Because tonight's question, evil, the great accuser of God's existence.

So the idea is I say a few things I have to say, and then I'll open up to what we have to say,

hopefully keeping it on the topic of what I was saying, right?

But if it's not, we take that on board as well. So, I suppose the

reality for all of us is that the question of evil is very real. And it's a particular

issue for those of us who are believers in a God who is all powerful and all good.

If you don't believe in God, it's not really a problem, I suppose,

insofar as it's just part of our experience or part of our reality.

And we, I'd be interested to know we can say any more about it than that.

But for us who do believe in a God, the question of evil is very real.

It's not just a question.

And I suppose there's different ways we can look at this question of evil.

We can look at it from a philosophical point of view, a theological point of view,

and a very personal point of view. You can look at evil as a moral evil, or what we might call natural evil in sense of natural disasters.

You can ask yourself about a child, a young child, who is dying in pain.

It doesn't seem right.

Or you can ask about an insect whose only reason, seems to us anyway to exist is the destruction of another insect.

What's that all about?

I stand here as a Dominican, right, so therefore I'm a follower of the teachings of St. Thomas

Aquinas.

And when St. Thomas Aquinas

deals at the very beginning of his summer theology on the existence of God, utzum deus

...