Evil's no problem for us
From Mr Clive James Sir: With reference to Theo Hobson's piece (Piety trick', 6 October), it pleases me that someone called Theo should be a theologian. At school I had a friend called Phil who collected stamps, but when he became known as Phil the Philatelist he gave up. Theo the Theologian is made of sterner stuff. His spiritual qualifications, however, don't make him a mind-reader.
I might have 'seemed to assume' that I was 'an authority on matters of faith', but I don't assume it. Nor do I have any 'rictus pride', whatever that is, about my insight into the Problem of Evil: a locution I have never used, with or without capital letters. There is no problem. The problem is for believers. Terrible things happen, but God does not come to intervene, and we nonbelievers conclude that this is because God does not exist. Non-believers are perfectly capable, while concluding that, of also concluding that a state, though it can't be democratic unless it is secular, stands to lose a lot if religion is not important in private life.
I'm sorry if I gave the impression of being glib on this complicated subject. It would have helped if Theo the Theologian had not been so quick to decide that it takes a professional to think about these things. We all think about them: it is the price of having lived at all.
Clive James
London SE1
From Dr Henry Hardy Sir: I welcome Theo Hobson's challenge to Devout Sceptics (DSs) to put up or shut up. But he should not get away with his complaint that DSs don't 'state [their] own religious position', since he doesn't state his. Possibly, being a theologian, he is a believer, but not necessarily: we should be told.
There are two ways for DSs to 'put up': to become more devout or to become more sceptical. The latter is the only option for those who cannot believe: to lay claim to the fruits and insights of a faith to which one does not subscribe is like claiming benefits from a government to which one does not pay taxes.
Henry Hardy
Oxford
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