Theodicy: skeptical theist view of God (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, March 07, 2024, 17:34 (259 days ago) @ David Turell

From ID website:

https://evolutionnews.org/2024/03/a-misguided-critique-of-irreducible-complexity/

"I myself am a skeptical theist — meaning that I believe we should be extremely cautious about intuiting what God would or would not do.

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"Given that God has exhaustive knowledge and is much wiser than we are, it would not at all be surprising if God has knowledge that we lack access to — knowledge that is relevant to one or more of his decisions. This has applicability to the problem of evil, since it is difficult for us to evaluate, from our limited vantagepoint, whether God plausibly might have morally sufficient justification for allowing natural and personal evil to exist in the world. This is not to say that the problem of evil has no evidential force against theism, but, rather, that we should be cautious about overstating what we can assert with confidence about what God would or would not do or allow to happen. Moreover, there is a problem of diminishing returns by multiplying examples. If God has a morally sufficient justification for permitting one instance of evil (no matter how unexpected), he may well have a similar justification for permitting similar instances of evil. Thus, one cannot simply add successive examples indefinitely and expect the argument against theism to continue to grow in strength. Instances of evil in the world are therefore not epistemically independent. (my bold)

"A popular objection that surfaces for the skeptical theist is that it serves as a double-edged sword, since it implies that the God hypothesis has no, or at least very limited, predictive power. If one cannot confidently say what God is likely to do, how can one mount an argument for theism? But one does not need to assert that God probably has a particular intention, but rather only that such an intention is not wildly implausible (whereas it is absurdly improbable on the falsity of the hypothesis). So long as that likelihood ratio is top-heavy, it provides evidence that confirms theism."

Comment: I can readily accept his approach. Note my bold. With God's vast knowledge how can we humans outguess His motives? Or worse, give Him obviously human motives?