After the terrible events of September 11, 2001, Western leaders united in declaring that there was “evil” at large in the world and that they and their allies were going to deal with it—basically by dropping bombs on it. That proposal was not only politically naive and disastrous, not only philosophically shallow; it was also theologically naive or even, one might say, heretical. It was trying to “deal with evil” all by itself, with no reference to any belief that this might be God’s job.
