Reflection on Skeptical Theism

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Empther, you’re in way over your head. You don’t know what skeptical theism is, much less that it’s an extremely popular position. So, rather than try and demonize me, just go do your homework. I assure you, you’re only embarrassing yourself here.
 
That’s like saying you “permit” your teenaged son to borrow you car, go out and get drunk, and cause a traffic accident killing himself and three other kids. It’s not “permission”.

In order to be persons instead for robots, we must have free will. Not even God can change that. His hands are tied.
No – by virtue of teaching him to drive, helping him get his license, ensuring he has insurance, access to a car, and sufficient fuel, I’m permitting him to use the car.

To say that this permission implies anything about what he does with his own choices is absurd. In this way, then, God “permits” human choices based on free will (and natural law). That “permission” is exactly what free will is all about!

It’s not about a Wizard-of-Ozian lever-pulling exercise in every moment of one’s life!
 
More from Perplexity: :hey_bud::hey_bud::hey_bud:
Empther, you’re in way over your head. You don’t know what skeptical theism is, much less that it’s an extremely popular position. So, rather than try and demonize me, just go do your homework. I assure you, you’re only embarrassing yourself here.
Perplexity wants to waste our time with ideas that the Catholic Church has been working on for two thousand years.

The Church has spent centuries working out all the problems and has come up with solutions to every consideration it is possible for the human mind to imagine. The volume of all this material is impossible for any single person to absorb. That’s why we depend on the infallibilty of the Pope together with the Church Madisterium as a whole to provide the truth.
Any question you can think of can be answered if you research the Church’s vast knowledge. This is why Rome is considered the final authority on religious matters by the Christian world.

But people like Perplexity think they know better and waste their own time as well as ours on detals which they think they can work out on their own, like a kid interested in frogs thinking he can figure out the biology that makes a frog work without learning what thousands of scientists have already discovered.
Inevitably, they get it wrong. :yyeess::kiss4you::hammering:.🤷
 
I’m using a standard understanding of theism, something like:

There necessarily exists an essentially omnipotent, omniscient morally perfect person who causally explains all of contingent reality.

The theist could redefine to avoid the objection (I’m sure); but, that’d make theism ad-hoc, so I’m not sure the benefits would out weigh the costs.
But “omnipotent omniscient morally perfect person who causally explains…” doesn’t necessarily imply that he approves or restricts every action and decision of the lives of his creation. That idea fits more with the medieval Islamic philosophers, who got into all sorts of problems trying to prove exactly what you’re asserting!

And, of course, the notion of theism doesn’t require this level of effort on God’s part. Why is it necessary to your case to assert it?
 
More from Perplexity: :hey_bud::hey_bud::hey_bud:

Perplexity wants to waste our time with ideas that the Catholic Church has been working on for two thousand years.

The Church has spent centuries working out all the problems and has come up with solutions to every consideration it is possible for the human mind to imagine. The volume of all this material is impossible for any single person to absorb. That’s why we depend on the infallibilty of the Pope together with the Church Madisterium as a whole to provide the truth.
Any question you can think of can be answered if you research the Church’s vast knowledge. This is why Rome is considered the final authority on religious matters by the Christian world.

But people like Perplexity think they know better and waste their own time as well as ours on detals which they think they can work out on their own, like a kid interested in frogs thinking he can figure out the biology that makes a frog work without learning what thousands of scientists have already discovered.
Inevitably, they get it wrong. :yyeess::kiss4you::hammering:.🤷
This ^ is insanity folks.
 
No – by virtue of teaching him to drive, helping him get his license, ensuring he has insurance, access to a car, and sufficient fuel, I’m permitting him to use the car.
To say that this permission implies anything about what he does with his own choices is absurd. In this way, then, God “permits” human choices based on free will (and natural law). That “permission” is exactly what free will is all about!
You permit him to use the car, which is neither a good or bad thing. You don’t permit him to kill himself with the car.

