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In answering this question, I simply assume, for reasons I've just given, first, that by "God" is to be understood the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so the One implied by "the greatest and first commandment," which reads, according to the formulation of Jesus' teaching in Mt 22:37 f., "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." God is to be understood, in other words, as the all-worshipful One, the one reality worthy of unreserved trust and unqualified loyalty, and hence the all-surpassing, unsurpassable reality, "than which – in Anselm's words – none greater can be conceived." And I assume, second, that by "tough times" is to be understood times that, for anyone trying to lead a human life, and for causes either more generally natural or more specifically historical, happen to be bad times rather than good, unfortunate rather than fortunate, and therefore troubling or demanding times, hard or difficult to live through.

My answer to the question, then, summarily is: God is where God is in all times, tough or not tough – doing what God unfailingly does in every time. I shall now briefly unpack this summary answer. God unfailingly does mainly two things. First, God makes whatever comes to be really possible, in fact as well as in principle; and, second, God

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