The Archbishop of Canterbury has described his "profound sadness" at the horror of the Paris attacks.
Asked "Where is God", Archbishop Justin Welby said: "Where is He in all this? He's alongside with that deep involvement in the suffering and pain of the world that took him to the cross."
Archbishop Welby was speaking to Aled Jones of the BBC Songs of Praise, due to be broadcast this afternoon.
Jones asked: "Archbishop, what's your reaction to what's happened in Paris?"
The Archbishop replied: "Like everyone else – first shock and horror and then a profound sadness – and in our case, that's my family's case, that's added to because my wife and I lived in Paris for five years. It was one of the happiest places we've lived and to think of a place of such celebration of life seeing such suffering is utterly heart breaking "
Asked if he ever had doubts, the Archbishop said: "Oh gosh, yes."
He added: "Saturday morning – I was out and as I was walking I was praying and saying: `God why - why is this happening? Where are you in all this?' and then engaging and talking to God. Yes, I doubt."
Archbishop Welby said God replied.
"He said `in the middle of it` and also in answer from Psalm 56 – `He stores up our tears in a bottle – none of our sufferings are lost'"
Jones spoke of how the terrorists believe they're doing it to glorify their God.
Archbishop Welby said: "Religion is so powerful in the way humans behave that it has always been a tool used by the wicked to twist people into doing what they want them to do. Yes, they do believe that. But just because someone believes something deeply wrong doesn't mean that they're right in some strange way – because they put God in it. The perversion of faith is one of the most desperate aspects of our world today."
The immediate reaction is to want an "eye for an eye", he admitted. "But two injustices don't make justice. If we start randomly killing those who have not done wrong, that's not going to provide solutions. So governments have to be the means of justice. The Bible tells us that they are put there by God with the sword for justice, but they also have to lead us into a place where peace can be established."
The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales is also appearing on the programme. Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Vincent Nichols said it had taken him some time to come to terms with what had happened.
Cardinal Nichols told Jones: "I think the purpose that terrorists have in mind is first of all to make us live in fear, secondly to breed hatred within in us and thirdly and consequently to strike divisions in our society – to split us apart, and I think I have been trying to express the importance of resisting those three things and in some ways that pressure is most of all on those who have been bereaved and traumatised."
He said the terrorists' religious motives were distorted and, as the Pope has said, their actions are a blasphemy against God. "So rather than ever with any rationality - or validity - claiming to act in the name of God, this is absolute blasphemy for everything that God stands for."
He urged people to stand together in the face of this evil.
