In relation to your next couple of questions Sane,
God is the Creator. God is Omniscient, God is Omnipresent. God is Omnipoten (Just means he is all knowing, and always present and all powerful) .
He is the One and Only God.. He is jealous yes.. but not of the other gods who mean nothing... for they are nothing. His is the jealousy that a man has for the woman he loves, when he sees her with other men. He who is the creator and lover of all mankind, longs for all mankind to be in relationship with Him.
Yes, as creator he created all mankind with free will. But it's not as simple as that.
Yes, God could easily have caused the world to be put right and make everyone morally good. Yes he could do away with evil. He even could have stopped them crucifying his son. But He didn't.
Why?
Because of the other qualites that make God God.
You see, He not only is all those attributes which we think of God's alone.. "omnipotent, omnipresent, omnscient" he is also has attribures (characteristics) which we will see as being in us to. (like love, goodness, truth etc). We call these characteristics moral attributes.
We are created in His image and we were created as moral creatures, with the ability to choose right and wrong, good and bad etc.
God CHOSE to make us in His image and a moral agent with the responsibility of free will. Why? so that as His creatures, we would CHOOSE to respond to him. Now, okay, granted the consequences of not choosing are extreme according to Christians (ie you go to hell), but look at the opposite view point.
If God is God and had put in you the little chip that made you a robot so you responded to Him whether you wanted to or now, where is the joy in that either for you or for Him?
Now keep that in mind and think of the attributes that make God God in our eyes. We call Him Holy for a start. Now to be Holy means to be completely absent from sin. So Holy is our God that nothing sinful can draw near to Him.
Now, according to the Bible, disobedience and the inability to match up to God's standard of Holiness means we deserve the penalty of our sins. Isaiah states even the good things we do are like filthy rags to next to the holiness of God.
God as Judge, demands that those sins receive the due penalty .. which in Romans we read is "death".
Now at this point, I'm going to add another dimension, which if you want me to, I'll post more about another time, but whilst Christians talk of death and hell in the one breath for non believers, Hell was never created for human beings. hell or the lake of fire was created for the devil and his angels. Whilst so far, I'm only talking about Man and God in relation to each other, the Bible speaks of a much more spiritual problem happening right now in ways you and I as humans can see or know is happening.. and it's what Christians call "war in the heavenlies'. That is a real Satan (who is described in the Bible as the most beautiful of angels who tried to be "like the most high God and was thrown from heaven to earth and took a third of the angels with him) and real demons and angels are at war with each other.
Returning now to our original discussion, A holy God to be true to Himself demands that the universal penalty for sin.. which is death .. is given to all who sin. Now the bible says "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.. so all will die".
Now we add another attribute of God.. LOVE. For God so loved the World, He gave His only son, that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish but have everlasting life.
You see the Love of God accomplished what the Holiness of God demanded. The morality of God gave man free choice, so we would respond to him in love. He could not be true to Himself and His character if He did not give man free choice. Yet even before man sinned, the bible says that Jesus was promised as the Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world. God knew in his omniscience that man would slip up. God knew that man would die and go to the place prepared for the devil and his angels. God knew that as sin had come into the world through one man, so also would eternal life. God came as man and payed the ultimate punishment for yours and my sin. .. and the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Now.. why did God not see Adam in the Garden? he did see him. but he also needed Adam to acknowledge His need of Him. He came to the garden as he had done since creation .. in perfect relationship with Adam and Eve. Now, Adam has hidden himself from God in shame and in guilt. God's question to Adam was not a case of not seeing him or knowing where he was.. it was a case of knowing Adam needed something from God He would NEVER be able to provide for himself.. an adequate covering.
why were Adam and Eve hiding? "they were naked and ashamed". They had tried to make a covering from fig leaves and it had not removed their feelings of guilt and shame. God provided them with a covering and then they talked again. Yes, there were consequences for their sin (read Gen 3) and those consequences not only touched them it touched all mankind, but God provided the answer to those consequences Himself.
I think that's enough for this post Sane. I'll answer the last few questions i the next post.