"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (I/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Since I did not say so before, I will add now that I chose this book because I had already bought it for another course (Honors Colloquium) before finding out I did not, in fact, need it for that course. In other words, I already had it laying around, and it happened to fit this assignment perfectly.

Chapter I: God
Summary
     In this first chapter, Swinburne provides a definition of God by theist standards. He says that according to theists (Christians, Jews, and Muslims, among others), there is a God who is sexless, genderless, ageless, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, good, and free. 
Christian Response
     Swinburne raises one point in particular which I find interesting, and which I think is in need of questioning, especially from the Christian perspective. Again, I'm placing a disclaimer on my Christian perspective, because I think it's probably unreliable, as I am not a Christian and am only just beginning to try to understand Christianity. Comments and complaints are welcome. 
     The point I'm referring to comes up most noticeably on page 17, near the end of the chapter. Swinburne says, "the obvious goodness of at least one universe [containing some persons of limited powers such as humans] makes it quite likely that he will create one." Earlier, he says on page 16, "however many [human persons God] creates, it would be even better if he created more (perhaps well spaced out in an infinitely large universe). Given that human life is in general a good thing, the more of it the better. God cannot create the best of all possible worlds, for there can be no such world--any world can be improved by adding more persons to it, and no doubt in plenty of other ways as well." I personally was under the impression (and correct me if I am wrong), that according to Christianity, all humans are sinners because of the fall of Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden, saved only from the fires of hell by the fact that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. In other words, pre-fall, this quote makes perfect sense--but post-fall, is it necessarily true by Christian standards (or by any standards) that where human life is concerned, the more the merrier? Is more better? If God is perfectly good as Swinburne claims, than he can only make good things, and so human life must be good; but if God is omnipotent and responsible for the creation and maintenance of all things and their powers, as Swinburne also claims, then from whence came the serpent and the apple? Swinburne says God has given us limited free will, which is the only explanation provided that Adam and Eve might have fallen, but if God is indeed all-powerful and all-good, then perhaps the only answer to that question is that temptation is not all bad, and that the lessons we learn and experiences we gain from having fallen and from living in a post-fall world are important. Perhaps God created both the tree of life and the tree of knowledge knowing humanity could eat from only one, and gave Adam and Eve free will so that he did not have to decide. Perhaps, because we chose the tree of knowledge (even unknowingly), the pursuit of knowledge will lead us to know why the two fruits are mutually exclusive? Or perhaps that is a question the answer to which it is not our business to know, and we are meant only to pursue goodness and godliness that we may eat from the tree of knowledge on earth and from the tree of life in heaven.
Personal Response (and a defense of my choice of book)
The question of whether or not there is a god may not seem in and of itself to be an ethical issue. However, it does absolutely affect our ethics. I am not sure I can say that I am a good person because I believe in a god, and I certainly cannot say that I believe in god because I am a good person, but I do think that those two qualities are linked for logical believers. I say "logical" believers, because there are many examples of people who I do not think live their lives as good people, but who do believe in god, and who perhaps even act out of service to god, however illogically. This is an extreme example, but I will use Westboro Baptist Church: WBC members absolutely believe in god, absolutely act out of service to him and to carry out his word, and absolutely think they are doing good deeds. There are Bible verses that support what they do, but so far as I can see, the Bible in general is a book of love, and it is illogical to me that a person (or organization) would use hate to spread love, although I think that is what they are trying to do. I respect their right to their beliefs, but I absolutely believe that they are wrong and illogical, and that their acts are not good deeds.
However, my original point is that it is absolutely an ethical issue, whether or not there is a god, because belief in god can and will cause people to act differently. If you feel that there is some sort of karmic system, some system of crime and punishment or of good acts and rewards, and that the overseer of that system is omniscient and omnipotent, you are far more likely to try to do good acts--which is where much of the debate over what is good and what is bad begins. In other words, whether or not there is a god is the very root of all ethical debates.