Scepticism about the argument from divine hiddenness

Abstract

Some philosophers have argued that the paucity of evidence for theism – along with basic assumptions about God's nature – is ipso facto evidence for atheism. The resulting argument has come to be known as the argument from divine hiddenness. Theists have challenged both the major and minor premises of the argument by offering defences. However, all of the major, contemporary defences are failures. What unites these failures is instructive: each is implausible given other commitments shared by everyone in the debate or by theists in particular. Only challenges which are plausible given both common sense and other theistic commitments will undermine the argument from divine hiddenness. Given that such defences universally fail, the best hope for a successful challenge to the argument comes from more general sceptical responses. This sort of response is briefly sketched and defended against four independent objections.

Sceptical theism and a lying God: Wielenberg's argument defended and developed

“…I turn now to the criticism of Wielenberg's argument presented in McBrayer (2010) and then McBrayer & Swenson (2012). McBrayer and Swenson maintain that, for religiously mainstream monotheists who employ sceptical theism to deal with the problem of evil, Wielenberg's argument ‘is not as scary as it first appears’ (McBrayer & Swenson (2012), 148). They begin by acknowledging that the sceptical theist should grant the possibility of divine lies: (o)ther things being equal, God would, of course, tell us only what was true.…”

“…This article examines responses made by defenders of sceptical theism to Wielenberg's argument. To my knowledge, the only published responses are to be found in McBrayer (2010), McBrayer & Swenson (2012), and Segal (2011). I argue that all these responses either fail or else can be sidestepped by modifying Wielenberg's presentation of his argument, modifications I therefore recommend.…”

“…than the few that we are able to decipher). (McBrayer & Swenson (2012), 145) Still, McBrayer and others have developed responses to the objection that sceptical theism must lead to scepticism about the external world. McBrayer, for example, makes an intriguing appeal to context and contrast in order to try to prevent his sceptical theism generating a global sceptical threat (see McBrayer (2012) ).…”

Divine hiddenness: part 1 (recent work on the hiddenness argument)

“…Where goods we know of seem insufficient to provide reasons for God to be hidden, theists sometimes appeal to unknown goods. This is the approach of McBrayer and Swenson (). After arguing that extant responses to the argument fail, they develop against it a version of skeptical theism, apparently on the ground that we would inappropriately be regarding God as bound to behave as we ourselves would behave, if we accepted the argument.…”

The Pandora’s box objection to skeptical theism

“…However, I can't reasonably conclude there are probably no insects in my garage given only the fact that I can't spot any (looking in from the street). Given my 1 Proponents of a skeptical theist response to the evidential argument from evil include Alston (1991Alston ( , 1996, Bergmann (2001), Fitzpatrick (1981, Howard-Snyder (1996a), McBrayer and Swenson (2012), Plantinga (1996), Segal (2011), van Inwagen (1996, and Wykstra (1984Wykstra ( , 1996. 2 After Wykstra (1996): 'We don't see 'um so they probably ain't there.'…”