Chapter V continued.

It goes without saying,I think,that children have a limited capacity to grasp religious concepts.In looking back,that was certainly true of myself.But my mother and father both taught us what they believed were some basic ideas that would be understandable to us.For the most part they were,and I'm most thankful for the teaching.But I still had questions.

One big question came upon me more or less as soon as my parents began teaching religious things,and,more or less because of those teachings.It was something that was just out of my grasp when I was four,but it is something that is instinctual to humans,one of the great existential questions.I would not have been able to phrase the question then,but it was nevertheless there:If God is Good,and He can do anything,why do bad things happen?

Looking back I'm surprised how young I was when that thought first presented itself  in my mind.As a small child,I had not had much exposure to really bad,evil things at all.They all existed in what I call The World Just Beyond.They were there,never far away,but we were diligently guarded from them,especially by my mother.And I was barely aware of evil.But the idea of bad things seemed possible because of ideas like trespasses and the need to forgive,and,above all else,Hell.You could not even mention Hell by name,and were you to go there,you would burn forever in a huge fire.That seemed like a very bad thing. So I wondered how God,who was good and could do anything would ever allow such a thing.