Perhaps the most difficult and most debated philosophical problem of all time — at least the most passionately debated — is the “problem of pain”: why do bad things happen even to good people? Though none of the many answers which have been proposed are entirely satisfactory to me, the best insights into the problem of pain I have found are contained in a little article by Batsell Barrett Baxter, entitled “Is God Really Good?”, which concludes that evil is the “inevitable result of our greatest blessings.” I will follow Baxter’s outline in presenting my own thoughts on this question, looking at  some of the blessings which have, as inevitable consequences, unhappy side effects.