Skeptical Theism

[boatsnguitars]

Skeptical theism is the view that God exists but that we should be skeptical of our ability to discern God’s reasons for acting or refraining from acting in any particular instance. In particular, says the skeptical theist, we should not grant that our inability to think of a good reason for doing or allowing something is indicative of whether or not God might have a good reason for doing or allowing something. If there is a God, he knows much more than we do about the relevant facts, and thus it would not be surprising at all if he has reasons for doing or allowing something that we cannot fathom.

https://iep.utm.edu/skept-th/#:~:text=S ... 20instance.

There is no amount of gratuitous evil that could occur that would ever disprove the existence of God.

That is, we could have a total Hellscape on Earth - as Theists believe would be the case if there was no God (people killing without thought, etc.) It could literally be Hell (but Godless) and that would not be enough to disprove - to the Theist - that a God doesn't exist.

This is problematic in two important ways: mathematically (Bayes), consequentially.

H1: God exists and the justifying reason for suffering is detectable by you: 12.5%
H2: God exists and the justifying reason for suffering is not detectable by you: 37.5%
H3: God does not exist: 50%

However, theists claim that we can't detect the justification for evil, so we redistribute the odds.:

H1: God exists and the justifying reason for suffering is detectable by you: 0%
H2: God exists and the justifying reason for suffering is not detectable by you: 43.7%
H3: God does not exist: 56.25%

Because of the redistribution, according to Bayesian analysis, there is a greater chance that God doesn't exist than does, according to the Problem of Evil and Skeptical Theism.

P(Ak | B) = p(Ak)p(B|Ak)
_________________________________________
p(A1)p(B|A1) + p(A2)p(B|A2)+ ... + p(An)p(B|An)

(From: David Kyle Johnson:

Therefore, there is a reason people have an instinct that tells us the PoE is a powerful argument against God in so many ways (against God's existence and morality, etc.)

[Purple Knight]

I think the problem of suffering is the worst argument against god, for exactly the same reason I think that the argument from order of the universe is the worst argument for god.

In the first instance I am on the atheist side and in the second I am on the theist side, and for the same reason.

I don't believe you can even ask the question.

In the first instance, to say, god is more likely because of the laws of the universe, you must say god is less likely in chaos.

In the second instance, to say god is less likely if suffering exists, you would have to say, god is more likely if suffering does not exist.

And how can we say that latter thing when we can't even conceptualise what it would be like? We can't conceive what it would be like for the laws of nature to not exist or be extremely different, and we can't conceive of life without suffering. Personally I don't even think we'd even be conscious without suffering. We learn by the things that cause us to suffer to avoid those things. Without suffering there is no learning, and without learning how can there be consciousness? So I call these both cases where the question itself is unaskable, because we can't see the other side of the scales. We go toward the carrot, yes, but only because the stick poked us. If we weren't suffering hunger we wouldn't bother.

It's like asking, "O God, if you really love us, why have you made bald people?!" And that's a decent question. It probably disproves God. But asking why are there bald people if everybody was bald... we wouldn't even know what we were asking. It might still be a good question but we have no way of knowing that.

Skeptical theism just reduces to doing the right thing. It reduces to the Purple Wager, because if god is not too terrible knowable, we have this:

That's why Pascal's Wager is incomplete but the Purple Wager (upgraded version, brought to you from the mind of egomaniac genius Purple Knight) actually works.

The upgrade is where you split the possibilities of unfair god from fair god.

If a god is unfair and wants you to mug kittens, there's nothing you can do about this so the best option is to disregard this possibility. Such a god is unfair. This means he may just punish you anyway, even if you mug kittens as he wishes you to. He also may not make his wishes known. He may make it an unwinnable game, or a gameshow, here meaning you have to guess to get the prize. In such a system one guess is as good as another, so in the possibility of an unfair god, you are as well off just being a good person anyway as you are mugging kittens.

If a god is fair, he may very well punish actual evil, but he doesn't set up gameshows and expect you to guess that his real self and dictates are behind door# Bible or door# Koran or Door# atheism, or that his real name is Rumpelstiltskin and you've guessed the wrong name wrong so no salvation for you. That would be unfair. What can a fair god expect if he never asked a thing of you? Well since you bloody well know the difference he can expect you to just be a good person. So just be a good person if this possibility is true and you win.

The Purple Wager reduces to deism. God doesn't directly interfere. Just be a good person. You can't do anything about what an unfair god wants so ignore him. Don't ignore a fair god, but since he's fair and he never asked you to bow, you don't need to. The absolute worst (here meaning most religious) thing you may have to do is ask yourself honestly if you feel like some greater power is trying to tell you something. But that doesn't come with any of religion's filthy trappings.