Int J Philos Relig (2012) 72:27–39 DOI 10.1007/s11153-012-9358-1 ARTICLE

Skeptical theism and value judgments David James Anderson

Received: 11 April 2012 / Accepted: 12 May 2012 / Published online: 29 May 2012 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract One of the most prominent objections to skeptical theism in recent literature is that the skeptical theist is forced to deny our competency in making judgments about the all-things-considered value of any natural event. Some skeptical theists accept that their view has this implication, but argue that it is not problematic. I think that there is reason to question the implication itself. I begin by explaining the objection to skeptical theism and the standard response to it. I then identify an assumption that is prevalent in much of the literature concerning the problem of evil, and show that it is a factor in motivating commitment to the implication I mean to question. I argue that the assumption is false, and that once it is rejected there is room to endorse the skeptical theist’s strategy in responding to some arguments from evil without endorsing the putative implication that objectors find unacceptable. Keywords

Problem of evil · Skeptical theism · All things considered value

Much of the force behind several arguments from evil stems from the fact that we are unable to grasp the reasons a perfectly good God might have for permitting all the evil we experience. Skeptical theists claim that this fact (the fact that we cannot see any possible reasons for divine permission of evil) is not at all surprising on theism, and does not count as a reason (at least not a strong reason) against it. There are several forceful objections to skeptical theism, but one of the most prominent in recent literature is that the skeptical theist is forced to completely deny our competency in making judgments about the all-things-considered value of any natural event. Most skeptical theists accept that their view has this implication, but argue that it is not

D. J. Anderson (B) Department of Philosophy, 419 Malloy Hall, University of Notre Dame, 46556 Notre Dame, IN, USA e-mail: [email protected]

123

28

Int J Philos Relig (2012) 72:27–39

problematic. I think that there is reason to question the implication itself, and I aim to develop those reasons here. I begin by explaining the objection to skeptical theism and the standard response to it. I then identify an assumption at work in much of the literature concerning the problem of evil, and show that it is a factor in motivating commitment to the implication I mean to question. I’ll argue that the assumption is false, and that once it is rejected there is room to endorse the skeptical theist’s strategy in responding to some arguments from evil without endorsing the putative implication that objectors find unacceptable. Skeptical theism and judgments of ATC value Skeptical theism has come to be characterized as an endorsement of the following skeptical theses: ST1 We have no good reason for thinking that the possible goods we know of are representative of the possible goods there are. ST2 We have no good reason for thinking that the possible evils we know of are representative of the possible evils there are. ST3 We have no good reason for thinking that the entailment relations we know of between possible goods and the permission of possible evils are representative of the entailment relations there are between possible goods and the permission of possible evils.1 Michael Bergmann summarizes the position by claiming that “It just doesn’t seem unlikely that our understanding of the realm of value falls miserably short of capturing all that is true about that realm.”2 If we endorse ST1–ST3, then it is very difficult to defend an inference from our inability to cognize possible God-justifying reasons to permit evil, to the probable non-existence of such reasons. After all, if ST1–ST3 are correct, then our inability to cognize reasons that would justify divine permission of evil is just what we should expect regardless of whether or not there are such reasons. Since some arguments from evil (e.g. Rowe 1979) rely on just that inference, skeptical theism threatens to refute those arguments. Perhaps the most prominent objection to this line of response is that endorsement of ST1–ST3 leads to other less-palatable forms of skepticism. For example, Bruce Russell argues that skeptical theists have no principled means to reject the skeptical hypothesis that God created the world 5 min ago, complete with signs of age and false memories. If he did have a justifying reason for doing so, the skeptical theist should not be at all surprised at our inability to discover what that reason might be.3 The objection pressed most forcefully, however, is that endorsement of ST1–ST3 implies that we are entirely incompetent in making judgments about the all-things-considered value of various states of affairs, and that this incompetency undermines ordinary morality. Jeffery Jordan, for example, claims that: 1 Bergmann (2001, p. 279). 2 Ibid. 3 Russell (2004).

