'Consider...what the Bible does teach us about the problem of evil. It gives us slivers of a pie chart. One tiny sliver (and I'm convinced that it's no more than that) would be labeled, "We live in a fallen world." Another sliver would say, "There is a devil." Other tiny slivers would be labeled, "People have free will," "Sin has consequences," "Sometimes God disciplines his people," or "Good can come out of suffering."
Perhaps there are more slivers. I tire of even writing them because they offer so little consolation. The vast majority of the pie chart (a good 75 per cent if you could quantify such things) would be labeled in bold, bright letters, "WE DON'T KNOW."
However we choose to word our answer, we must not imply that one of the slivers in the whole pie. Our "answer" must sound and feel like it's 25 per cent sliver, 75 per cent "I don't know." If our words have no Job-like angst, we'll sound more like Job's friends and receive a similar response.'
Randy Newman, Questioning Evangelism: Engaging People's Hearts the Way Jesus Did, p.110.
