To me, God is a word that for the majority of the people represents something external, and this division is the main reason of almost all the issues around "God".
I don’t care about the word that we will use, because the meaning of the divine is beyond words. To me, god is a wise, intelligent, loving noetic essence that is simultaneously in everything and also outside. So, we can affect it because we are one with it, but we have to expand ourselves to its extent to do it(extent the horizons of the material part, utilizing the immaterial "part" that we have within).
Evil still exists in the world because we still have it in us.
When the majority of the species will expand their range of perception to wider layers of conscience, the world will have less and less evil.

This is a great article, with respect to all the viewpoints that are mentioned. Great work, Tara!