123

Int J Philos Relig (2012) 72:27–39

29

According to the skeptical theist, it may be that cases of horrendous evil are instrumental goods. God must permit them to bring about a greater good. Let’s call a state of affair [sic] that’s intrinsically bad and that’s not intrinsically good, bad all things considered (or bad ATC) … It is the contention of the skeptical theist that we’re never in position to call any state of affairs bad ATC, since, for all we justifiably believe, [ST1–ST3] are true.4 Similarly, William Hasker charges that: [W]e ordinarily suppose that, when we see a good state of affairs with no discernible evil entailments, it is very likely that the state of affairs in question really is good all-things-considered; and similarly for egregiously evil states of affairs that, so far as we can tell, are not logically required for goods that are commensurate in their value with the evils. This, however, is denied outright by the skeptical theist, and I submit that this denial constitutes a major kind of moral skepticism.5 The idea is that, if we lack good reason to think that the goods/evils/entailments between them that we know about are representative of all that there may be, then any state of affairs we witness, however good or bad in itself, may be logically connected to far outweighing bads or goods. Suppose I kiss my dying mother on her brow and tell her that I love her—considered by itself this event is no doubt a good thing but, the objector contends, we are entirely unable to make any reasonable judgment about the likelihood of the event’s tending toward the overall good of the world. For all we know, reality as a whole will turn out much worse for having included it. Likewise for any other event, no matter how good or evil, when it is considered in isolation from any of its possible logical connections. In arguing that skepticism about our ability to reliably judge of the ATC value of states of affairs is unacceptably crippling, Hasker and Jordan clearly imply that they think we are in fact generally reliable in such judgments. More carefully, the claim they dispute is that “We aren’t able to determine whether something is an all-thingsconsidered good simply by noticing how good it is since we don’t know what it might bring in its wake.”6 For there to be genuine disagreement between Hasker/Jordan and Bergmann, it must be that Hasker and Jordan think we can reliably judge of the ATC value of a state of affairs simply by taking note of its prima facie value. Bergmann’s defense of skeptical theism against this charge is to admit that endorsement of ST1–ST3 leads one to deny our ability to reliably judge the ATC value of states of affairs, but to argue that this denial is not problematic. Bermann thinks that ordinary morality requires that we recognize an obligation to promote good known consequences of the options open to us, but does not require that we recognize an obligation to so act as to promote ATC good consequences:

4 Jordan (2006, p. 407). 5 Hasker (2010, p. 24). 6 Bergmann (2009, p. 389).

123

30

Int J Philos Relig (2012) 72:27–39

What is relevant are the likely consequences we have some reason to be confident about after a reasonable amount of time and effort aimed at identifying the expected results of our behavior. If, after such consideration, a particular course of action seems to clearly maximize the good (or minimize the bad) among the consequences we’re able to identify and we non-culpably and reasonably take ourselves to have no overriding consequences-independent obligation to refrain from that action, then that action is a morally appropriate one for us to perform.7 I think there is more work to be done on the disagreement between Hasker/Jordan and Bergmann on this topic, but it is work that I leave aside in the present paper. In the remainder, I will argue that the skeptical theist has another line of response available. Should Hasker or Jordan provide compelling reasons to convince us that we are reliable judges of the ATC value of natural events such as fawns burning in forest fires or kisses upon one’s mother’s brow, I deny that the skeptical theist must abandon his general strategy in responding to arguments from evil. What Hasker, Jordan, and Bergmann all seem to agree upon is the following implication: Implication: Skeptical theism implies our inability to reliably judge the ATC value of natural events. I deny the implication. Before getting to my reasons for denying it, however, I will discuss a suppressed assumption that I believe is responsible for the prima facie attractiveness of the implication. A common assumption A morally perfect being is always opposed to evil. This means that, on the assumption that suffering is intrinsically bad, a morally perfect being always has a prima facie reason to prevent any suffering it can. If such a being does permit any suffering then he will always have some justifying reason for his permission; a reason that overcomes the prima facie case against permitting it. This is just to say that a morally perfect being’s permission of suffering is never gratuitous or capricious. One clearly justifying reason to permit suffering is that the suffering is required in order to attain some outweighing benefit. I am justified in sending my children to the dentist and permitting their pain and anxiety because I know that their suffering is causally required for the greater good of healthy gums and teeth, and my permission is granted for the reason of obtaining those outweighing benefits. Likewise, an omnipotent being might justifiably permit suffering when the suffering itself is logically required for the attainment of an outweighing benefit, and is permitted for that reason.8 It seems to me, however, that there is an underlying assumption in much of 7 Bergmann (2009), p. 392. 8 Two notes in one: (1) It can be tempting to think that God is justified in permitting some evil E so long

