Skeptical Theism (Possible head-to-head)

[Suikop]

Hello everyone.

I am wondering if anyone is familiar with or holds to the skeptical theist response to the argument from evil. I am interested in doing a head-to-head debate on this topic with another user. Specifically, I would like to argue that skeptical theism fails as an objection to the evidential argument from evil. (Obviously, my opponent would be seeking the opposite)

[Divine Insight]

Just to help with clarity I thought I'd post the following link:

Skeptical Theism

The reason being that I had to look up this Philosophical position myself before I could fully understand whether or not I would be interested in taking a position on it.

My personal position on this is that this is simply not the reason that I reject a notion of a God. So it's not an argument I could care to have.

I simply don't reject the idea of a "Generic" God based on the idea that I don't think a God would allow the so-called evil we see in the world. In fact, I would point to various Eastern Mystical religions that have this covered quite well. They have very sound reasons for why their pantheistic God would allow the world to be precisely as we see it.

However, I think this argument does have merit when considering the Abrahamic type of God for various reasons. Although, at the same time I wouldn't care to make this argument from the position that it is the "only" reason to reject the Abrahamic view of God. Or even a "major" reason for rejecting the Abrahamic God.

This is one problem I have with these types of debates. They begin by taking the position that this is the major reason for rejecting this particular God, and then if the arguments show that there could be reasons why this is not a good reason to reject the God (by arguing that we aren't in a position to say what a God should do), then it appears that the theist has made a major point for the religion. When in fact, that wouldn't even be remotely close to being true.

In other words, with respect to the "Big Picture" this would be a 'strawman' argument. An argument that is fairly easy to knock down. And this is why it was chosen by the theist as though it is an important issue to consider, when in reality it's not.

Like I say, the Eastern Mystics have already excused their God from any and all evils of the world. But then again, their God isn't threatening to punish anyone with eternal damnation.

I think the mere fact that the Abrahamic God threatens eternal punishment for humans who commit acts that we consider to be 'evil' is really in no position to be carrying out those very same acts himself.

So that would be my biggest argument right there.

If it's bad for a human to treat a human baby in a mean and cruel way, then it must also be bad for God to allow human babies to suffer in mean and cruel ways.

The only counter-argument to that would be to argue that God has a higher purpose in his cruelty thus supposedly making it ok to do it. I think that's a rather weak argument, but clearly one the theist would need to be making.

I think at that point we would just need to agree to disagree.

That kind of argument would necessarily need to spill over to humans to the point where a human could do cruel and evil things also, if the result was to make something else better.

It's a bad argument.

But that's the argument that inevitably needs to be made by the theist.

God can do 'bad' things for a 'higher good'.

I don't buy it.

So there really isn't any point in even having the debate when it's clear how it necessarily has to end up.

Just my long-winded 2 cents.

[Suikop]

I would point to various Eastern Mystical religions that have this covered quite well. They have very sound reasons for why their pantheistic God would allow the world to be precisely as we see it.

Could you maybe provide some of the reasons that they have for God allowing evil?

So there really isn't any point in even having the debate when it's clear how it necessarily has to end up

The dialectic between skeptical theism and supporters of the evidential argument from evil is able to become more robust than merely agreeing to disagree. It involves epistemic, probabilistic, and (of course) ethical elements. Therefore, I still think it can be a very worthwhile discussion to have with someone who has read some of the literature on skeptical theism and the evidential argument from evil.

[Divine Insight]

I would point to various Eastern Mystical religions that have this covered quite well. They have very sound reasons for why their pantheistic God would allow the world to be precisely as we see it.

Could you maybe provide some of the reasons that they have for God allowing evil?

The simple answer is that it's Pantheism. That alone explains everything if you understand what Pantheism means.

Keep in mind that the Abrahamic religions view their God as being a separate egotistical entity from humans. And they view humans as being separate egotistical entities from their God. So you have a God who is basically being mean to entities that are totally separate from him. That's a different situation entirely.

So there really isn't any point in even having the debate when it's clear how it necessarily has to end up

The dialectic between skeptical theism and supporters of the evidential argument from evil is able to become more robust than merely agreeing to disagree. It involves epistemic, probabilistic, and (of course) ethical elements. Therefore, I still think it can be a very worthwhile discussion to have with someone who has read some of the literature on skeptical theism and the evidential argument from evil.

I've had these types of discussions many times. The bottom line is that even if humans are removed from world entirely the would would still be filled with animals that brutally eat each other. It should be clear from this that there is no excuse for this type of brutality.

The kind of arguments that you would need to support would only make sense in a world where humans were the sole source of "evil". But that's not the world we live in.

Also, "evil" is nothing more than a subjective judgement. It has no absolute meaning. For example, a human views harm to another human as being 'evil' while potentially not seeing the harming of another animal as being 'evil'. In fact, the overwhelming majority of humans have no problem at all eating meat.

So the very term "evil", is ill-defined. All evil amounts to is anything that humans don't particularly care for. It's an entirely subjective concept.

Therefore trying to base a argument for a God on a subjective opinion of what someone sees as being 'evil' versus not 'evil' can never be anything more than an argument over subjective opinions.

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There is also the following major problem with the argument you are suggesting:

The Theist would necessarily need to support that this God does obviously nasty things for some "higher purpose" which we simply cannot know. But this is problematic already because this requires that the God has no choice in the matter.

In other words this requires that the God can neither be omniscient nor omnipotent enough to be able to avoid having to partake in such desperate acts. Yet omniscient and omnipotence are traits that are being assumed this God must have.

So this is just one more area where it's going to fail, unless the theist resigns to the fact that to continue to support their argument they need to concede that their God has extreme limitations in what he can and cannot do.

In short, you can't claim that the God is omniscient and omnipotent yet he is still forced to do nasty things in order to achieve a higher good. That's a profound inconsistency in the traits this God is supposed to possess.

~~~~~

I guess we're already having this debate right here.

[2ndRateMind]

[Replying to post 4 by Divine Insight]

Ah, the problem of evil. That old chestnut. Seems to me, Epicurus put it best:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?�

I suspect that if we all took a global perspective, rather than a merely personal one, and looked for the good of humanity as a whole, rather than individual gain, then many objections to God on the basis of perceived evil would subside.

Best wishes, 2RM.