For those who espouse the Judaeo-Christian faiths, with their teaching about good intentions, justice, and the loving kindness of God, the presence of evil in the world raises disturbing questions and lies in their religious stomachs like an undigested meal. For others, the reality of evil is, perhaps more than anything else, the roadblock that keeps them from a religious faith and turns them to an attitude of atheism, cynicism, or despair. And of course for all of us evil is a constant threat for it has power to possess and destroy the human soul or extinguish our lives through war, disease, or crime. So, evil is a problem that ultimately none of us can avoid, though many people are experts at keeping their heads in the sand, ostrich fashion, as long as they can. This attitude of hiding from evil, however, can no longer be possible when we begin to suffer. Suffering always brings the problem of evil with it, and the problem of evil and the problem of suffering are companions. In this book the focus is more philosophical than pastoral, more aimed at the problem of evil than at the problem of suffering, but the problem of suffering always underlies everything that is said.