as E is causally required for obtaining an outweighing benefit, but this temptation should be resisted. God, being omnipotent, is not restrained by the causal laws governing our world, and is therefore able to both prevent suffering which is causally required for an outweighing benefit, and also to obtain that benefit. God has the power, for example, to zap one with healthy teeth and gums in an entirely painless and anxiety-free manner. (2) An important question that will not be considered here is whether the outweighing benefit must

123

Int J Philos Relig (2012) 72:27–39

31

the literature on the problem of evil that this is the only sort of reason that might justify God’s permission of suffering. For ease of reference I will label this the ‘Assumption’: Assumption God’s permission of some instance of suffering E is justified only if the occurrence of E is itself logically required for the attaining of an outweighing benefit. The assumption is hinted at by William Rowe, even though his explicit formulation of the requirement on God is carefully worded. Rowe’s requirement is: (1) An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.9 In saying that God will prevent suffering unless he cannot do so without losing an outweighing benefit, (1) leaves open the question whether the suffering itself is required for that benefit. For all (1) claims, it might be the case that God’s permission of some instance of suffering is necessary for some outweighing benefit even if the occurrence of the suffering is not. In his original case against theism, Rowe combines (1) with the premise that: (2) There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse. Again, this premise is worded carefully enough to respect a distinction between pointless or gratuitous suffering, and the pointless or gratuitous permission of suffering.10 (2) does not claim that there are evils the occurrence of which is not logically necessary for an outweighing benefit, but rather that there are evils God’s permission of which is not so required. With (2) and (1) we have an argument for the conclusion that God does not exist. Despite his careful wording, however, Rowe’s support for (2) rests almost entirely on the claim that there seems to occur suffering which leads to no outweighing benefit. In discussing his case of a fawn burned in a forest fire and suffering for several days before dying, he makes the following comments: For even though we cannot see how the fawn’s suffering is required to obtain some greater good (or to prevent some equally bad or worse evil), it hardly Footnote 8 continued be beneficial to the sufferer. Can a perfectly good God allow one being to suffer for the sake of attaining benefits that apply only to others? For an argument against theism based, in part, on the claim that God could not, see Maitzen (2009). 9 Rowe (1979, p. 336). 10 In an important and, in my opinion, under appreciated paper Daniel and Frances Howard-Snyder are

very careful to distinguish gratuitous evil from the gratuitous permission of evil, exploring the possibility of God’s permitting suffering in a gratuitous manner. They use the term ‘gratuitous evil’ to refer only to that which satisfies Rowe’s explicit definition: “An instance of evil is gratuitous = df God could have prevented it without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse” (Howard-Snyder and Howard-Snyder 1999, p. 116), and chide Michael Peterson for what they call his “idiosyncratic” use of the term to refer instead to evil that is not necessary for the occurrence of any greater good or the prevention of any equally bad or worse evil (119). I hope to demonstrate in this paper that the distinction is not sufficiently appreciated, even by those, like Rowe, who are careful in their explicit formulations. When I use the terms ‘pointless’ or ‘gratuitous’ I will attempt to be clear about the intended referent of that adjective: either the instance of suffering, or the divine permission of it.

