In "The Shunned House," Lovecraft named his doomed uncle Elihu β the voice in Job who defends divine mercy. Then dissolved him without remainder. Whether by design or instinct, a theological argument was destroyed alongside a character.
Lemβs "Summa" is provocatively secular and self-undermining. A medieval summa promised doctrinal closure grounded in revealed truth. Lemβs Summa advertises an inventory of possibilities whose proper rhetorical result is caveat and paradox rather than resolution.