It’s a package deal You can’t say God “permits” some events without also saying God “prohibits” some events because the decision about what happens is our own. God’s hands are tied.
 
Well, I’ve simply interpreted ST probabilistically. As we can see, all sorts of absurdities fall out from this, so I wanted to use the most absurd ones I could find (I’ve got a big pool to draw from 😛
Sure, you can create any absurdity you want. This does not mean it is true. In fact, it does not prove anything. I still do not believe that you can interpret philosophy in a probabilistic fashion.
(P1) In order to get probabilities, you need statistics.
(P2) In order to get statistics, you need testable circumstances.
(P3) You cannot create testable circumstances for philosophy
(C1) You cannot get statistics for philosophy if there are no testable circumstances
(C2) You cannot get probabilities for philosophy if there are no statistics.

QED: Taking a Bayesian approach will do you no good.
I’ve never suggested that you have no reason to suspect someone didn’t die because God exists. I’m also not saying we need to know the reasons something happened to know that something did happen. These (and other) comments suggest to me you’re unfamiliar with what conditional probabilities are, and how we work with them.
Yes you are. You said explicitly,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 in your OP.
This is directly saying: If ST is true (God exists but we do not know his reasoning), then we cannot know for sure if someone died.
This is directly saying: For us to know if an event occurred, we need to know the reason behind it.

QED: You are unfamiliar with the implications of your own argument.
With conditional probabilities we’re trying to figure out whether B implies A, and we do this by assuming that B is true (whether we know or believe it is or not), and seeing if whether this supposition leads us to expect A.
Right. And you have made no credible argument that suggests that if ST is true, then we cannot know if an event occurred. In fact, you have slyly suggested, by saying 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., that that statement is true and moved on. You did offer some numbers, but you offered no justification for the chosen numbers.
Like I said in my previous reply to you, we remove A from our background knowledge when we do this. So, even if A is something that has obviously occurred (like Washington’s death), when it’s removed from our background knowledge we’re pretending it didn’t occur and seeing if B implies that A would occur.
False! You are not pretending that the event did not occur, you are pretending to remove knowledge of the event. Our background knowledge is that we know that people do die, we are pretending to remove the knowledge of that fact.
Does removing the knowledge of the fact that people die mean that a person will not die? No, it does not. Nor does it mean that a person will not die. Thus, your claim of ~ST cannot be proven from your circumstance.
This clearly has not been my claim. I’ll formalize this to clarify:
  1. If skeptical theism is true, we can’t be sure that God has no morally overriding reason(s) to prevent some event E. (because we’re not privy to any of God’s moral justifications)
  2. If we can’t be sure that God has no morally overriding reason(s) to prevent some event E, then we can’t be sure that God wouldn’t prevent E.
  3. If we can’t be sure that God wouldn’t prevent E, then we can’t be sure that E would occur. (because on theism, no event occurs unless God permits it)
  4. Therefore, if skeptical theism is true, we can’t be sure that E would occur.
Step 3 is fallacious. We can be sure events occur because we can witness them. If ST is true, then the only thing we would not know is what the reason behind it is. Why do people die? I do not know. Do people die? I do know. Very different questions that you are aligning in Step 3.
Since Step 3 is false, then Step 4 is very wrong.
I’d recommend reading Colin’s Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach. I’m not using Bayesianism in any peculiar way, this is how philosophers and scientists use it.
See my first response in this post.
The numbers are numerical representations of our degrees of confidence. 1.0 = our highest, 0.5 = indifference, 0.0 = the least.
I get the 0–>1 scale of it, but you have no valid reason to assert any numeric value to any probability in untestable circumstances.
I’ve clarified what I mean by theism and it certainly isn’t Deism. Look, I’m not saying anything interesting here, this is common knowledge in philosophy of religion. It seems odd to me that it’s this aspect of what I said that you question.
It seems to me that you are directly conflicting your definition of ST. You defined it in your first post and I previously copied what you wrote nearly verbatim. Now you are here stating that it is not what you wrote? By your own definition, a ST is one who accepts God exists, but does not accept revelation of His knowledge/reason. If God does not reveal Himself, he is impersonal by definition. If God is an impersonal God, then He is no different than the Deist interpretation of God.
 