123

32

Int J Philos Relig (2012) 72:27–39

follows that it is not so required. After all, we are often surprised by how things we thought to be unconnected turn out to be intimately connected. Consider again the case of the fawn’s suffering. Is it reasonable to believe that there is some greater good so intimately connected to that suffering that even an omnipotent, omniscient being could not have obtained that good without permitting that suffering or some evil at least as bad? The general difficulty with this direct attack on premise (2) is twofold. First, it cannot succeed, for the theist does not know what greater goods might be served, or evils prevented, by each instance of intense human or animal suffering.11 I’ve added italics to the quotes to emphasize that Rowe’s concern is that the particular instance of suffering he describes does not seem to be logically required for any outweighing benefit. The gratuitousness of this suffering, however, does not lend support to (2) without the unstated assumption that gratuitous suffering can be permitted only in a gratuitous manner; that is, that God’s permission of suffering lacks a justifying reason whenever the occurrence of the suffering itself is not required for an outweighing benefit.12 If we were to reject the assumption, we might respond to Rowe by agreeing that things would have been better had the fawn not suffered, but denying that this gives us strong reason to think that things would have been better had God intervened to prevent it. As another example, Stephen Maitzen is sensitive to the distinction between gratuitous suffering and gratuitous permission of suffering early in his article on skeptical theism and ordinary morality. Referring to the actual case of Charles Rothenburg’s cruel burning of his son David, Maitzen says that “according to traditional theism … our universe is in some sense better, or at least no worse, if God permits David’s immolation than it would be if God prevented it.”13 Note that Maitzen does not claim that according to theism the universe is better for having included the immolation itself. This sensitivity, however, seems to drop out as he develops his case. He says: 11 Ibid, pp. 337–338. 12 In some of his earlier work on the issue, Hasker (1992), p. 23 recognizes and discusses the distinction

I am urging, but does not put it to the same use. He ascribes the distinction to Rowe, which makes Rowe’s commitment to the assumption I am charging him with all the more surprising. The early work of Stephen Wykstra (one of the original skeptical theists) is also careful in this respect: Third, one must note that by [1] it is, strictly speaking, God’s allowing the suffering, and not the suffering itself, that must serve some outweighing good. [1] thus does not entail the notion that every instance of suffering is such that the world is ‘really a better place’ for having this suffering than it would be without it ... To see this, consider what the import of [1] is—and is not—for suffering which, on a free will theodicy, is caused by the evil choices of morally free agents. The import of [1] is that God’s prevention of all such suffering would not make the world a better place, for it would eliminate the good of moral freedom. But this does not mean that the suffering itself contributes, in the long run, to the world’s being a good place: the world might well have been better if all this suffering had been prevented—not by God, but by those agents who through their choices caused it. Odd as it first seems, theists can (and I think should) insist that for some suffering, it is within our power but not within God’s to prevent it without the loss of an outweighing good (Wykstra 1984, p. 141). 13 Maitzen (2008, p. 94).

123

Int J Philos Relig (2012) 72:27–39

33

One might wonder how theists (skeptical or not) could assign anything but high probability to the claim that E is for the best, all things considered, since presumably whatever occurs, including E, is something that a perfect God permits to occur, and whatever a perfect God permits to occur must be for the best. Theists could reply by rejecting the assumption that (1) any event occurs only with God’s permission or that (2) whatever God permits to occur must be for the best, but either reply seems to sacrifice an element of traditional theism: (1) seems entailed by the combination of divine omniscience and divine omnipotence, and (2) seems entailed by those properties together with God’s moral perfection.14 The phrase “whatever God permits must be for the best” is ambiguous. It could mean: (A): If God permits E, then it is better that E occur than that it not occur. or (B): If God permits E, then it is better that God permit E than that he not permit it. Maitzen’s objection commits him to understanding the phrase in the first way rather than the second. (A) seems plausible, however, only under the assumption that the only way for God’s permission of E to be for the best is for the occurrence of E to be for the best. One final example of the prevalence of the assumption: William Hasker describes the restraint on God’s relation to evil like so (italics in the original): …suffering must be such that an omniscient, wholly good being could not prevent it “without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.” Now, given that the being in question, namely God, is also supposed to be omnipotent, we must suppose that it is logically impossible for him to prevent the evil without losing the greater good, or permitting the equal or greater evil. That is to say, the good in question must be such that (a) the existence of the original evil is logically required for the good state of affairs to obtain, and furthermore (b) the goodness of the good state of affairs outweighs the badness of the evil state of affairs, so that the existence of the two together is an all-things-considered good.15 Note how quickly Hasker shifts from talking about the logical impossibility of God’s preventing some evil without losing a greater good, to talking about the existence of the evil being logically required for an outweighing benefit. It seems to me that he can make such a shift only by assuming that God’s permission of evil is justified only if the evil itself is required for an outweighing benefit. Most importantly for my purposes, I think the assumption is a driving force behind the Implication highlighted in the previous section. ST1–ST3 together claim that we have no good reason to think that the goods/evils/entailments that we are aware of are representative of the goods/evils/entailments there may be. It is important to clarify the ‘representativeness’ at issue. Bergmann is clear that what he has in mind is representativeness “relative to the property of figuring in a (potentially) God-justifying 14 Ibid, p. 100, fn. 9. 15 Hasker (2010, p. 17).

