If We Can’t Tell What Theism Predicts, We Can’t Tell Whether God Exists: Skeptical Theism and Bayesian Arguments from Evil

Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion (forthcoming)
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Abstract

According to a simple Bayesian argument from evil, the evil we observe is less likely given theism than given atheism, and therefore lowers the probability of theism. I consider the most common skeptical theist response to this argument, according to which our cognitive limitations make the probability of evil given theism inscrutable. I argue that if skeptical theists are right about this, then the probability of theism given evil is itself largely inscrutable, and that if this is so, we ought to be agnostic about whether God exists.

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Nevin Climenhaga
Australian Catholic University

Citations of this work

Epistemic Probabilities are Degrees of Support, not Degrees of (Rational) Belief.Nevin Climenhaga - 2024 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 108 (1):153-176.

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References found in this work

Warrant and proper function.Alvin Plantinga - 1993 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Truth and probability.Frank Ramsey - 2010 - In Antony Eagle (ed.), Philosophy of Probability: Contemporary Readings. New York: Routledge. pp. 52-94.
Evidential Symmetry and Mushy Credence.Roger White - 2009 - Oxford Studies in Epistemology 3:161-186.
God, freedom, and evil.Alvin Plantinga - 1978 - Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
What conditional probability could not be.Alan Hájek - 2003 - Synthese 137 (3):273--323.

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