What about the atomic bomb?  From the day on which the atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima and, several days later, Nagasaki, people have debated whether it was the right thing to do.  Should America have dropped the bomb?  Should America have chosen this way to end the war?
     These are complicated questions, and I do not pretend to have answers to them.  I will say, however, that in reading a book published recently (Nagasaki, by Susan Southard) that explores the lives of five children who survived the bombing and how they grew into adulthood, I have seen the issues presented to me in fresh ways.  As I read the deeply horrific accounts of the effects of the bomb, of the way it literally burned people alive, maimed thousands of others for life, and left a residue of radioactive induced illnesses that plagued Japan for decades, I wondered again and again:  why?  Sure, I am familiar with both sides of the arguments, and I am well aware of the circumstances under which the U.S. government elected to drop the bomb, yet one thing remains:  unfortunately, no one really knew the full measure of the bomb's effects.  No one knew exactly what would happen to the people and buildings on which it dropped.  No one.
     Some might argue that it was God's will that America win the war, or that, in the long run, God brought good--as he defines it--out of the pain and misery.  To the latter point, we have little to say:  how can we know?  To the former, however, we might say that although we can say that we "know" God's will, we will never know it in its fullest ramifications.  And we err if we insist that we do.
     As Jesus said, "No one is good but God."  The rest of us are amateurs.
     Rest well, people of Japan.

P.S.     I am well aware of Euthyphro's argument to this point, but will not respond to it today!