123

34

Int J Philos Relig (2012) 72:27–39

reason for permitting the inscrutable evils we see around us.”16 However, the representativeness needed to support the implication is representativeness relative to the property of contributing to the ATC value of the occurrenceof the inscrutable evils we see around us. Why should we think that the failure of the goods/evils/entailments we know about to be representative with respect to the first property, automatically renders them unrepresentative with respect to the second? An obvious reason would be if the properties are just identical; if the only sorts of reasons that could potentially figure into a justification for divine permission of the evils we witness are facts that contribute to the ATC value of those events. But this is just the assumption I am questioning. If we were to reject the assumption, we would open room for the possibility of the known goods/evils/entailments being representative of all the goods/evils/entailments with respect to the property of contributing to the ATC value of the events we witness, without them being representative of that class with respect to the property of figuring in a potentially God-justifying reason to permit them. Keeping all this in mind, there is room for a different skeptical theist response to Hasker and Jordan. Claims Jordan, “… the skeptical theist suggests, because of our ignorance, we may be oblivious of certain deep connections between goods and evils, such that the suffering of Rowe’s fawn is in fact connected to a justifying greater good, even though it seems manifestly pointless.”17 It is open to the skeptical theist, however, to concede that we can reasonably judge that the suffering of Rowe’s fawn is not connected to any greater benefits. What the skeptical theist is skeptical about is whether there might be reasons justifying God’s non-intervention in that event. We might all agree that the occurrence of horrendous suffering is at least sometimes bad ATC without committing one way or the other on whether God’s permission of it always is. Without the very tight connection between gratuitous suffering and gratuitous permission that the assumption assumes, I see no reason for a general commitment to skepticism about the ATC badness of all cases of suffering. Possibly, the world would have been much better off had Rowe’s fawn never suffered but it would not have been better off had God intervened into the system of nature to miraculously prevent it. ST1-ST3 imply that, for all we know, there are goods justifying God’s permission of the suffering. It is a result of the assumption, not of the skeptical theist’s theses, that the only possible God-justifying goods would be outweighing benefits logically requiring the occurrence of the suffering. Non-gratuitously permitting gratuitous suffering I have identified an assumption commonly made in the current literature on the problem of evil, but I haven’t shown that there is anything particularly problematic about it. Perhaps we are quite justified in assuming that the permission of suffering is acceptable only when the suffering is appropriately connected to an outweighing benefit. There are some difficult burden-of-proof questions here. Having identified an assumption on which some positions in the larger debate depend, one might challenge holders 16 Bergmann (2009, p. 377). 17 Jordan (2006, p. 407).

