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Good morning. There's a great deal in the news that is senseless and frightening. A terror attack on the St Petersburg metro; an asylum seeker savagely beaten in London. Humanity might be healthier, wealthier and better educated than ever before - but violence still seems inherent to our nature. You might be thinking "not to mine it's not. I might get angry from time to time but I don't lash out." Indeed it's important to remember that crime is historically low and most of the world is at peace. But violence is still possible and, crucially, possible among any kind of person. For instance, we tend to think of terror attacks as imported trouble - a foreign conflict brought to our streets. But the killers are often born in the countries they attack. They are products of our society; our sons and our daughters. And the assault on a Kurdish-Iranian teenage asylum seeker suggests that the cosy streets of Britain can provide an uncertain refuge to outsiders. Recognising our capacity for violence is not, however, a reason to panic. To me this is a case for realism. As a Christian, I believe we are all sinners - capable of good but also ill. Free will is the power - the challenge in fact - to choose good. Common sense dictates that not everyone will. The crucifixion of Jesus is final proof of that. God, I believe, does not extract himself from our sad situation but injects himself into the heart of it. We all have to live in the world not as we would like it but as it is. Sometimes that necessitates the use of violence to prevent violence. The idea of a war waged for peace sounds perverse, but the capacity of terrorists and rogue states to do real harm means we have to take action. Alas, this itself can see us drawn into a cycle of violence - what the classical Athenians depicted in their plays as blood demanding more blood, to the end of time. The cycle can be broken by the decision to make peace. This is the good news: violence is part of man's nature, but so are sympathy, compassion and the desire for justice. We know this is true, in part, because we're not constantly at each other's throats but have, with genius and hard work, constructed laws to live by. I hold on to the fact that even though violence is common in the news, it still shocks us. That proves that for most of us, our potential for badness is far outweighed by our potential to be good.