Skeptical theism

Abstract

Most a posteriori arguments against the existence of God take the following form: (1) If God exists, the world would not be like this (where ‘this’ picks out some feature of the world like the existence of evil, etc.) (2) But the world is like this. (3) Therefore, God does not exist. Skeptical theists are theists who are skeptical of our ability to make judgments of the sort expressed by premise (1). According to skeptical theism, if there were a God, it is likely that he would have reasons for acting that are beyond our ken, and thus we are not justified in making all-things-considered judgments about what the world would be like if there were a God. In particular, the fact that we don’t see a good reason for X does not justify the conclusion that there is no good reason for X. Thus, skeptical theism purports to undercut most a posteriori arguments against the existence of God. What follows is an account of the nature of skeptical theism, an application of skeptical theism to both the argument from evil and the argument from divine hiddenness, and a review of the cases for and against skeptical theism. 1. The Nature of Skeptical Theism Skeptical theism is a conjunction of a metaphysical thesis and an epistemological thesis. The metaphysical thesis is that God exists, where ‘God’ is an honorific title describing the most perfect being possible. The epistemological thesis is that humans are not justified in making all-things-considered judgments about what God has done or would do in any given situation. It is the second, epistemological, thesis of skeptical theism that is crucial, and for this reason the name ‘skeptical theism’ is an unfortunate one. There are theists who deny the epistemological thesis (e.g. Swinburne 1998; Hasker 2004) and non-theists who accept it (e.g. Draper 1992). The skeptical component of skeptical theism is used as a criticism of so-called ‘noseeum’ inferences. A noseeum inference takes the following form: As far as we can tell, there are no X’s. Therefore, there are no X’s. A noseeum inference essentially begins with a statement about the absence of evidence and concludes that there is evidence of absence (e.g. Kraay 2007). Surely such an inference is sometimes warranted. For example, suppose that as far as you can tell, there are no donkeys in your office. From this premise it is reasonable to conclude that there are no donkeys in your office. But just as clearly, this same inference pattern is sometimes unwarranted. For example, as far as you can tell, there is no life elsewhere in the universe. However, this fact alone does not license the conclusion that there is not life Philosophy Compass 5/7 (2010): 611–623, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00306.x a 2010 The Author Journal Compilation a 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd elsewhere in the universe. Skeptical theism claims that inferences concerning what God would do are of this second type. 2. How Skeptical Theism is Deployed In the contemporary literature, skeptical theism features most prominently as an undercutting defeater for some a posteriori arguments for atheism. What follows is an explanation of the skeptical theist’s strategy as applied to both the argument from evil and the argument from divine hiddenness. 2.1. THE ARGUMENT FROM EVIL Skeptical theism is primarily deployed to undercut evidential arguments from evil for atheism. If skeptical theism can successfully challenge the evidential argument from evil, it has thereby de-fused the most widespread and plausible argument for atheism. Defining a gratuitous evil as one that is not necessary to secure some compensating good or prevent some evil that is equally bad or worse, the paradigmatic noseeum version of the evidential argument from evil can be stated as follows (e.g. Rowe 1979): (1) At least some of the evils in our world appear gratuitous. (2) Therefore, at least some of the evils in our world are gratuitous. (3) If God exists, there is no gratuitous evil. (4) Therefore, God does not exist. Applied to this argument, skeptical theism says that the inference from (1) to (2) (the inference from the existence of inscrutable evil to the existence of gratuitous evil) is unwarranted given our cognitive limitations. Given our limited moral perspective, it is not surprising that we are unable to see God’s justification for allowing evil in the world. In this way, skeptical theism offers a more sophisticated response to the argument from evil than the typical theodicy. Defenders of the argument from evil attempt to show that (2) is true. Theodicists attempt to show that (2) is false. Skeptical theists commend agnosticism about (2). Thus, the skeptical theist can agree with the defender of the argument that many of the evils in our world are so terrible that we have no idea how they could be justified. However, against the defender of the argument, she can insist that this state of affairs does not constitute a good reason for thinking that there is no justification for the evils in our world. 