123

Int J Philos Relig (2012) 72:27–39

35

of those positions to defend their assumption, without giving any explicit reasons to doubt it. Defenders of those positions might respond that the assumption is plausible enough to count as ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ I aim to sidestep these issues by offering some reasons to doubt the assumption. What we are inquiring after is the possibility of a reason for an omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect creator of a world to permit suffering in that world, when the occurrence of the suffering is not a necessary condition for the obtaining of an outweighing benefit. There are at least four considerations that support the claim that we cannot reasonably rule out the possibility that such reasons exist. First, and most obviously, God might permit an instance of suffering for the purpose of respecting the free action of one of his creatures. Suppose Smith is contemplating harming a stranger for personal gain. Possibly, Smith’s being free on this occasion is valuable enough that the harm that the stranger suffers when Smith chooses poorly need not be logically connected with any greater benefit in order for God’s permission of it to be justified. God’s permission might be justified simply because of the reasons God has to allow free creatures a range of activity. Note, importantly, that the harm Smith inflicts was in no sense necessary for his being free on that occasion. Smith could have chosen to do the right thing instead and, had he done so, no outweighing benefits would have been lost. Thus, it seems that God’s permission of some amount of suffering might be justified even when, all things considered, it would have been better had that suffering not occurred. If this is so, then the assumption is false. Of course, respecting the freedom of creatures might not justify God’s permission of just any evil (if the harm suffered by the stranger is bad enough, it would seem better for God to constrain Smith’s free will than for Smith to have the ability to inflict that sort of harm on another). But this is beside the (current) point. Some suffering might be justly permitted by God even if its occurrence is not necessary for the attainment of any greater benefit. This first consideration offers a relatively concrete counter-example to the assumption. My next considerations are all much more vague and speculative, but I think that, cumulatively, they add further support for a rejection (or at least withholding) of the assumption. Consider, then, the fact that as Creator, God is not simply one agent among many within the world. He exists as an external agent and, while this does not limit his ability to affect or immediately cause things in the world, it may well raise issues or concerns not present when an agent within the world acts. In other words, each time God acts to prevent suffering, his action counts as an intervention into the normal goings-on of the physical world.18 When I act to prevent suffering, in contrast, my action is just a part of the normal goings-on of the physical world.19 There may be 18 One might think that God can also prevent suffering by selecting different initial conditions for creation, conditions that will result in different events occurring. This suggestion seems to require commitments about God’s foreknowledge, a topic which is itself hotly contested, raising many concerns beyond the main focus of the present paper. I ignore it in the main text for that reason. 19 This contrast assumes that humans are physical entities. If we are immaterial souls bound to a physical

body, then perhaps all of our actions are interventions into the physical system. Whether this result counts against what I say in the main text, or against dualism about human persons, I leave to the reader to judge. Note, however, that there remains an important distinction between the very limited ways that we are able

123

36

Int J Philos Relig (2012) 72:27–39

costs20 that are unavoidable when God intervenes in the natural physical order and the skeptical theist can claim that our inability to clearly conceive of these costs is not a good reason to deny their possible relevance to divine decisions about interaction with the world. But if God permits an instance of suffering X because of costs associated with his own intervention, it does not follow that the occurrence of X must be logically connected to an outweighing benefit. It might be better all things considered that X not occur, but not better for God to intervene to prevent it. In addition to being skeptical about the costs associated with particular instances of divine intervention into the physical system, there is reason for us to be skeptical about the relevance of the various relations God bears to this world. The Bible portrays some of the ways that God might be related to his creation: primarily as loving Father, but also as judge and redeemer of sin. There may be other relevant relations. Despite what we hear daily on many public radio shows, it is appropriate to adopt a stance of humility and at least initial agnosticism about an ability to judge a ruling by a Supreme Court judge when one recognizes that one lacks the decades of training in jurisprudence required to attain such a position. Even more so is it appropriate to adopt such a stance with respect to a being fulfilling the role not only of judge (and that of the whole world rather than merely of a single state or nation), but of various others as well. The roles and responsibilities God has to the world might entail a set of reasons relevant to his decisions to intervene in creation, and these might have little to do with logical connections between the occurrence of the instances of suffering and other states of affairs (and instead have much to do with the logical connections between God’s permission of these instances of suffering and other states of affairs). The skeptical theist can urge our inability to rule this sort of possibility out. Finally, it is appropriate to doubt our ability to judge the best general policy decisions regarding God’s interaction with the world. Is it best for God to decide on a case-by-case basis when and how he should intervene, or is it better for him to adopt a principled policy about his interaction with creation? If the latter, what are the candidates for a principled policy regarding divine intervention? I think these questions are well worth our focused attention, but the first point to make is just that it is entirely appropriate to admit that we are out of our depths when considering such things. If appropriate, however, then it is hard to see how we can be confident that the best policy of interaction that a divine being can adopt will entail that he prevent any suffering the occurrence of which is not logically required for the obtaining of an outweighing

