As a young man, the former abbot had become preoccupied by what he believed to be a series of major inconsistencies in Christian dogma, the most famous being the age-old problem of evil. How could it be, he wondered, that the Christian deity was both a benevolent father who loved and protected his flock as well as an implacable magistrate who indignantly condemned the unrighteous to a never-ending gnashing of teeth in a sea of fire and torment?
