So you will notice a new link I have added to the left-hand column of my blog for "Mark Palmer- Complete Healing." I would encourage you to follow the link and post a prayer for his healing.

This has lead to some very interesting thoughts, comments and prayers on Eric and Beth's blogs, as well as a number of others on the dilemma of evil and suffering, especially as it affects God's children. I have always struggled with the thought that things should be right and fair (according to whom, I wonder?) and we have seen some horrible things happen to some really good people. Things that in any good and fair world just should NOT happen! There has always been an argument against the existence of a good and fair God in such an evil, unfair and arbitrary world. I certainly don't get it, but I like to rely on people with much more brains than I have, like C.S. Lewis who taught that good and evil can coexist in this world and that it is rather proof FOR God, rather than against.

I was trying to remember something that I read of Lewis' where he said something along the lines of "who ever said that a God of love only wants us to be happy?" This is not a quote, but I think it comes from our tendency to equate love with happiness and the two are not anywhere related. It is certainly true that being "in love" makes us happy, but real love will often allow or even cause pain when necessary. Now I am digging myself into a hole and I'll just post a review of his book.

In an article I was reading on the web for a review of Lewis' "The Problem of Pain" it states the following:

The Problem of Pain, published in 1940, is specifically dedicated to the intellectual problems raised by evil and suffering. In The Problem of Pain Lewis begins by discussing God's omnipotence and characteristic goodness. By beginning with God's omnipotence, or His unlimited power, Lewis addresses the first charge in the problem of evil, namely that God may in fact be unable to rid the universe of evil. Here Lewis simply states that one need not infer from the existence of an omnipotent God and the existence of evil that God is unable to do something about it. Lewis advances several options; such as God may be using the evil to work out His plan among men; He may be ridding the universe of evil and we cannot see the end; or most importantly, evil is a necessary condition of the relationship between God and His creatures if they are to have a free will.

Again, when addressing the problem of God's goodness and His willingness to help out His creation, Lewis simply argues that one need not, and in fact cannot, come to the conclusion that God is not good based on the available data. We, as finite creatures, argues Lewis, are in no position to draw these kinds of conclusions. There are many perfectly logical explanations for the coexistence of evil and an all-powerful and all-good God.

I will have to think more about this later since work calls.