Bob Couchenour The First Years

"How can a good God allow human suffering?" "What father among you, if his son asks for a loaf of bread, will give him a stone; or if he asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, evil as you are, know how to give good gifts [gifts that are to their advantage] to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask and continue to ask Him!" (Luke 11:11-13, AMP) Human beings are capable of both “good” and “evil” deeds and actions. As a matter of our created nature, and as Orthodox theology would espouse, our fallen nature inherited through natural lineage from Adam and Eve and their sin and fall in the garden. Orthodox theology purports that this “fall” tainted ALL of creation with the sin of this transgression, thus allowing into creation the effects of evil and all the accompanying suffering. "The Spirit Himself [thus] testifies together with our own spirit, [assuring us] that we are