Reflection on Skeptical Theism

[Perplexity]

I take Skeptical Theism [from now on, ST] to be the hypothesis that theism is true, and we should be skeptical that we can be privy to God’s moral justifications, for any number of reasons, perhaps our cognitive limitations for instance.

Now, on theism, God not only permits or prohibits every single event; but, has sufficient moral justifications for doing so. ST tells us that we shouldn’t think we’re privy to these moral justifications for some reason or other.

Since on theism, whether any event (E) occurs depends on whether God permits it, and ST informs us that we can’t be sure of whether God would or wouldn’t permit it, it follows that on ST, we can’t be sure of whether any given E will occur.

To drive home the absurdity, make E the death of George Washington. Did he die? Well, on ST, this depends on whether God had sufficient moral reasons for permitting his death and we’re not privy to those reasons. So, we can’t say. And so forth for any other event.

Now, from this, using Bayes’ theorem, we could prove that ST’s probability is near 0.0 (i.e., irrational); but, I don’t want to kill dialogue with technicalities.

So, let’s just suppose that the absurdities described above are enough to make you dubious of ST. So what? What does this imply? Well, it means that we can be reasonable in expecting to know what moral justifications God would have for permitting or prohibiting events. As you can imagine, this is quite a weighty implication, especially if we can’t think of anything.

Thoughts?

 

[prodigalson2011]

I take Skeptical Theism [from now on, ST] to be the hypothesis that theism is true, and we should be skeptical that we can be privy to God’s moral justifications, for any number of reasons, perhaps our cognitive limitations for instance.

Now, on theism, God not only permits or prohibits every single event; but, has sufficient moral justifications for doing so. ST tells us that we shouldn’t think we’re privy to these moral justifications for some reason or other.

Since on theism, whether any event (E) occurs depends on whether God permits it, and ST informs us that we can’t be sure of whether God would or wouldn’t permit it, it follows that on ST, we can’t be sure of whether any given E will occur.

To drive home the absurdity, make E the death of George Washington. Did he die? Well, on ST, this depends on whether God had sufficient moral reasons for permitting his death and we’re not privy to those reasons. So, we can’t say. And so forth for any other event.

Now, from this, using Bayes’ theorem, we could prove that ST’s probability is near 0.0 (i.e., irrational); but, I don’t want to kill dialogue with technicalities.

So, let’s just suppose that the absurdities described above are enough to make you dubious of ST. So what? What does this imply? Well, it means that we can be reasonable in expecting to know what moral justifications God would have for permitting or prohibiting events. As you can imagine, this is quite a weighty implication, especially if we can’t think of anything.

Thoughts?

Your logic here seems extremely suspect.
I don’t see where ST necessitates that we must understand the moral justification of E to assert that E actually happened. It seems more reasonable to say that based on material observation, E has occurred, but on ST, we cannot say why.

 

[Perplexity]

Your logic here seems extremely suspect.
I don’t see where ST necessitates that we must understand the moral justification of E to assert that E actually happened. It seems more reasonable to say that based on material observation, E has occurred, but on ST, we cannot say why.

ST doesn’t necessitate that we must understand the moral justification of E to assert that E actually happened.

What we’re doing is discerning P(E|skeptical theism & k). That is, we’re seeing whether and if so to what degree skeptical theism & k (background knowledge) lead us to expect E. Whatever E is, we remove it from k when we do this.

So, it doesn’t matter whether E actually happened since it’s removed from k.

Problem is, no matter what we put into E, skeptical theism & k don’t lead us to expect it.

 

[empther]

Let’s see how far we can get in Perplexity’s first post before we get to an error:

I take Skeptical Theism [from now on, ST] to be the hypothesis that theism is true, and we should be skeptical that we can be privy to God’s moral justifications, for any number of reasons, perhaps our cognitive limitations for instance.

Now, on theism, God not only permits or prohibits every single event;…

STOP RIGHT THERE !

God does not prohibit any event.

The rest of his post is worthless and his theory is nonsense.

