Framing the Question 21
and more pernicious set of assumptions, and that has been
prepared by a long psychological and dogmatic formation to
accept ludicrous propositions without complaint if it must, as
it gropes about for justifications for a much more ludicrous
system of belief it feels it cannot reject. And what could be
more absurd than the claim that God's ways so exceed com-
prehension that we dare not presume even to distinguish be-
nevolence from malevolence in the divine, inasmuch as either
can result in the same endless excruciating despair? Here the
docile believer is simply commanded to nod in acquiescence,
quietly and submissively, to feel moved at a strange and stir-
ring obscurity, and to accept that, if only he or she could sound
the depths of this mystery, its essence would somehow be re-
vealed as infinite beauty and love. A rational person capable
of that assent, however-of believing all of this to be a para-
dox concealing a deeper, wholly coherent truth, rather than a
gross contradiction - has probably suffered such chronic intel-
lectual and moral malformation that he or she is no longer able
to recognize certain very plain truths: such as the truth that he
or she has been taught to approve of divine deeds that, were
they reduced to a human scale of action, would immediately
be recognizable as expressions of unalloyed spite.
Then again, I suppose that we are all susceptible to rhe-
torical sorceries of this kind, at one time or another. I, for ex -
ample, have found myself genuinely fascinated and moved on
various occasions by the words that Dante - at least, the Dante
who is the protagonist of the Commedia-saw inscribed in
dark letters above the gates of hell:
Per me si va ne la citta dolente,
per me si vane l'etterno dolore,
per me si va tra la perduta gente.