So what on earth do we make of the vast army of Fry acolytes who have taken to twitter and online media to proclaim his “outburst” the most eloquent thing ever! The Huffington Post headlined their report “Atheist Stephen Fry Delivers Incredible Answer….”, and that was mild compared to some of the facebook comments which proclaimed Fry the most brilliant responder ever to such a question. Alas, poor lemmings. Fry offers anger – in a similar vein to that which has been served up many times before – but no thought. To hear his supporters you’d think he had single-handedly revealed to us the “Problem of Evil”. So bad luck Thomas Aquinas, Epicurus, Augustine of Hippo, Kant, Hume, C.S.Lewis and countless other Christian and non-Christian writers and thinkers alike who have sought to grapple with the problem.
That the problem of evil remains at the heart of much our spiritual thinking is tortuously apparent, but must we really contend with the problem of over-weaning celebrity elevation too? As for attempts to respond to the God hatred that Fry espoused, I found this piece by Christian philosopher Peter Kreeft to be a clear one.
And this tweet from blogger Archbishop Cranmer be an appropriate one:
Why should we care any more for @StephenFry‘s grasp of moral theodicy than @JustinWelby‘s mastery of Stanislavksi? http://t.co/9LO2XF66oq
— Archbishop Cranmer (@His_Grace) January 31, 2015