Dear Zoe, on God & Suffering

For thousands of years, the problem of suffering has been theology's, and our, open problem. Every answer on offer — from the pulpit, from the philosophers, from the academics — has either shrunk God to make the arithmetic work or offered comfort that everyone in the room sits with quietly, knowing it is not enough.This letter assembles a different answer.Drawing on the the Book of Job, Victor Frankl, Carl Jung, Auschwitz, Rwanda, the Ramayana and the contemplative traditions of East and West, it traces an argument the Christian tradition has had in its hands but never quite put together: that suffering is not the enemy of faith but the very foundation from which a more complete faith can be built.When his daughter turned seven, Len Wiens began writing her a letter, not about theology, but about everything he had found. What science and philosophy can and cannot say about God. Direct spiritual experience. What the mystics of every enlightenment tradition reported when they went deep enough.He put it in writing because one day she would need it and he might not be there to give it to her.It offers a father's daughter — and anyone willing to look without flinching — an honest theodicy to stand on when the weight comes.