Skeptical Theism Proved

Abstract

Skeptical theism is a popular response to arguments from evil. Many hold that it undermines a key inference often used by such arguments. However, the case for skeptical theism is often kept at an intuitive level: no one has offered an explicit argument for the truth of skeptical theism. In this article, I aim to remedy this situation: I construct an explicit, rigorous argument for the truth of skeptical theism.

Skeptical Theism: A Panoramic Overview (Part I)

“…The Modal Principle: If we cannot imagine a world that we take to verify p, then we are not justified in believing that possibly p. (c.f., van Inwagen 1998, 76-81) 17 15 For discussions of Bergmann's skeptical theism, and/or similar arguments, see, Alston (1991), and Howard-Snyder (2009), Bergmann (2009), and Hendricks (2020. 16 Unless noted otherwise, modal claims in this section are about metaphysical possibility.…”

“…14 14 For discussions of Bergmann's skeptical theism, and/or similar arguments, see, Alston (1991), and Howard‐Snyder (2009), Bergmann (2009, 2012), and Hendricks (2020, 2021). …”

“…and (b) does that version of skeptical theism block some version of the problem of evil? An affirmative answer to the first question does not automatically yield an affirmative answer to the second: If W4 is true, we can say 'yes' to (a); if W4 and W1 are both true, we can then say 'yes' to (b).12 For discussions of Wykstra's skeptical theism, seeWykstra (1984),Russell and Wykstra (1988),Kraay (2007),McBrayer (2009),Dougherty (2012),Wykstra and Perrine (2012),Draper (2014),Wielenberg (2015),Benton et al (2016),Rutledge (2017),Perrine (2019), andOliveira (2020).13 An A can be representative of all A's in one sense but not in others: A randomly selected human is representative of all humans in the vital organs sense, but not in the spoken language sense.14 For discussions of Bergmann's skeptical theism, and/or similar arguments, see,Alston (1991), andHoward-Snyder (2009),Bergmann (2009), and Hendricks (2020.15 Unless noted otherwise, modal claims in this section are about metaphysical possibility.…”

Deontological sceptical theism proved

“…There is, I think, good reason to think that Axiological Sceptical Theism is true (e.g. Hendricks (2020a) and (forthcoming), Hudson (2006) and (2014)). Moreover, there's good reason to think that Axiological Sceptical Theism, if true, undermines many important arguments against theism that make use of axiological claims.…”

The proper basicality of belief in God and the evil-god challenge

“…Now, perhaps the maltheist would argue that the fact that we know of no evils that render (EJ) high doesn't entail that there are none – after all, we've learned from sceptical theism that our grasp of goods, evils, and their entailment relations is quite poor (e.g. Michael Bergmann 2001; Perry Hendricks 2020). And this – the maltheist says – means that the probability that there is such an evil is inscrutable, not low.…”