Sceptical theism and the evil-god challenge

Abstract

This article is a response to Stephen Law's article ‘The evil-god challenge’. In his article, Law argues that if belief in evil-god is unreasonable, then belief in good-god is unreasonable; that the antecedent is true; and hence so is the consequent. In this article, I show that Law's affirmation of the antecedent is predicated on the problem of good (i.e. the problem of whether an all-evil, all-powerful, and all-knowing God would allow there to be as much good in the world as there is), and argue that the problem of good fails. Thus, the antecedent is unmotivated, which renders the consequent unmotivated. Law's challenge for good-god theists is to show that good-god theism is not rendered unreasonable by the problem of evil in the same way that evil-god theism is rendered unreasonable by the problem of good. Insofar as the problem of good does not render belief in evil-god unreasonable, Law's challenge has been answered: since it is not unreasonable to believe in evil-god (at least for the reasons that Law gives) it is not unreasonable to believe in good-god. Finally, I show that – my criticism aside – the evil-god challenge turns out to be more complicated and controversial than it initially appears, for it relies on the (previously unacknowledged) contentious assumption that sceptical theism is false.

Skeptical Theism Proved

“…Richard Gale [1996], Stephen Maitzen [2014], Erik Wielenberg [2010], and Hud Hudson [2014b and 2017]), and many have responded to these skeptical worries (e.g. Bergmann [2012], Daniel Howard-Snyder [2009], Michael Rea [2013], and Hendricks [2018, 2020, and forthcoming]). I will not enter this dispute here, for it would take far too many words to do the problem justice.…”

The Evil‐god challenge Part II: Objections and responses

“…The success of the Evil‐god challenge is contingent on the claim that the EGH is broadly similar in reasonableness to (or more reasonable than) the GGH, so its force is tied to the strength of the “symmetry thesis” (the term coined by Law, ). Some critics (Forrest, ; Hendricks, ; Peoples, ; Ritchie, ) argue that the two hypotheses are not symmetrical, that the GGH is significantly more reasonable than the EGH, and that the symmetry thesis fails as a result. Objectors taking this tack can adopt one of several approaches.…”

“…This is because Alstonian internalism endorses the view that one has good reason to believe in that which is a socially established doxastic practice. He states, “the good‐god theist who partakes in the Christian doxastic practice and follows Alston in respect to justification should view good‐god theism as significantly more reasonable than evil‐god theism” (Hendricks, , p. 8). For Alstonian internalists, then, belief in the GGH may be justified on account of it stemming from Abrahamic doxastic traditions.…”

“…Perry Hendricks () offers several reasons why Good‐god hypothesisers might reject the symmetry thesis . First, he suggests that if one accepts Alstonian internalism, then one is justified in accepting the GGH over the EGH.…”

“…According to Hendricks (, p. 8), if one is a phenomenal conservatist, then they believe “that if it seems to them that p, that this gives them justification (or evidence or reason) for believing p.”…”