Summary

Pages 3 through 4 — The letter is addressed to Father Perrin (“My Dear Father”) and is dated January 19, 1942. Weil begins by noting that she has been preoccupied with the idea of God’s will, and that she both seeks to understand what it means and how she can come to a position of completely conforming herself to it. In order to do this, she makes a crucial distinction between three separate domains of the will.

The first is “that which is absolutely independent of us” (3). Here she includes all the “accomplished facts” of the universe, i.e., everything that has happened (past), is happening (present), and will happen (future). Such facts lie beyond human reach and thus everything that occurs in this domain is in complete accordance with the will of God. Because of this, Weil believes that one must...