Footnote 19 continued to affect the physical system and the unlimited ways God is able to, and this distinction alone might give us pause about our ability to fathom the costs of divine intervention. 20 An embarrassingly rough hint of the sorts of costs I have in mind: Michael Murray has argued that there

is great good in bringing a system from a state of chaos to a state of order (Murray 2008, chap. 6). I am attracted to thinking that there is even greater good in a system that brings itself from a state of chaos into a state of order. If, in creating the natural world, God brings into being creatures with the ability to organize themselves in ever-complex ways, he might have a strong prima facie reason to allow those creatures to develop on their own. Any instance of divine intervention will make the progression from chaos to order a little more the result of God’s activity and a little less the result of the unfolding of the powers inherent in the natural order itself. This might be counted as a cost to divine action in the natural order that does not apply to human action in the natural order.

123

Int J Philos Relig (2012) 72:27–39

37

benefit. Any argument from evil that does require such confidence can be resisted by these skeptical concerns. Because of concerns like these, skepticism about the types of reasons that might justify divine permission of suffering seems well-motivated. This gives us reason to be suspicious about the assumption, and given the assumption’s role in motivating the Implication, it also gives us reason to be suspicious about the Implication. If we reject the assumption, then for all we know at least, the set of potentially God-justifying reasons for permitting evil is not exhausted by the set of factors contributing to the ATC value of those evils. So for all we know the first set is larger (much larger?) than the second. Were Jordan or Hasker to convince us that the goods/evils/entailments we are aware of give us a reliable grasp on the contents of the second set, we would not thereby be forced to admit that they give us a good grasp on the contents of the first set. That is, skeptical theism does not imply our inability to make certain judgments of ATC value. The Implication is false. Although it was hinted at earlier, it is also worth showing explicitly that, given the resources for skeptical theism I’ve offered in this paper, skeptical theism need not lead to any sort of objectionable moral paralysis. Jeffery Jordan argues that “no one who accepts the doctrines of skeptical theism has a principled way of avoiding moral skepticism,”21 but his case rests on the claim that skeptical theists are unable to ever judge a state of affairs to be bad all-things-considered. If there are reasons that justify divine permission of pointless evils (those, the occurrence of which is not necessary for the attaining of an outweighing benefit), however, then skeptical theism might be compatible with our ability to judge a state of affairs to be bad ATC. There is no inconsistency is claiming, of some event E, both that E is bad ATC (the world really would be a better place if E had never happened), and that, for all we know, it is better that God did not intervene to prevent E than if he had intervened. In a similar vein, Stephen Maitzen argues that we lose an obligation to relieve the suffering of others when we are skeptical about whether or not our prevention of the suffering will lead to outweighing benefits.22 Even if this claim is true, the position I am recommending is compatible with confidence that our prevention of the suffering will indeed result in an outweighing benefit; Maitzen thus fails to gives us a reason to reject that position. Finally, a somewhat different moral objection against skeptical theism is developed by Michael Almeida and Graham Oppy. Their case begins by understanding skeptical theism as committed to a “general scepticsm about our knowledge of the realm of value.”23 If a general skepticism about value is sufficient to keep us from rationally believing it unlikely that there are reasons for God to permit evil then, argue Almeida and Oppy, those very same considerations keep us from rationally believing it unlikely that there are reasons for us to permit evil. This result, however, hinders our normal moral reasoning. Without getting into the details of the argument or published responses,24 I will merely point out that the concerns I have appealed to in order to

21 Jordan (2006, p. 403). 22 Maitzen (2009). 23 Almeida and Oppy (2003, p. 505). 24 See, for example, Bergmann and Rea (2005), Trakakis and Nagasawa (2004), Almeida and Oppy (2005).

