The Misfit, the bad seed in Flannery O'Connor's short story, is commonly deemed a logician of no mean wit. He has been pictured as a modern Pascal who wagers wrong ( Cobb ), a rigorously empirical Doubting Thomas ( Scouten 63 ), a mental ''thoroughbred with a curious and active nose'' ( Currie 149 ), and an instinctive scholar plumbing reality ( Jones 837 ). Other critics describe him as a rationalist who ''has to know 'why''' ( Feeley 75 ), a thinker ''recalling age-old debates about theodicy'' ( Johansen 38 ), as possessing ''credibility and authority'' ( Orvell 132 ), ''a scholarly awareness of alternatives'' ( Montgomery 12 ), and steadfast ''lucidity'' ( Gossett 81 ). O'Connor herself seems to have envisioned her felonious rube a thinking-man's skeptic. The grandmother's ''wits are no match.'' she said, ''for the Misfit's'' (Mystery and Manners 111).
             The story offers scant support for such grandiose assessments of The Misfit's intellectual acumen. An enlightened skeptic can marshal arguments against theism undreamt of in The Misfit's countrified musings. His skepticism has been greatly exaggerated. Belief is his dominant gene. doubt recessive, almost nil. He acknowledges the miraculous efficacy of prayer while disavowing any desire for it:
             ''If you would pray,'' the old lady said, ''Jesus would help you.''
             ''Well then, why don't you pray? [...]''
             ''I don't want no hep,'' he said. ''I'm doing all right by myself.''
             When the grandmother mindlessly implores ''Jesus, Jesus,'' The Misfit tacitly affirms his belief in an immaculate Christ. ''Yes'm,'' he mused, ''Jesus thown everything off balance. It was the same with him as with me except He hadn't committed any crime [...]'' (131).
             Throughout, The Misfit remains essentially a lapsed fundamentalist locked into incarnational models of deity. His conception of God is circumscribed by a primitiv
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