Terry Pratchett - The Globe

Om's power has waned because of a lack of belief. He tests his strength by silently cursing a beetle, but it makes no difference and the insect plods away unperturbed. He curses a melon unto the eighth generation, but with no evident effect. He inflicts a plague of boils on it, but all it does is sit there, slowly ripening. He vows that when he returns to his rightful state, the Tribes of Beetle and Melons will regret not responding. For on Discworld, the size of a god is determined by the strength, and amount, of belief in him (or her, or it). Om's church had become so corrupt and powerful that the fearful belief of the common people had been transferred to the church itself -it's very easy to believe in a red-hot poker -and only Brutha, simple soul, still truly believes. No god ever dies, because there is always some tiny pocket of belief remaining somewhere in the world, but a tortoise is pretty much as low as you can get.

Brutha is going to become the Eighth Prophet of Om. (His grandmother would have made it two generations before, but she was a woman, and narrative imperative forbids female prophets.)

Vorbis's job is to ensure that all Omnians remain true to the teachings of the Great God Om, which is to say, they do what Vorbis tells them. The presence on the Discworld of the god itself, causing changes to all the old teachings and generally making trouble, is not greatly to Vorbis's taste. Neither is the presence of a genuine prophet. Vorbis is faced with the inquisitor's spiritual dilemma, and resolves it in the time-honoured manner of the Spanish Inquisition (which, basically, is to tell oneself that torturing people is fine because it's for their own good, in the long run).

Brutha has a much simpler vision of Omnianism: it is something for individuals to live by.

Vorbis shows Brutha a new instrument that he has had made: an iron turtle upon which a man or woman can be spreadeagled, with a firebox inside. The time it takes for the iron to heat up will give them plenty of time to reflect on their heresies. In a flash of prophecy, Brutha realises that its first victim will be himself. And in due course, he finds himself chained to it, and uncomfortably warm, with Vorbis watching over him, gloating. Then the Great God Om intervenes, dropped from the talons of an eagle.

One or two people, who had been watching Vorbis closely, said later that there was just time for his expression to change before two pounds of tortoise, travelling at three metres per second, hit him between the eyes.

It was a revelation.

And that does something to people watching. For a start, they believe with all their heart.

The Great God Om now is truly great. He rises over the Temple, a billowing cloud shaped like eagle-headed men, bulls, golden horns, all tangled and fused into one another. Four bolts of fire whir out of the cloud and burst the chains that fastened Brutha to the iron turtle. The Great God declares Brutha to be Prophet of Prophets.

The Great God gives Brutha the opportunity to make some Commandments. The Prophet declines, having decided that 'You should do things because they're right. Not because gods say so. They might say something different another time'. And he tells Om that there will be no Commandments unless the god agrees to obey them, too.

Which is a new thought, for a god. Small Gods has many wise words to say about religion and belief, and it makes the point that in their own terms the Inquisitors believe they are doing good.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov has a scene in which the Grand Inquisitor encounters Christ, and explains his point of view, including why Christ's renewed message of universal love couldn't have come at a worse time and will only cause trouble. Just as the presence of Brutha, a genuine prophet, was not at all to the liking of Deacon Vorbis.

The Spanish Inquisitors' justification of their actions was philosophically convoluted. The purpose of their tortures was straightforward: it was to save a sinner from eternal damnation. The tortures of Hell would be far worse than anything that the Inquisitors could inflict in this world, and they would never stop. So of course they were justified in using any means whatsoever to save the poor soul from destruction. They therefore believed that their actions were justified, and in accordance with Christian principles. Not to act would have been to leave the person concerned in danger of the terrible fires of Hell.

Yes, but what if they were wrong in this belief? This is the convoluted bit. They weren't quite sure about their religious position. What were the rules? If they failed to convert one tortured heretic, would the Inquisitors burn forever? If they converted one heretic, would their souls be guaranteed a place in Heaven? The Inquisitors believed that by inflicting pain and terror without knowing the rules, they risked their own mortal souls. If they were wrong, it was they who would be immersed in the eternal flames. But they were willing to risk this enormous spiritual danger, to take upon themselves all of the consequences of their actions, should they turn out to be wrong. See how incredibly magnanimous they were being, even as they burned people alive and hacked them limb from limb with red-hot knives ...

Clearly something is wrong. Dostoyevsky solves his own narrative problem by having Christ respond the way his own teachings would lead him to: he kisses the Inquisitor. This is an answer, of a kind, but it doesn't satisfy our analytical instincts. There is a logical flaw in the Inquisitors'

position: what is it?

It's very simple. They have thought about what happens if their belief that their actions are justified is wrong -but only within the frame of their religion. They have not asked themselves what their position would be if their religious beliefs are false, if there is no Hell, no eternal damnation, no fire and brimstone. Then their justification would fall to bits.

Of course, if their religion is wrong, then its doctrine of brotherly love could also be wrong. It doesn't have to be: some parts might be fine, others nonsense. But to the Inquisitors it is all of one piece, it stands or falls as a whole. If they are wrong about their religion, then there is no sin, no God, and they can cheerfully torture people if they want to. It really is a nasty philosophical trap.

This is the kind of thing that happens when a big, powerful priesthood latches on to what started as one person's awe at the universe. It is what happens when people construct elaborate verbal traps for themselves, trip over the logic, and fall headlong into them. It is where Holy Wars come from, where neighbour can inflict atrocity on neighbour merely because this otherwise reasonable person goes to a church with a round tower instead of a square one. It is the attitude that Jonathan Swift caricatured in Gulliver's Travels, with the conflict between the big-endians and the little-endians, over which end of an egg to slice into when eating it. It is, perhaps, why so many people today are turning to unorthodox cults in an effort to find a home for their own spirituality. But cults run the same risk as the Inquisition. The only safe home for one's personal spirituality is oneself.

These was something called, as far as Ponder could work out, psyence. All his expertise as a reader of invisible writings was needed to get a grip on this idea -L-space was very hazy about the future of this world. 'As far as I can tell,' he reported, 'it's a way of making up stories that work. It's a way of finding things out and thinking about them ... psy-ence, you see? "Psy" means

"mind" and "ence" means, er, esness. It works on Roundworld in the way magic does at home.'

'Useful stuff, then,' said Ridcully. Anyone doing it?' 'Hex is going to try to take us to what appear to be practical examples of it,' said Ponder.