 

[tonyrey]

I take Skeptical Theism [from now on, ST] to be the hypothesis that theism is true, and we should be skeptical that we can be privy to God’s moral justifications, for any number of reasons, perhaps our cognitive limitations for instance.

It is a false premise that God permits or prohibits every single event. Many events are amoral.

Since on theism, whether any event (E) occurs depends on whether God permits it, and ST informs us that we can’t be sure of whether God would or wouldn’t permit it, it follows that on ST, we can’t be sure of whether any given E will occur.

It is a false assumption that we can’t be sure of whether God would or wouldn’t permit any event.The very fact that events occur is evidence that we can be sure that God permits them!

 

[tonyrey]

God does not prohibit any event.

 

[Perplexity]

It is a false premise that God permits or prohibits every single event. Many events are amoral.

It is a false assumption that we can’t be sure of whether God would or wouldn’t permit any event.The very fact that events occur is evidence that we can be sure that God permits them!

I agree!

But, theism entails the former and skeptical theism entails the latter.

 

[prodigalson2011]

ST doesn’t necessitate that we must understand the moral justification of E to assert that E actually happened.

What we’re doing is discerning P(E|skeptical theism & k). That is, we’re seeing whether and if so to what degree skeptical theism & k (background knowledge) lead us to expect E. Whatever E is, we remove it from k when we do this.

So, it doesn’t matter whether E actually happened since it’s removed from k.

Problem is, no matter what we put into E, skeptical theism & k don’t lead us to expect it.

This is because ST, in your equation, would already have a value of zero. Skepticism only leads to doubt. Skepticism could never lead to expectation. As Tom Waits said, “You can’t find your waitress with a Geiger counter.”

 

[Perplexity]

This is because ST, in your equation, would already have a value of zero. Skepticism only leads to doubt. Skepticism could never lead to expectation. As Tom Waits said, “You can’t find your waitress with a Geiger counter.”

I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, so much the worse for skeptical theism.

 

[prodigalson2011]

I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, so much the worse for skeptical theism.

I don’t think skeptical theism suffers. My point was that you’re using skeptical theism for a purpose it was never meant to serve (hence the Tom Waits quote.) Skeptical theism holds up fine for positing that man cannot understand why God does what he does. It is a direct contradiction of the very tenets of ST to then try to use it to predict the probability of God’s action.

 

[tonyrey]

I agree!

But, theism entails the former and skeptical theism entails the latter.

Therefore sceptical theism is not worth entertaining.

 

[awolbob]

Your logic here seems extremely suspect.
I don’t see where ST necessitates that we must understand the moral justification of E to assert that E actually happened. It seems more reasonable to say that based on material observation, E has occurred, but on ST, we cannot say why.

His logic is just like any other atheist he first does not believe in God then sets up an argument that has no logic in the first place. He assumed man has no free will,God is or was the cause of E’s death assuming ,God .
Bob:shrug:

 

[Perplexity]

I don’t think skeptical theism suffers. My point was that you’re using skeptical theism for a purpose it was never meant to serve (hence the Tom Waits quote.) Skeptical theism holds up fine for positing that man cannot understand why God does what he does. It is a direct contradiction of the very tenets of ST to then try to use it to predict the probability of God’s action.

Hmm, I’m not sure you can avoid the absurdities ST implies by saying it wasn’t meant to predict the probability of God’s action. Granting that, we can still derive absurdities from it, and in any other case we’d take this as reason to reject the position.

Technically, we can discern the probability of E given any hypothesis whatsoever, it doesn’t matter what the hypothesis was intended for. That’s not to say you can derive similar absurdities, that’s something peculiar to ST.

 

[prodigalson2011]

Hmm, I’m not sure you can avoid the absurdities ST implies by saying it wasn’t meant to predict the probability of God’s action. Granting that, we can still derive absurdities from it, and in any other case we’d take this as reason to reject the position.

Technically, we can discern the probability of E given any hypothesis whatsoever, it doesn’t matter what the hypothesis was intended for. That’s not to say you can derive similar absurdities, that’s something peculiar to ST.

