I have been discussing with a correspondent what I have chosen to call 'the big problem'. If God is good, why does He allow evil? In the case of my correspondent, the question boils down to: "If He loves me, why did He allow ... to happen? Why did He not stop it?" The omitted detail refers to some actions taken by another person against her when she was young and vulnerable.

There are some interesting assumptions behind this sort of question, and these assumptions are at the heart of every legalistic religion, whether Eastern religions which believe in reincarnation, or Judaism (for instance) which does not. The assumption made was very common at the time of Jesus, and is one He often challenged. The assumption is that good fortune (riches, good health, success) are a reward, and that suffering and misfortune are a punishment.

Legalism teaches that all good things have to be earned by obedience to the rules applying, and in Hinduism (to put it very simply) there is karma which ensures that a good life is rewarded by a higher status in the next, and that a wicked life is punished by a lower status - not necessarily human - in the next. The corollary of this is that if you are a rich man, you must be very virtuous and your virtue is being rewarded by this prosperity you enjoy, and conversely if you are suffering misfortune this is a punishment for some previous sin, or a sign of divine disfavour.

So Jesus told a story about a rich man enjoying great prosperity, and a beggar with great suffering. Please read the story here if you are not familiar with it.

This story raises many issues. For instance we are not told why Lazarus was taken to Abraham's presence. I do not think we can conclude that it was simply because he was poor. We do not know why the rich man was in hell (the Greek word here is actually 'Hades'), but we may believe it might have a lot to do with what he didn't do - it was only his dogs who seemed to care about the beggar at his gate. There is much left out of the story.

But one thing at least is clear. The rich man was not enjoying God's approval, and eventually knew it, and feared his brothers were in the same condition. Notice he is not named, while we are told the beggar's name, Lazarus. The rich man is on the way to oblivion, Lazarus to a fuller identity than he enjoyed on this earth. His name matters. It is a colloquial form of Eleazar, which means 'God has helped'.

The story also refers to an impassable boundary ('a great chasm'). This is a key, I think. There are boundaries that are impassable, even for God. He has made us 'in His own image', like Himself. So we have choices, else we are no longer human. God can only deal with us on this basis. He cannot turn us into robots. This applies not just to me, but to everyone who has the power to hurt me. If I ask for God's protection, He is limited to what he can do. If a man attacks me with an axe, God cannot freeze that attacker in the middle of the blow; my attacker is human too. There are many who suffer for no fault of their own - one only has to think of the Holocaust that came upon the nation God had made a special covenant with. Their cry of 'why?' is understandable.

God's answer includes two elements: the first is that He shares all human sorrow and suffering - it hurts Him too; and the second is simply this: He too suffered innocently, on the cross, two thousand years ago. Whatever you or I suffer, He has suffered worse.