It’s the nature of psychotherapy that we enter into people’s suffering with them, and there we face together the big, awful questions of life. For believers who struggle (and who doesn’t?) and those nonbelievers whose skepticism and doubt are underscored by the terrible events of life, I offer, not for the first time, a clumsy explanation about the role of will. I take no credit for the originality of these ideas; a wise priest, C.S. Lewis and others get all the credit. But in case you are not in the market to take up a theological book, or even Lewis’s wonderfully clear and concise “Mere Christianity,” I offer my awkward summary.

Many religious people pour salt in their own suffering by imagining that, since everything that happens is due to God’s Will, then they have to wrestle with a God who wanted, for example, their loved one to be killed by a drunk driver. That grief is a terrible burden to bear, made worse if you believe that the God whom you love and serve orchestrated it with terrible precision. Adding to this is the unhelpful, albeit well-intended, “comfort” offered by those who say it’s all God’s Will.

This problem of what a good God is up to, which I dare to wade into, is the difference between what we believers might describe, (and again, I borrow the terms from wise people) as God’s Perfect Will versus God’s Permissive Will. And between them stand, like obstinate toddlers, all of humanity with its free will, myself included.

The Perfect plan, if I may, would be all of us living in harmony. Each would be using their gifts to bring service and joy to others; kindness and generosity would rule the day. The earth itself would continue to evolve to perfection – what we look forward to with the final end of disease and suffering.

And … we have free will. That messes things up. In the Perfect Will of God, that drunk driver would not gotten drunk. They would have not gotten behind the wheel, they would not have been deluded into believing they were “fine.” But free will allows that stupid, selfish, and evil series of choices. It also allowed the choices by other people: to not intervene, to not be ready to be the fun killer who takes away the keys and calls a rideshare or deliver the drunk home oneself. There are usually not-so-innocent bystanders in such situations. Not everyone drives drunk. Some people text and drive. Some people gossip. Some people attack other people on (anti)social media. Some people have numbed themselves to the loneliness of someone right there, in their own home. Most of us probably do some sort of selfish act every day, even if we are oblivious to its impact on other people. I am certain I do, and it’s probably far worse and more often than I imagine.

So here we all are, stepping on one another’s toes at best and causing profound suffering at worst, making a tremendous disaster of a world that is supposed to be evolving to perfection. And that mess is what might be called God’s Permissive Will. It was not God’s Perfect plan, but since free will was given, this is what we get.

I will now go out on a more fragile limb and offer a thought: that when Scripture tells us that God works all things together for good for those who love Him (Romans 8:28) that perhaps what that means is that our own free will comes into play here. When tragedy strikes, will I draw closer to God (good for me) or pull away (bad for me)? Will I go through the struggle of discerning what would God want me to do in this new and terrible circumstance, which I did not want, or will I just rebel or seek comfort in self-destructive numbing?  God, I believe, does not allow someone die tragically in order to “teach you (or me) a lesson.” But I believe that, when tragedy arises, then the “good” to be worked out will be to try to discern how to be a good person despite the tragedy, which will always lead us closer to God.

I hope this is helpful to someone who is suffering.