Shosha is afraid of Arele's smart -
aleck theology; Arele is afraid of living in a puzzling universe, vulnerable in the presence of a tyrant who demands obedience from those who do not even know his will.
He tells Jack Burden, the smart -
aleck, wisecracking narrator (to whom the story equally belongs), that he himself went to an old - fashioned Presbyterian Sunday school where in the old days they still taught some
theology.