Your reader complains of others ‘ignoring’ great thinkers of the past 2,000 years, as if St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Luther, Calvin, or Kierkegaard have not been roundly criticized for centuries for failing to solve the theodicy problem to general satisfaction. Why would Niebuhr or Lewis have attempted to answer the very same question if those first five had done a bang up job of things?
—
“The burden of proof, under a hypothetical mode of inquiry, lies with the one doing the hypothesizing. If one wants free reign to believe any old story, just stop pretending to be intellectually honest, drop the pretenses to intellectual inquiry, and say, I believe it because I believe it. There is no arguing with that. But don’t expect to be taken seriously.”
One of Sullivan’s readers addresses the theodicy argument with breathtaking aplomb.
