Showing papers on "Skeptical theism published in 2021"
TL;DR: This article argued that skeptical theism is not susceptible to criticisms of the view presented in James Sterba's new book on the logical problem of evil, and pointed out the unpalatable moral-epistemological consequences of skeptical theistic skepticism.
4 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors defend Wykstra's CORNEA principle and show how it can be acquitted of these recent charges, including that it has odd results, it cannot do the work it was meant to, and problematically conflicts with the so-called common sense epistemology.
Abstract: Skeptical theism is a family of responses to arguments from evil. One important member of that family is Stephen Wykstra’s CORNEA-based criticism of William Rowe’s arguments from evil. A cornerstone of Wykstra’s approach is his CORNEA principle. However, a number of authors have criticized CORNEA on various grounds, including that it has odd results, it cannot do the work it was meant to, and it problematically conflicts with the so-called common sense epistemology. In this paper, I explicate and defend a CORNEA principle. After sketching a brief argument for it, I show how it can be acquitted of these recent charges.
1 citations
Journal Article•
1 citations
30 Aug 2021
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a version of the evidential argument from evil and propose a skeptical theistic response from a phenomenological point of view, arguing that it attempts to put forth as justified an interpretation of the moral significance of historical events which actually exceeds the limits of human knowledge and which is based on a misinterpretation of experience.
Abstract: "The purpose of the present essay is to present a version of the evidential argument from evil and to propose a ‘skeptical theistic’ response from a phenomenological point of view. In a word, the problem with the evidential argument from evil is that it attempts to put forth as justified an interpretation of the moral significance of historical events which actually exceeds the limits of human knowledge and which is based on a misinterpretation of experience. The essay also corrects certain analytic-philosophical notions regarding the nature of appearance, terminating with a discussion of the familiar critiques of analytic skeptical theism and the question of whether the belief in the existence of God might not be affected by the apparent skepticism implied by the phenomenological approach to knowledge in general.
Keywords: existence of God, argument from evil, skeptical theism, phenomenology, analytic philosophy
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1 citations
DOI•
21 Mar 2021TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that skeptical theism offers a good reason to reject the evidential argument from evil developed by William Rowe, and they also point out that if there is a God, it is completely rational to accept that the humans are not in a cognitive position to make true judgments about all of the divine intentions and actions.
Abstract: William Rowe’s various works on the evidential argument from evil now occupies a central place in the Western discussions on the problem of evil. In one of his formulations, Rowe tries to justify the atheistic belief by showing the likelihood of gratuitous evil’s existence based on some particular instances of intense suffering. However, some of the philosophers, who are called skeptical theists, attempt to show that if there is a God, it is completely rational to accept that the humans are not in a cognitive position to make true judgments about all of the divine intentions and actions. Therefore, we cannot infer God’s justification(s) for the prescription of what seems to us to be an instance of intense suffering. Our aim in this paper is to show that skeptical theism offers a good reason to reject the evidential problem of evil developed by William Rowe.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors outline a strategy for challenging J.L. Schellenberg's hiddenness argument, and specifically the premise within the argument that asserts the existence of nonresistant nonbelief.
Abstract: In this article, I outline a strategy for challenging J.L. Schellenberg’s hiddenness argument, and specifically the premise within the argument that asserts the existence of what Schellenberg calls nonresistant nonbelief. Drawing on some of the philosophical resources of skeptical theism, I show how this premise is based on a particular “noseeum assumption”—what I call Schellenberg’s Noseeum Assumption—that underwrites a particular “noseeum argument.” This assumption is that, regarding putative nonresistant nonbelievers, more likely than not we’d detect these nonbelievers’ resistance toward God if there were any. I give reasons for thinking that it is not more reasonable to affirm than to refrain from affirming Schellenberg’s Noseeum Assumption, and so reason to think that the hiddenness argument is not a good argument for atheism. I also defend the strategy I outline against several objections.