Even though the New York Times is full of advice about how to take care of yourself during the pandemic, it also brings in a Jesuit priest, Fr. James Martin, to deal with the issue of theodicy, as you can see from the title of his piece in today’s paper (click on screenshot to read):

The paper identifies Martin as “a Jesuit priest, editor at large of America magazine, consultor to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication and the author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage.” And of course he raises the inevitable question—what I call the Achilles Heel of Abrahamic religion: “why is there natural evil?” Why would an omnipotent and loving God suddenly snuff out thousands of lives for no discernible reason? (We atheists don’t need to ponder that question, for the answer is simple: there is no God, and viruses evolved by natural selection to propagate their genes, killing…