Abstract
I draw on the literature on skeptical theism to develop an argument against Christian theism based on the widespread existence of suffering that appears to its sufferer to be gratuitous and is combined with the sense that God has abandoned one or never existed in the first place. While the core idea of the argument (that the existence of a certain sort of suffering casts doubt on the existence of God) is hardly novel, key elements of the argument are importantly different from other influential arguments against Christian theism. After explaining that argument, I make the case that the argument is untouched by traditional skeptical theism. I then consider (DePoe’s, in: Skeptical theism: new essays, 2014) positive skeptical theism, arguing that while DePoe’s view might provide a response to my argument, it entangles the theist in worries about divine deception. Because traditional skeptical theism and DePoe’s positive skeptical theism constitute the most promising extant strategies for answering my argument, the argument constitutes a serious challenge for the Christian theist. My overall aim, then, is to draw on various strands of the skeptical theism literature to present a challenge for all Christian theists, not just those in the skeptical theist camp, while at the same time revealing some important limitations of skeptical theism.
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Notes
Note that evils can seem gratuitous in this sense even to those whose considered judgment is that there are no gratuitous evils (contra Benton et al. 2015, 21), just as, for example, a stick submerged in water can appear bent even when one believes that it is straight.
Indeed, as Dougherty (2008) notes, “the sense that there are horrendous gratuitous evils is, for many of us, overwhelming” (p. 175).
I am not, of course, suggesting that it is uncontroversial that we are entitled to claim that there appears to be gratuitous evil in the sense of ‘appears’ governed by Wykstra’s CORNEA (1984, p. 85); that claim is controversial. Again, my claim is the weaker claim that intellectual seemings that evil (or particular evils) is (or are) gratuitous are widespread.
The differences between Bergmann’s and Howard-Snyder’s formulations are not important here but for a helpful discussion of them, see Howard-Snyder (2014, pp. 296–298).
Though (SC1) does not correspond exactly with either Bergmann’s or Howard-Snyder’s formulation, I think it is close enough for present purposes and is slightly less cumbersome than their formulations. Whenever I consider variations on (SC1) below I provide corresponding variations using Bergmann’s and Howard-Snyder’s terminology in the notes.
A distinction that is sometimes blurred in discussions of skeptical theism is the distinction between inscrutable evils and apparently gratuitous evils. An evil is inscrutable for a given person just in case that person, having given the matter some thought, can see no good reason that would justify God in permitting the evil. An evil is apparently gratuitous for a given person just in case it seems to that person that the evil is gratuitous. To see the distinction between inscrutable and apparently gratuitous evils, notice that it is possible for someone to know that there is a good reason for the existence of a given evil without knowing what that reason is. In such a case, the evil in question might be inscrutable but not apparently gratuitous for that person.
The differences among skeptical theists on this particular point won’t matter for my purposes, but for a helpful discussion of such differences see Dougherty (2014, p. 1.2).
Following Bergmann’s formulation: we have no good reason for thinking that the goods, evils, and entailments between them within our ken are representative of all goods, evils, and entailments between them but we do have good reason for thinking that none of the goods, evils, or entailments between them beyond our ken have anything to do with fawns. And following Howard-Snyder’s formulation: we should be in doubt about whether the goods we know of constitute a representative sample of all the goods there are but we should be confident that none of the goods there are is connected with the suffering of fawns.
Following Bergmann’s formulation: every inscrutable evil E is such that we have no good reason for thinking that there isn’t some good, evil, or entailment between good and evil beyond our ken that would justify God in permitting E. And following Howard-Snyder’s formulation: every instance of inscrutable evil E is such that we should be in doubt about whether there is some good beyond our ken that would justify God in permitting E. Let’s say that x has F = x is an inscrutable evil such that it wouldn’t be surprising if there are hidden goods, evils, or connections between them that would justify God in permitting x. (SC1) says that some x or other is F; (SC2) says that all xs are F. From (a) some x or other is F it of course does not follow that (b) Bambi’s suffering is F.
Benton, Hawthorne, and Isaacs make a similar point in their 2015, p. 27.
As Michael Almeida points out, Wykstra’s mention of a one-month-old infant probably overstates things a bit: “Infants haven’t the slightest idea that their parents are rational, mammalian, or conscious. … But we would like to credit ourselves with knowing that God is at least conscious, rational, and good” (2014, p. 126).
The claim I advance here is distinct from the claim criticized by Long (2014, p. 68); his criticism does not apply to this principle.
