Randy Alcorn’s If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil (Multnomah, 2009) responds to the atheistic claim that the existence of evil negates Christian proclamation of God’s total sovereignty plus total goodness: If He’s really in charge, He’s a sadist. 

In my life, I’d already seen enough evil and suffering to feel deeply troubled by it. What I needed was to find perspective on what troubled me. In this process of writing If God Is Good, I’ve taken most pleasure in focusing closely on God, exploring his attributes of goodness, love, holiness, justice, patience, grace and mercy.