Introduction. Why I wrote this book. [pages 1-5]

"This is not an abstract book about God and theology. … This is a very personal book written by someone who believes in God and in the goodness of the world, someone who has spent most of his life trying to help other people believe, and was compelled by a personal tragedy to rethink everything he had been taught about God and God's ways." [page 1]

"I knew … that one day I would write this book. I would write it out of my own need to put into words some of the things I have come to believe and know. And I would write it to help other people who might one day find themselves in a similar predicament. I would write it for all those people who wanted to go on believing, but whose anger at God made it hard for them to hold on to their faith and be comforted by religion. And I would write it for all those people whose love for God and devotion to Him led them to blame themselves for their suffering and persuade themselves that they deserved it." [page 4]

"I am not a formally trained philosopher. I am fundamentally a religious man who has been hurt by life, and I wanted to write a book that could be given to the person who has been hurt by life--by death, by illness or by injury, by rejection or disappointment--and who knows in his heart that if there is justice in the world, he deserved better. What can God mean to such a person?" [page 5]

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