One important way that this argument differs from the argument in Dougherty (2012) is that Dougherty’s target is skeptical theism only (he argues that the theistic component casts doubt on the skeptical component) whereas my target is both skeptical theism and Christian theism. Though my argument bears some affinity to the argument from divine hiddenness (Schellenberg 2006 [1993] and Howard-Snyder and Moser 2002) or divine silence (Rea 2009), it is importantly different from that argument. One way to see that the two arguments or problems differ is to follow van Inwagen’s (2002) strategy for distinguishing the problem of divine hiddenness and the problem of evil, i.e. to demonstrate that the problem of apparently gratuitous suffering and abandonment could arise in a world in which there is no problem of divine hiddenness. Van Inwagen points out that the problem of divine hiddenness could arise in a secular utopia that was free of suffering; such a world would also be a world in which the problem of apparently gratuitous suffering and abandonment does not arise. Furthermore, imagine a world in which God has provided clear evidence of His existence to everyone by way of signs and wonders or divine revelation or religious experience or philosophical argument. It might be the case that many people in such a world are nevertheless subject to episodes of apparently gratuitous suffering and abandonment. That this is so is illustrated by the case of C.S. Lewis, who believed that God had provided clear evidence of His existence (evidence that Lewis took himself to possess) and yet experienced an episode of apparently gratuitous suffering and abandonment. As Lewis’s case demonstrates, it can seem to one that God never existed even while one believes that God exists. Importantly, an adequate solution the problem of divine hiddenness is not necessarily also an adequate answer to the argument I have advanced here because to explain why God does not do more to make His existence obvious is not necessarily sufficient to explain why He does permit apparently gratuitous suffering and abandonment.
There are many different types of horrendous suffering in our world. I do not claim that this type of suffering is the most horrendous (or even that it is always horrendous); rather, I claim that it is a type of suffering that loving parents find particularly troubling for their children to experience—and so, by analogy, it is a type of suffering that a loving God would find particularly troubling for humans to experience.
Here is another possible formulation of the skeptical component of skeptical theism that does not entail (g): we have no good reason for thinking/we should be in doubt about whether: our knowledge of goods, evils, and the connections between them indicates that there is nothing that could justify God in permitting apparently gratuitous suffering and abandonment. It Is one thing to claim that nothing in our knowledge of good, evil, and the connections between them gives us reason to believe p; it is something else to claim that nothing at all gives us reason to believe p.
Following Bergmann’s formulation: we have no good reason for thinking that the goods, evils, and entailments between them within our ken are representative of all goods, evils, and entailments between them but we do have good reason for thinking that none of the goods, evils, or entailments between them beyond our ken would justify God in permitting apparently gratuitous suffering and abandonment (and that even if they did God wouldn’t act on such justification). And following Howard-Snyder’s formulation: we should be in doubt about whether the goods we know of constitute a representative sample of all the goods there are but we should be confident that none of the goods there are would justify God in permitting apparently gratuitous suffering and abandonment (and even if they did God wouldn’t act on such justification).
I would be not at all surprised if some sufficiently creative philosopher were able to imagine a case in which a parent would be justified in permitting her child to experience apparently gratuitous suffering and abandonment. However, I suspect that the circumstances of any such case would be such as to occur very rarely or never in the course of a typical parent–child relationship. If that is correct, then my argument can survive the existence of such cases if it is modified as follows: in premises (1) and (3), replace ‘never’ with ‘rarely’; in premise (4), replace ‘does permit’ with ‘routinely and regularly permits’.
One attempt to support skeptical theism that does not appeal to the parent–child analogy is Alston 1996. However, as Dougherty points out, “Alston’s religious tradition—Christianity—is emphatic that God is analogous to a loving Father, so it is hard to see how members of that tradition … can distance themselves from it” (2012, p. 24, n. 5).
This aspect of DePoe’s account strikes me as dubious; couldn’t God create epistemic distance simply by hiding or remaining silent, just as proponents of the problem of divine hiddenness claim that He does? But I will not pursue that criticism here.
But for one important dissent from the majority opinion, see van Inwagen (2003).
DePoe, at any rate, appears to make this assumption (2014, pp. 39–40).
On DePoe’s account, God’s reasons for deceiving us must remain hidden for if we come to grasp those reasons, the requisite epistemic distance between us and God collapses. For example, if I realize that a given evil only seems gratuitous to me because God wants me to be able to act more heroically by sticking to my guns in the face of such evil, any additional challenge (and hence any additional heroic-ness in my action) vanishes.
Some readers might be tempted by the following line of reasoning: any adequate response to the argument from apparently gratuitous suffering and abandonment will imply that God intentionally creates evils that seem gratuitous but are not and hence will imply that God is a deceiver. However, while DePoe’s positive skeptical atheism implies that God intends to deceive us in order to create epistemic distance, another possible kind of response would claim that something about the God-human relationship requires the existence of apparently gratuitous evils but implies only that God permits (without intending) our deception. According to such a response, God would intend X and X would entail that we are deceived, but God would not intend the deception itself. I leave it to theists to work out the specifics of this sort of response.
The writing of this paper was supported by a sabbatical leave from DePauw University, a Johnson Family University Professorship awarded by DePauw University, and the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs at the University of St. Andrews.
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Wielenberg, E.J. The parent–child analogy and the limits of skeptical theism. Int J Philos Relig 78, 301–314 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-015-9533-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-015-9533-2