I had to phone the Guardian customer services today. I told them that white I’ve been ill have found it’s helpful to do su doku puzzles

But I cannot do the medium one today!

I asked him if anyone else complained and he said no so maybe it’s just me that’s my brain has done too many and is refusing to to cooperate now.

Oh dear will I have to read Principia Mathematica again? Well to say again is really telling a lie because I never read it before.

Bertrand Russell said his brain never felt the same after he wrote that book and in a way I wish he had not written it because it’s all based on an error.

Quite what this errorv is I cannot tell you. But there’s something in it at least to a contradiction and you know that we cannot have contradictions in mathematics

What about in theology can we have contradictions there?

Belief in God has been difficult for many because we used to think God was omnipotent and good but if that is the case why do we have evil in the world?

I know that some people like the nuns who educated me would say it’s to prove that you have willpower so that you can resist evil

In itself bitvseems very bad. If God created this world and caused a lot of suffering to see whether we would have the will power to refrain from causing more suffering or even to help those who are suffering it just doesn’t seem to make sense to me I cannot accept it as a theological argument

But then if God is not all powerful and all good is he really God?

If you were to study mathematics and especially numbers you would find that you very soon get into very complicated territory so that very few people could understand it and if this is true of numbers how much more is it true of people and the whole world it may be beyond our comprehension.

Well not maybe but certainly definitely it is beyond our comprehension but I’m not sure where to go from there

There is suffering inherent in the fact that our bodies are made of flesh and can be wounded and damaged either by accident or by evil or by illness etc

So there is going to be emotional pain and grief cause by the suffering of our loved ones including their death.

It’s particularly severe when children die either by illness or even worse in war.

One are my schoolmates died at the age of 15.

The suffering of her parents was very severe not to mention her brother and sister but they did not question God

I still remember her father reading out

The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away

Blessed be the name of the Lord

That’s been in my mind ever since