Is God always "just"?

[Captain Scarlet]

Those Bible verses indicate that God created both good and evil, and I see no problem with that. The Bible verses you've provided say nothing on whether God is just; they merely reassert the concept that God created everything, including evil. Your argument is a non-sequiter; how does having created evil alongside good degrade God's justice at all? It doesn't. There is a balance between good and evil, both of which God created. And isn't the sign of justice...

Oh yeah. A balance.

I agree this has nothing to do with justice and is a non-sequitor.

As for a balance I don't see it. We are told that at least the Christian concept of god is of a maximally good being, omnipotent and free (the Islamic and Jewish concepts I am less clear on). That is this god only ever chooses to do the best things possible, does it freely and can do whatever it isn't logically limited in doing. There are problems with this concept however:
1) there is no reason why ominpotence is trumped by being maximally good (it is just assumed), in other words if god were free and all powerful why couldn't he do evil (biblically it seems more consistent to assume he can indeed commit evil)
2) if god is perfectly free and also only ever able to choose to do good, why could he not bestow that on his creation/s. We apparently are free but can choose to do evil and god lets us! (at least if created in his image why don't we possess his characteristics?)
3) If god is compelled only ever to do good, why praise him for it?, he has no choice (like an unthinking machine)
4) Imagine a perfectly evil god who allows people to freely choose to do good? Most likely we could bootstrap such a diety into existence with as much logical consistency as the Christian concept and it would expalin just as much about our world (nowt!). So why would that be less valid tha the Christian concept?

The most likely explanation is that there is no such god with these properties