Julian of Norwich and the Problem of Evil

Julian of Norwich''s Revelations of Divine Lovegrapples with the same fundamental question that has vexed philosophers andtheologians since the advent of monotheistic religion, and continues as abarrier to belief for many today. Namely, if God is so good, how can naturaldisaster, genocide, trauma - and my present suffering - occur? Historically,there have been two apparently very different approaches to the problem: thepastoral, or practical, on the one hand and the systematic on the other.

Richard Norton, however, suggests that these twolines