Abstract

The problem of evil is best understood as an instance of what I call “the problem of defeated expectations.” These problems arise for theism when the world we experience does not conform to what we would expect to find in a world created and sustained by a being who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. In this chapter, I explore skeptical theism, which is an approach to the evidential problem of evil that argues that, at least with respect to certain kinds of evils we find, we simply should not have any firm expectation about whether the world would contain them or whether we would know why God permits them if it does. I focus on a particular variety of skeptical theism that makes use of a general epistemic principle to rebut the evidential problem of evil and defend it against criticisms.