Sure, you can create any absurdity you want. This does not mean it is true. In fact, it does not prove anything. I still do not believe that you can interpret philosophy in a probabilistic fashion.
(P1) In order to get probabilities, you need statistics.
(P2) In order to get statistics, you need testable circumstances.
(P3) You cannot create testable circumstances for philosophy
(C1) You cannot get statistics for philosophy if there are no testable circumstances
(C2) You cannot get probabilities for philosophy if there are no statistics.

QED: Taking a Bayesian approach will do you no good.
You’re assuming a theory of probability never called Bayesian.

"As Ian Hacking notes in his excellent study of the history of probability theory, the idea of
probability was Janus-faced from its emergence in seventeenth-century Europe, with one
side being the notion of statistical probability and the other side being the notion of epistemic probability:

On the one side it [the conception of probability] is statistical, concerning itself with stochastic laws or chance processes. On the other side it is epistemological, dedicated to assessing reasonable degrees of belief in propositions quite devoid of statistical background." - Craig, William Lane., and James Porter Moreland. “The Teleological Argument: An Exploration of the Fine-tuning of the Universe.” The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. 226.

Ian Hacking draws this distinction elsewhere explicitly saying that Bayes’ theorem is of very little interest to the theory you’re advocating.

“The idea of probability leads in two different directions: belief and frequency. Probability makes us think of the degree to which we can be confident of something uncertain, given what we know or can find out. Probability also makes us think of the relative frequency with which some outcome occurs on repeated trials on a chance setup.” - Hacking, Ian. An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 2001. p. 127

“Bayes’ Rule is central for applications of personal probability. It offers a way to represent rational change in belief, in the light of new evidence. Bayes’ Rule is of very little interest when you are thinking about frequency-type probabilities. But Bayes’ Rule really does matter to personal probability, or to any other belief-type probability. Today; belief-type probability approaches are often called “Bayesian.” If you hear a statistician talking about a Bayesian analysis of a problem, it means some version of ideas that we discuss in this chapter [personal probability].” ibid., p. 171
Yes you are. You said explicitly,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 in your OP.
This is directly saying: If ST is true (God exists but we do not know his reasoning), then we cannot know for sure if someone died.
This is directly saying: For us to know if an event occurred, we need to know the reason behind it.
QED: You are unfamiliar with the implications of your own argument.
You must’ve missed my explanation conditional probabilities. We’re not even talking about whether events actually occurred, or whether we know why some event has occurred. We’re talking about whether an event would occur if some hypothesis were true.
Right. And you have made no credible argument that suggests that if ST is true, then we cannot know if an event occurred. In fact, you have slyly suggested, by saying 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., that that statement is true and moved on. You did offer some numbers, but you offered no justification for the chosen numbers.
I disagree, I’ve explained myself clearly on this point. Skeptical theism tells us that we can’t be privy to God’s moral justifications, so on ST we can’t know whether God would be morally justified in permitting an event E, or morally justified in prohibiting E. The justification of the numerical assignments is simply that it’s agreed upon that 0.5 is the numerical representation of the state of doxastic indifference. This isn’t controversial.
Step 3 is fallacious. We can be sure events occur because we can witness them. If ST is true, then the only thing we would not know is what the reason behind it is. Why do people die? I do not know. Do people die? I do know. Very different questions that you are aligning in Step 3.
Since Step 3 is false, then Step 4 is very wrong.
As I explained, when the theist say E would likely occur given theism, he’s simultaneously affirming that it’s unlikely that God would prevent E. He can’t say this on ST. Further, (3) can’t be fallacious, it’s a premise not an inference and (4) is a logical deduction.
 
