As I read chapter 4, what I saw was the idea that much suffering is caused by the natural laws that consistantly govern the world. That God's greatness is shown by this consistancy and not by miracles. That if God were involved in rescuing the righteous, he would create a world that had no consistancy and that we couldn't handle that. That these "laws" are inanimate and impersonal. They neither "know" or "care" who is righteous. "That the rain falls on the just and the unjust." The question is why did God create a world like that. Chapter 4 seems to say that, in addition to the discussion above, it is because pain is useful and death in this world is better than living forever. I wasn't really satisfied with that answer. I found chapter 5 more persuasive with its discussion of free will. I have long felt that the suffering we face is less important than our reaction to it. Our physical self (animal self according to Kushner) lives in this world of uncaring but consistant rules and good and bad choices, but our spiritual self, our divine self has the free will to respond with either good or bad choices. The challenges we face are the exercise equipment that can strengthen or injure our souls depending on how we choose to react to them.