2.2. THE ARGUMENT FROM DIVINE HIDDENNESS Skeptical theism can be deployed in precisely the same way against the argument from divine hiddenness (e.g. Alston 1996; Bergmann 2009; Howard-Snyder 1996b; for a rejection of this move, see Schellenberg 1996). The argument from divine hiddenness claims that if God existed, his loving nature and desire to be in communion with capable creatures would compel him to set up the world so that everyone would believe in him. Thus, God would seek to make his existence obvious. But since it’s not obvious that God exists, this fact thereby provides evidence for his non-existence. The argument can be stated as follows: (5) If God exists, then he would, at all times, make himself known to all creatures capable of entering into a relationship with him. 612 Skeptical Theism a 2010 The Author Philosophy Compass 5/7 (2010): 611–623, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00306.x Journal Compilation a 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd (6) But God has not made himself known, at all times, to all creatures capable of entering into a relationship with him. (7) Therefore, God does not exist. Applied to this argument, skeptical theism says that we should be skeptical about (5). This is because (5) is an all-things-considered claim about what God would do. Obviously God would not make himself known to all capable creatures if he had morally sufficient reasons for not doing so. Perhaps, for example, God would allow a period of divine hiddenness to secure some compensating good for either the person in question or others or both. And the mere fact that we can detect no such good reason is not justification for the conclusion that there is no such good reason. And if not, then there is no reason to endorse (5). 3. The Case for Skeptical Theism Why should we think that skeptical theism is true? Since the metaphysical thesis of skeptical theism is logically separate from the epistemological thesis, and it’s the latter that matters here, what follows are the various defenses of the skeptical component of skeptical theism. These defenses can be parsed into roughly four types: arguments from analogy, arguments from complexity, arguments from alternatives, and arguments from enabling premises. 3.1. ARGUMENTS FROM ANALOGY Perhaps the most common defense of skeptical theism is an appeal to analogy. Consider the case of a young child making all-things-considered judgments about what her parents would do in a certain situation (e.g. Wykstra 1984, 1996; Plantinga 1988). Given the child’s limited knowledge, she can’t see why her parents would, say, allow the doctor to cause her pain with an injection. However, the fact that she is not aware of a good reason does not justify her in concluding that there is no good reason. The parent ⁄ child analogy has been critiqued in the literature as too weak to establish skeptical theism (e.g. Rowe 1996, 2001, 2006; McBrayer 2004). Other analogies have been offered in its place. For example, suppose a novice was watching a chess match between the world champion Kasparov and an opponent (e.g. Alston 1996). The fact that a novice cannot see a good reason for Kasparov’s making a particular move does not justify him in concluding that there is no good reason for Kasparov’s move. The connection between such analogies and skeptical theism is clear. The cognitive distance between a young child and a parent or between a chess novice and Kasparov is much less than the cognitive distance between us and God (cf. Fitzpatrick 1981). Thus, just as one’s inability to detect a good reason in the former cases does not support the conclusion that there is no good reason, our inability to detect a good reason for allowing evils, hiddenness, etc. does not support the conclusion that there is no good reason for allowing the evils, hiddenness, etc. 3.2. ARGUMENTS FROM COMPLEXITY Other defenses of skeptical theism do not rely explicitly on analogies but instead focus on the complexity of the judgments under consideration (e.g. Alston 1991; Durston 2000, 2005, 2006; Howard-Snyder, forthcoming). For example, given the complexity of history, Skeptical Theism 613 a 2010 The Author Philosophy Compass 5/7 (2010): 611–623, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00306.x Journal Compilation a 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd determining whether a particular instance of evil is gratuitous is an enormous undertaking. One brief illustration is sufficient to make the point: On the night that Sir Winston Churchhill was conceived, had Lady Randolph Churchhill fallen asleep in a slightly different position, the precise pathway that each of the millions of spermatozoa took would have been slightly altered. As a result ... Sir Winston Churchhill, as we knew him, would not have existed, with the likely result that the evolution of World War II would have been substantially different ... (Durston 2000, 66) An observer of Lady Churchhill might have assumed that no great goods were to be secured by sleeping in one position rather