It's been a while since I read Lewis' The Problem of Pain in which he deals with the various purposes and causes of pain and suffering and, indirectly, sin in the world.

I tend to fall towards the Calvinist/Theo-Determinist side of things, which I consider interesting due to my personal views of responsibility and locus of control fall far to the internal side. Personal responsibility is a big thing in my life.

But I would mitigate the full-throttle "God caused it" with the, I believe more accurate, "God allowed it" which is easily and irrefutably understood from the story of Job.

I assuage the internal issues I feel over God-caused pain with the understanding that I don't and can't understand all God's reasons because His thoughts are not my thoughts and His ways are not my ways.

Taking an argument from nature and our own lives, we see how pain and suffering, resulting either from our own stupidity and sin or from the normal passage of life, serves to strengthen us and grow us more effectively at times than would ease and comfort. And if God is working together all things for the good of those called according to His purposes He could conceivably be a rather direct cause of what we can see as unpleasant and painful.

The chief end of man is to glorify God and praise Him forever. This occurs willingly or unwillingly. It is non-optional. Each and every circumstance and action serves in it's small way, within the vast canvas of God's plan, to bring about God's greater glory.

And the comfort in any pain I suffer either from God's direct action or His indirect allowing is that I know He has His hands upon the situation and is not leaving up to fate or chance or Satan the tempering of my spirit.

Yes. I mentioned Udo's book at the end. It was actually recommended to me by a student of Bruce Little's and it is certainly an eye-opening, two-fisted beat-down of the causally deterministic position. I've also heard that shortly after the bridges collapsed in Minnesota and John Piper made his deplorable "God did it" comment (like he does EVERY time a disaster happens), Udo wrote to Bruce, citing Piper's words on the matter and made a comment to the effect of "this is what is wrong with Christianity in America."