123

38

Int J Philos Relig (2012) 72:27–39

motivate skepticism about the possibility of there being good reasons for God not to intervene to prevent the evils we experience, need not be combined with a fully general value skepticism. It is true that Bergmann motivates his skeptical theism by claiming that “It just doesn’t seem unlikely that our understanding of the realm of value falls miserably short of capturing all that is true about that realm.”25 I think this way of putting it can be misleading; what the skeptical theist needs is the claim that we have no reason to think that the reasons relevant to divine intervention we are able to cognize are representative of all the reasons that God might have access to. In any case, I deny that a general skepticism about the realm of value is necessary in order to motivate that claim. We might rationally withhold judgment about whether or not God has overriding reason to intervene in any particular case without being at all doubtful about whether we have overriding reason not to intervene. Conclusion One sort of reason that might justify God’s permission of suffering is that the occurrence of the suffering is itself logically necessary for the attainment of an outweighing benefit. There is an implicit assumption in some of the literature on the problem of evil, however, that this is the only sort of reason that might justify God’s non-intervention. I have given reasons to think that assumption is false; or at least that it is both controversial and insufficiently motivated. As a result, skeptical theists have at least two avenues of response to the charge that their position has unacceptable implications about our inability to judge the ATC value of states of affairs. First, they can follow Bergmann in arguing that the implications are not unacceptable after all, perhaps because ordinary morality does not require us to make such judgments. Second, skeptical theists can expose and reject the assumption that the only sort of reason that God might have for permitting evil is that the occurrence of the evil is logically required for an outweighing benefit, and in so doing reject the claim that their skeptical theism implies an inability to render reasonable judgments about ATC value in the first place. Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Michael Bergmann, Joshua Watson, John Houston, Travis Gilmore, and all the participants of the Center for Philosophy of Religion’s colloquium series for very useful comments and feedback. This paper was written under a research grant from the John Templeton Foundation, for which the author is very grateful.

References Almeida, M., & Oppy, G. (2003). Sceptical theism and evidential arguments from evil. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 81(4), 496–516. Almeida, M., & Oppy, G. (2005). Reply to Trakakis and Nagasawa. Ars Disputandi 5. Retrieved September 24, 2005 from http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000220/article.pdf. Bergmann, M. (2001). Skeptical theism and Rowe’s new evidential argument from evil. Nous, 35(2), 278–296. Bergmann, M. (2009). Skeptical theism and the problem of evil. In F. Thomas & R. Michael (Eds.), Oxford handbook to philosophical theology (pp. 374–399). New York: OUP. 25 Bergmann (2001, p. 279).

123

Int J Philos Relig (2012) 72:27–39

39

Bergmann, M., & Rea, M. (2005). In defense of skeptical theism: A reply to Almeida and Oppy. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 83, 241–251. Hasker, W. (1992). The necessity of gratuitous evil. Faith and Philosophy, 9, 23–44. Hasker, W. (2010). All too skeptical theism. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 68, 15–29. Howard-Snyder, D., & Howard-Snyder, F. (1999). Is theism compatible with gratuitous suffering?. American Philosophical Quarterly, 36(2), 115–129. Jordan, J. (2006). Does skeptical theism lead to moral skepticism?. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 72(2), 403–417. Maitzen, S. (2008). Skeptical theism and moral obligation. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 65, 93–103. Maitzen, S. (2009). Ordinary morality implies atheism. European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 2, 107–126. Murray, M. (2008). Nature red in tooth and claw (p. 206). New York: OUP. Rowe, W. (1979). The problem of evil and some varieties of atheism. American Philosophical Quarterly, 16, 335–341. Russell, B. (2004). The problem of evil: Why is there so much suffering?. In P. Louis (Ed.), Introduction to philosophy: Classical and contemporary readings (pp. 207–213). New York: OUP. Trakakis, N. & Nagasawa, Y. (2004). Skeptical theism and moral skepticism: A reply to Almeida and Oppy. Ars Disputandi 4. Retrieved December 5, 2011 from http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/ articles/000178/article.pdf. Wykstra, S. (1984). The humean obstacle to evidential arguments from suffering: On avoiding the evils of “appearance”. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 16(2), 73–93.

123