You derive absurdity from ST in this case for precisely the reason that you’re using it in an absurd manner, much as one immediately derives absurdity from the act of trying to “find your waitress with a Geiger counter,” or make a phone call with a shoe (unless you’re Maxwell Smart.) Simple case of having the wrong tool for the job.

 

[Perplexity]

You derive absurdity from it for precisely the reason that you’re using it in an absurd manner, much as one immediately derives absurdity from the act trying to “find your waitress with a Geiger counter,” or making a phone call with a shoe (unless you’re Maxwell Smart.) Simple case of having the wrong tool for the job.

Like I said, we can’t derive absurdities by using this method of discernment on just any skeptical hypothesis. This is something peculiar to skeptical theism, so it isn’t that this is the wrong method (it works fine for skeptical hypotheses, including cartesian skepticism which it’s been used on), it’s just that skeptical theism is false.

 

[tonyrey]

I agree!

But, theism entails the former and skeptical theism entails the latter.

Why not try demonstrating that theism is inconsistent?

 

[Perplexity]

Why not try demonstrating that theism is inconsistent?

Theism seems consistent to me

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

I take Skeptical Theism [from now on, ST] to be the hypothesis that theism is true, and we should be skeptical that we can be privy to God’s moral justifications, for any number of reasons, perhaps our cognitive limitations for instance.

Now, on theism, God not only permits or prohibits every single event; but, has sufficient moral justifications for doing so. ST tells us that we shouldn’t think we’re privy to these moral justifications for some reason or other.

**Since on theism, whether any event (E) occurs depends on whether God permits it, and ST informs us that we can’t be sure of whether God would or wouldn’t permit it, it follows that on ST, we can’t be sure of whether any given E will occur.

To drive home the absurdity, make E the death of George Washington. Did he die? Well, on ST, this depends on whether God had sufficient moral reasons for permitting his death and we’re not privy to those reasons. So, we can’t say. And so forth for any other event.**

It’s right here that you have lost me. How could we possibly not know that an event, such as Washington’s death, took place? I agree that we may not know the reason the event took place, but to say that we cannot know if the event itself actually took place is beyond absurd.

Now, from this, using Bayes’ theorem, we could prove that ST’s probability is near 0.0 (i.e., irrational); but, I don’t want to kill dialogue with technicalities.

Without numbers behind them, I see absolutely no reason to even introduce Bayesian statistics. You have no way to give a numeric value for the probability of event E, knowledge ST+k, or other variables (such as negation variables) in the Bayes equation. As such, I would not believe any ‘result’ derived from such a poor analysis.

So, let’s just suppose that the absurdities described above are enough to make you dubious of ST. So what? What does this imply? Well, it means that we can be reasonable in expecting to know what moral justifications God would have for permitting or prohibiting events. As you can imagine, this is quite a weighty implication, especially if we can’t think of anything.

Thoughts?

I am not dubious of skeptical theism. I do not agree with their premise of a non-personal God, but I am not dubious of their belief. As a side note, an agnostic is a skeptical theist, is he not?

 

[Gorgias]

tonyrey:

It is a false premise that God permits or prohibits every single event. Many events are amoral.

But, theism entails (this premise)

Hmm… then it seems that the definition of “theism” that you’re proposing is insufficient to handle the subsequent analysis.

Why must theism be defined as you’ve posited it here? Isn’t an alternate definition possible (and given the difficulties we’ve already seen, isn’t it preferable)?

 

[empther]

The usual atheist quibbling by Perplexity.
He admits that “skeptical theism” whatever that is, is false:

From post #1
So, let’s just suppose that the absurdities described above are enough to make you dubious of ST.

Then he uses this false theory to imply that the alternative can only be that God’s moral justifications are quite a weighty implication, that is, God is somehow responsible for evil events, that is, blame God for all the bad things, or else ( he hopes you’ll conclude… :takethat: ) God doesn’t exist in the first place. :banghead:

From post#1
So what? What does this imply? Well, it means that we can be reasonable in expecting to know what moral justifications God would have for permitting or prohibiting events. As you can imagine, this is quite a weighty implication, especially if we can’t think of anything.

This is hogwash. A false theory doesn’t prove anything.

Perplexity just wants to destroy your faith.