Professor Hall has written a major work on an agonizing subject at once brilliant comprehensive and thought provoking. In contrast to many writers who gloss over one or the other Dr. Hall is true both to the reality of suffering and to the affirmation that God creates sustains and redeems. Creative is his view that certain aspects of what we call suffering -- loneliness experience of limits temptation anxiety -- are necessary parts of God s good creation. These he distinguishes from suffering after the fall the tragic dimension of life. Unique is his structure: creation-suffering as becoming the fall--suffering as a burden redemption--conquest from within. Professor Hall succeeds in moving the reader beyond the customary way of stating the problem: How can undeserved suffering coexist with a just and almighty God? He also evaluates five popular leading thinkers on suffering: Harold Kushner C.S. Lewis Diogenes Allen George Buttrick and Leslie Weatherhead.