The Wound and the Crown
Preface This is the first of two essays that are not an attempt to explain evil away, or to reduce providence to a formula that removes mystery. They are an invitation to consider how a good God can create a world with a genuine wound in it, and govern that world without either overriding its freedom or abandoning it to itself. Opening: The Wrong Question Ask many people why a good God permits evil, and they will answer as though the question had only one possible form. God could have made a perfect world. This world is not perfect, so something has gone wrong. That assumption needs to be examined before we accept it. It suggests an answer to a prior question none of us voiced: what sort of creation would a good God make in the first place? A finished world that later broke? Or a world still on its way to the glory for which it was made? We should admit, before going further, that not every "why" receives an answer. Job asked this question in its oldest form and w...