Matthias asks:
"People often talk about how evil is a necessary result of freewill, but why would God give us freewill AND give us an imperfect intellect that would choose anything but Him? Isn't this a recipe for disaster? Why did he not give us freewill but also an unclouded intellect that will always chose Him?"
Answer
I would dispute whether or not, in the beginning, we were given an "imperfect intellect." Yes we are given freewill, but just because we have the option to not choose God does not imply that we have an imperfect intellect. Indeed, God has freewill yes does not choose to do evil. However, God does have the option to choose evil--He just does not. To imply that we were given an insufficient or incomplete intellect to make a choice would mean that we did not in fact have freewill in the beginning. Worse, it would mean that God created humanity with a weakness so to speak that was prone to choose against Him. If one espouses a belief such as this, there are a host of problems and questions that would pop up. Seeing as few would believe such a proposition, it must be the case that we were either: (A) given freewill and a necessary attribute of freewill is the ability to choose against God or (B) we do not have freewill. Debating proposition (B) has already been done here: http://coherentfaithapologetics.weebly.com/1/post/2011/06/what-is-predestination-all-about-do-we-have-freewill-0609-1011-robert-a-rowlett.html.
I think the real question is not so much if God gave mankind a lacking intellect, but rather the centuries old question: "Why would God create us knowing we would choose against Him?" I do not profess to know all of the answers to that question, but I will say this: God desired to create and at that He wished to create a being with which He could have a relationship. Two necessary components of a being with which God could have a relationship are: (A) a mind and (B) freewill. Both of those attributes are observed in humanity.
As to why He did not create us with a mind set to always choose Him seems very intuitive to me. If He created a being that would only choose Himself, He would not have given that being true freewill. The opposite of what I described above, the being would have a freewill that is bent towards God and consequently humanity would not love God purely because of love, but because humanity was programmed to love God. Thus, God could not design us to always choose Him because that would violate the relational element of our nature that He specifically wished to create in us.
God bless,
Robert A. Rowlett