To ask whether the universe as we see it looks more like the work of a wise and good Creator or the work of chance, indifference, or malevolence, is to omit from the outset all the relevant factors in the religious problem. Christianity is not the conclusion of a philosophical debate on the origins of the universe: it is a catastrophic historical event following on the long spiritual preparation of humanity which I have described. It is not a system into which we have to fit the awkward fact of pain: it is itself one of the awkward facts which have to be fitted into any system we make. In a sense, it creates, rather than solves, the problem of pain, for pain would be no problem unless, side by side without our daily experience of this painful world, we had received what we think a good assurance that ultimate reality is righteous and loving. … It [Christianity] has the master touch - the rough, male taste of reality, not made by us, or, indeed, for us, but hitting us in the face.
- C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain [emphasis mine]