Mere fallacy, or foolishness, or both?

Ten thousand sages lost in endless woe,

For ignorance of what they could not know?

That speech betrays at once a bigot’s tongue;

Charge not a God with such outrageous wrong.

Truly not I—the partial light men have,

My creed persuades me, well employed, may save;

While he that scorns the noonday beam, perverse,

Shall find the blessing, unimproved, a curse.

Cowper.