C.S. Lewis:
"God is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties and stopped before the operation was complete all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But it is credible that such torture should be necessary for us...If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary."
Lewis asked this question of people who say, "'I am not afraid of God, because I know He is good.' Have they never been to a dentist?"
