therefore immune to inconsistency.
The reconciling proposition, to which I owe the philosopher Alvin Plantinga, is that "God creates a world that now contains evil and has a good reason for doing so."
Our argument is now reasonably and logically sound, and Theologically for many:
"1. God exists, is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and created the world.
2. God created a world that now contains evil and had a good reason for doing so.
3. Therefore, the world contains evil."
Isn't that nice? Logically, it is easy to swallow, though for some, not so much Theologically. It is hard to say that God created evil, even though He did it for a good (in the sense of godly goodness, meaning infallible, inerrant goodness) reason. At the end of the day, we can make arguments and reason through tough questions as these, but the ultimate reason and logic behind all of this is far beyond our minds, and we should not inquire farther than we can reach.