Program / Course 15: The Problem of Evil and Suffering / Lesson 4.4
What you will learn
- State the main claim of skeptical theism and the reasons offered for it.
- Explain how it answers the evidential problem of evil.
- Describe the strongest objections, including the moral and the epistemic objection.
- Distinguish careful humility about God’s purposes from avoiding the question.
The big idea
Skeptical theism holds that human beings are not in a position to judge whether God has good reasons for permitting a given evil. The argument rests on the large gap between a finite human mind and an infinite divine one. If that is right, the evidential argument from evil, which moves from not seeing a reason to there being none, loses force. Critics reply that the same doubt would undermine moral judgment and trust in God’s goodness. The view has deep roots in Scripture and the tradition, and it is both widely used and sharply criticized.
Key terms
- Skeptical theism
- The view that God exists and that human beings have little reason to expect that they would grasp God’s reasons for permitting evil.
- Noseeum inference
- A name, from the phrase no-see-um, for the step from I cannot see a reason to there is no reason.
- Cognitive limits
- The limits on what a finite mind can know or understand.
- Apophatic theology
- The tradition, strong in the East, of speaking of God chiefly by saying what he is not, because God surpasses human concepts.
- Moral skepticism
- The view that humans cannot know what is morally right or wrong. Critics say skeptical theism leads to it.
- Conservative skeptical theism
- A version that limits the skepticism to God’s reasons for permitting evil and not to all moral judgment.
- Mystery
- A truth that is real but beyond full human grasp.
Background
The thought that human beings cannot fathom God’s ways is ancient. Isaiah says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD” (Isaiah 55:8). Paul exclaims, “How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33). The book of Job ends with God asking Job whether he was there when the earth was made (Job 38:4). The theme is found in every part of the church.
As a philosophical position, skeptical theism was developed in the 1980s and 1990s in response to Rowe’s evidential argument. Stephen Wykstra, William Alston and Michael Bergmann are leading names. They did not invent the idea, but they gave it a careful form. The name is a little misleading: it does not mean doubt about God’s existence. It means skepticism about human ability to know God’s reasons.
The view can be held in a modest form, merely as a response to one argument, or in a more sweeping form, as a basic attitude toward suffering. The first is easier to defend. The lesson separates them.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: The argument in outline
Rowe argued that humans see no justifying reason for certain evils, and that this makes it likely that none exists. The skeptical theist replies that the inference works only if humans would probably see the reason, if there were one. For many things this holds. If there were an elephant in a small room, an observer would see it. But if the matter is the reasons of an infinitely wise being, there is no ground to say that humans would probably see them.
A frequent illustration is a young child at a doctor’s office. The child sees only pain and a stranger, and cannot understand the reasons. The doctor and the parent do. A grown-up mind stands to a child’s much as God’s stands to a human mind, only more so. So the failure to see a reason is expected, whether or not a reason exists. If that is correct, the evidence from evil is much weaker than the critic claims.
Step 2: Support from the human condition
Skeptical theists add examples. Human knowledge has been wrong about much that once seemed obvious. Small events can have enormous consequences, so that the long-term effects of a single event, good or bad, are beyond prediction. A child’s life saved in one century may alter the course of history. In such a web of consequences, a human judgment that an evil is pointless is on thin ground.
They also argue from theology. If God is infinite, there may be goods and evils that humans cannot grasp, and relations between them that cannot be seen. Aquinas taught that humans cannot know what God is, only what he is not, and that human concepts apply to him only by analogy. Eastern writers such as Gregory of Nyssa and the author of the Mystical Theology stressed the same.
Step 3: Objections
The first objection is moral. If humans cannot tell whether an evil is justified, they cannot tell whether they should prevent it. A person who saw a child drowning might say that God probably has a reason for permitting it, and walk on. Skeptical theists reply that moral obligation does not depend on knowing God’s reasons. Everyone knows that a person ought to help the drowning child, and that knowledge is not defeated by uncertainty about the larger plan. Critics find the reply uneasy, since it needs a firm line between what can and cannot be known.
The second objection is epistemic. If human judgment of what is good for God to do is unreliable, no one can be sure that God is good either, and so cannot trust his promises. Revelation might be a deception for reasons humans do not see. Skeptical theists answer that trust rests on grounds other than human estimates of God’s reasons: on the person of Christ, on experience, on the witness of the church. Critics reply that this answer needs those grounds to be independent of the doubt, which is hard to show.
Step 4: The charge of evasion
A third objection says that skeptical theism makes belief unfalsifiable. No evil could ever count against God, since any evil might serve a hidden good. Defenders say that this is a mistaken charge. The view does not claim that evil is no evidence at all, only that it is weak evidence in this one respect, and that other grounds for and against God remain. They add that every large worldview has unexplained facts.
A pastoral version of the worry is more serious. To tell a person in agony that God has reasons humans cannot see can be a cruel way of ending a conversation. Careful defenders say that the view is for use in philosophical argument and in a person’s own reflection, and not as a thing to be said to the grieving. The Bible gives Job an ear before it gives him a speech from the whirlwind.
Step 5: A fair assessment
Many philosophers think that skeptical theism rightly blocks the simplest form of the evidential argument, and many think that it has costs that make it unattractive as the whole of an answer. It is best seen as one part of a Christian reply, joined with positive accounts of goods that God may bring and with the hope grounded in the cross and resurrection. Humility before God is not the same as silence about evil. It is a way of speaking about it without claiming to be God.
