The End of Skeptical Theism? (Part 11) - Summing Up

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(Series Index)

I had originally planned to complete my series The End of Skeptical Theism? during September. It ended up taking me a lot longer than expected -- mainly because of the intervention of "real" life. Fortunately, it has now been completed. My previous post on skeptical theism (PT) and its implications for Plantinga's externalist epistemology was the last substantive entry in the series.

In the interests of wrapping things up appropriately, I thought I might summarise some of the main take-home points. There are three that spring readily to mind.


1. Rowe's Evidential Argument is Stronger Than You Might Think
As mentioned throughout this series, ST was originally conceived as a response to William Rowe's evidential problem of evil. As a result, understanding Rowe's argument is a necessary first step towards understanding ST. When I wrote the first entry on Rowe's argument, one thing that struck me was how strong Rowe's challenge to theism actually is.

Rowe argues that God, being omnipotent and omnibenevolent, could not allow for the existence of evil unless it was logically necessary in order to achieve some overriding good. Thus, the existence of evils (E1...En) for which we cannot locate a logically necessary good (call these "gratuitous evils") provides some evidential disconfirmation of God's existence.

The "logically necessary"-condition is what makes this a strong challenge to theists. Because of it, they cannot simply point to the existence of some causally connected greater good and claim that that permits the existence of evil. After all, that good could (possibly) have been brought about without the need for some intervening evil. Furthermore, the "logically necessary"- condition is justified by appeal to God's omnipotence and so seems legitimate.

Although Rowe's challenge is a strong one, it is important to make sure, when presenting it, that you are not limited to one or two examples of gratuitous evils. As noted in an earlier entry, it is the abundance of such evils that makes certain ST-responses implausible.


2. Skeptical Theism has Three Basic Forms
As a response to Rowe's argument, ST maintains that we are not warranted or justified in assuming that just because an evil seems to be gratuitous to us means that it is, as a matter of fact, gratuitous. "Seeming so" does not imply "actually so". Rowe's inference is impermissible.

Throughout the series we have looked at three basic forms of ST, each one associated with a different theorist:

• (1) Representativeness of the Sample: According to this form of ST, Rowe cannot make the necessary inference because there is no good reason to think that the sample of goods and evils which is available to him is representative of the totality of good and evil. This form is associated with Michael Bergmann.

• (2) Low-Seeability: According to this form of ST, there are certain kinds of things that we simply cannot expect to see (or otherwise perceive) due to (a) their nature and (b) the epistemic context in which we find ourselves. The prime example being, of course, God's reasons for action: they are derived from his unlimited knowledge, and we are like mere children relative to him. This form is associated with Stephen Wykstra.

• (3) Multiple Cognitive Limitations: According to this form of ST, human cognition faces a number of serious limitations which undercut our ability to make inferences of the sort demanded by Rowe. These limitations arise from our poor understanding of what is logically and metaphysically possible, as well as our inability to combine and analyse large amounts of data. This form is associated with William Alston.

3. Skeptical Theism has Several Unwelcome Implications
The problem with the three forms of ST outlined above is that the principles they invoke to justify their skepticism -- i.e. representativeness of sample, low-seeability and cognitive limitation -- seem to apply to domains beyond those invoked by Rowe's argument. As a result, ST undercuts a large swathe of human knowledge, including knowledge that a theist would like to retain.

The following examples of this were pinpointed in this series:

• ST damages moral reasoning by endorsing partial or complete skepticism about the states of affairs that we usually think to be morally commendable.

• Just as ST undermines inferences made from supposedly bad states of affairs to the non-existence of God, so too does it undermine inferences made from supposedly good states of affairs to the existence of God. As a result, arguments from design or arguments from miracles are no longer justifiable.

• ST undermines arguments based on Biblical revelation or personal experience because these arguments rely on the assumption that we are able to reliably identify direct and true communications from a perfectly good being. We can't due to {insert preferred form of ST here}.

• ST undermines Alvin Plantinga's externalist religious epistemology because it provides at least one reason for thinking that God may wish to conceal certain forms of knowledge from us.

As a result of these unwelcome implications, I think ST cannot be consistently embraced by the committed theist. To rescue ST from the Room 101 of philosophy, its proponents need to show how the principles to which they appeal only apply to the specific claims made by Rowe and not to these other domains. At present, it is difficult to see how this could be done.