Blair talks of ‘breakthrough’ and ‘reform’ — but what if this is as good as Britain gets?

Voltaire was a superb polemicist but a cheat in debate. He never laid a finger on the Christian argument which in Candide he mocked as claiming that ‘all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds’. He showed that the world was a dreadful place. In a sparkling and brutal parody he demonstrated that life was cruel and unjust, and that millions of people were wretched. He scorned the idea that there was anything remotely pleasant about the world which Christians claimed God had made as pleasant as possible for us.

But the argument Voltaire parodies never did include the claim he mocked. He tilted brilliantly at the supposition that life was sweet, but Catholic theologians had never claimed life was sweet. They had confronted the awkward facts that (a) God is omnipotent; (b) God must surely aim to perfect His world; yet (c) sin, misery and natural disaster are all around us; and asked how (a), (b) and (c) could all be true?

Their answer remains the only one available to believers.