- Why does the reply depend on the claim that humans would probably not see God’s reasons?
- In what cases is it reasonable to infer that there is no reason from the fact that none can be seen?
- Does skeptical theism weaken the moral duty to prevent suffering? Why or why not?
- Could skeptical theism undermine trust in God’s promises? How might a defender reply?
- How can the view be used well and badly in speaking with a grieving person?
- Is humility about God’s reasons compatible with giving positive accounts of how God brings good?
Examples
The chess grandmaster
A beginner watching a grandmaster sacrifice a queen may think the move foolish. The beginner cannot see the plan. Skeptical theists say that the difference between the beginner and the grandmaster is small compared with the gap between humans and God.
A butterfly effect
A traffic delay causes a man to miss a train, and the train crashes. A delay that seemed pure harm saved his life. Skeptical theists use such cases to argue that humans cannot evaluate the full effects of events. Critics reply that the cases show only that harm can sometimes bring good, not that all harm does.
Job’s silence
When God speaks from the whirlwind, he does not explain to Job the reasons for his sufferings. He asks Job a series of questions about creation (Job 38 to 41). Many readers see this as the biblical form of skeptical theism. Others say the book does more, because it also says Job’s friends were wrong to explain.
Different perspectives
Catholic
Aquinas taught that God’s essence is beyond human understanding, and that human speech about him is by analogy. The Catechism says that the question of evil is answered by the whole of Christian faith, and that believers will see in the end why God permitted evil. Many Catholic philosophers use skeptical themes, though few rest the whole reply on them.
Orthodox
The apophatic tradition holds that God is beyond all concepts. Orthodox writers therefore tend to resist claims to know God’s purposes in particular events. They hold with equal firmness that God is good, as shown in Christ, and that evil is not his will, and so would not accept a position that left his goodness in doubt.
Protestant
Reformed theology has long taught that God’s judgments are unsearchable and that there are things hidden that belong to the Lord (Deuteronomy 29:29). Alston, Wykstra, Bergmann and Plantinga are Protestant philosophers who develop skeptical theism. Other Protestants, including some open theists, argue that the view claims too much ignorance.
Philosophical critics
Rowe replied that skeptical theism, if taken far, makes it impossible to reason about God’s goodness at all. Others, such as Almeida and Oppy, argue that it leads to moral skepticism. Defenders reply with the conservative version. The debate continues among philosophers of religion.
Why it matters
Everyone who thinks seriously about suffering must decide how much to claim to know about God’s reasons. Skeptical theism is the best organized form of the answer that says very little, and understanding its strength and its costs helps a student to speak honestly about both faith and ignorance.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Skeptical theism means doubting that God exists.
Correction: The word skeptical refers to doubt about human ability to know God’s reasons. The view holds that God exists and is good.
Misunderstanding: If humans cannot know God’s reasons, they have no moral duties.
Correction: Defenders hold that moral duties are known independently and bind people whatever the larger plan. Whether this can be maintained is the subject of the moral objection.
Misunderstanding: It is an ancient doctrine in exactly this form.
Correction: The theme of God’s hidden ways is ancient. The philosophical form, as a reply to the evidential argument, developed in the late twentieth century.
Knowledge check
What is skeptical theism?
It is the view that human beings have little ground to expect that they would grasp God’s reasons for permitting evil, because of the gap between finite and infinite minds. It does not doubt God’s existence. It doubts that failure to see a justifying reason is good evidence that there is none, and so aims to weaken the evidential argument.
How does it answer Rowe’s argument?
Rowe infers from the fact that humans see no justifying reason for certain evils that probably none exists. The skeptical theist says this inference is sound only if humans would likely see such a reason, and that there is no ground for thinking so when the one acting is infinitely wise. The evidence from evil is therefore weaker than it appears.
What are the moral and epistemic objections?
The moral objection says the view undermines the duty to prevent evil, if any evil may be justified. The epistemic objection says it undermines trust in God’s goodness and promises, if human judgments about what a good being would do are unreliable. Defenders reply that duty and trust rest on other grounds, but critics think those replies are strained.
Why do defenders say it should not be spoken to the grieving?
Because it is a response to an argument, not a word of comfort. Said to a person in pain it can sound like a refusal to listen. Careful defenders use it in philosophical reflection and in personal humility, and leave pastoral work to presence, lament and the hope of Christ.
Think it through
- Where in your own life have you later understood something that seemed pointless at the time? Where have you not?
- Does the thought that God’s thoughts are not ours comfort you or trouble you?
- How can a person be humble about God’s reasons without being indifferent to suffering?
Independent assignment
Two cases
In your own notebook, write about 450 words. Describe one case in which failing to see a reason is good evidence there is none, such as an elephant in a small room, and one in which it is not, such as a child at a doctor’s office. State what makes the difference. Then say which kind of case you think the problem of evil is more like, and why. Keep the work private.
Further study
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Problem of Evil Read the section on skeptical theism and the replies to it.
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Read the First Part on how God can be named, to see the background in analogy.
- Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church Read selectively for the Orthodox apophatic tradition.
- Isaiah 55:8 My thoughts are not your thoughts, saith the LORD.
- Romans 11:33 How unsearchable are his judgments.
- Deuteronomy 29:29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God.