You’re assuming a theory of probability never called Bayesian.
No, you are assuming that you do not need to make tests to believe your results. Rudolph Carnap proposed a logical/inductive probability in much the same regard as Bayesian probability and, in the same monograph, rejected its use due to the fact that it is meta-scientific at best and the values associated with the hypothesis are vague and very ill-defined–he did, however, suggest that if logical probability could possibly be developed more and unified among every person, then one could use it; however, it is still as poorly developed now as it is then.
You must’ve missed my explanation conditional probabilities. We’re not even talking about whether events actually occurred, or whether we know why some event has occurred. We’re talking about whether an event would occur if some hypothesis were true.
You are being fairly obtuse about this point. I have disagreed with your conclusion and I have offered what I think you are trying to state.
Disagreement with conclusion: *You can absolutely know that an event occurred, regardless of whether or not God exists. *
Resolution of what you could possibly state, given your information: What you may not know is why the event occurred.
You even state in the quote below that we cannot be privy to God’s moral justifications for an event. You have been trying to show that if we are not privy to the moral justification of an event, then we are not privy to the actual occurrence of the event. Moral justification and occurrence are very different matters and you have not shown the connection between the two (likely because there is none).
I disagree, I’ve explained myself clearly on this point. Skeptical theism tells us that we can’t be privy to God’s moral justifications, so on ST we can’t know whether God would be morally justified in permitting an event E, or morally justified in prohibiting E. The justification of the numerical assignments is simply that it’s agreed upon that 0.5 is the numerical representation of the state of doxastic indifference. This isn’t controversial.
This is controversial because you have no reason to choose any number outside of 1, 0.5, and 0, and even by choosing one of the three, you are being selective about the numbers. Why is it not possible for the ST to have a P(ST)=0.75? Because you are choosing it to be 0.5? That is not a good reason.
As I explained, when the theist say E would likely occur given theism, he’s simultaneously affirming that it’s unlikely that God would prevent E. He can’t say this on ST. Further, (3) can’t be fallacious, it’s a premise not an inference and (4) is a logical deduction.
As I have explained numerous times now, knowing that an event occurred and knowing why an event occurred are two different things. A ST may not know why God allowed an event to occur, but he certainly would know that an event occurred. Thus, 3 is fallacious.
And you must be trolling to make the statement that a premise cannot be false. Of course you can have a false premise, as can an inference. Since Step 3 is wrong, then the conclusion (4) is wrong.
 
You permit him to use the car, which is neither a good or bad thing. You don’t permit him to kill himself with the car.
Inasmuch as “killing himself with the car” is one of the possible outcomes of “permission to use the car”, there’s an implicit permission of the former in the latter. This doesn’t mean that I will it, or condone it, or explicitly permit it – just that I’m giving a permission which entails a certain freedom.
It’s a package deal You can’t say God “permits” some events without also saying God “prohibits” some events because the decision about what happens is our own. God’s hands are tied.
That doesn’t fit Catholic theology at all! And, in fact, we say exactly that! God is the “first cause” acting through us, the “secondary causes”: (CCC 306-308, 311; all emphases mine)
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CCC:
God is the sovereign master of his plan. But to carry it out he also makes use of his creatures’ co-operation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God’s greatness and goodness. For God grants his creatures not only their existence, but also** the dignity of** acting on their own, of being causes and principles for each other, and thus of co-operating in the accomplishment of his plan.

To human beings God even gives the power of freely sharing in his providence by entrusting them with the responsibility of “subduing” the earth and having dominion over it.God thus enables men to be intelligent and free causes in order to complete the work of creation, to perfect its harmony for their own good and that of their neighbors. Though often unconscious collaborators with God’s will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions, their prayers and their sufferings. They then fully become “God’s fellow workers” and co-workers for his kingdom.

**The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator. God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: **“For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Far from diminishing the creature’s dignity, this truth enhances it. Drawn from nothingness by God’s power, wisdom and goodness, it can do nothing if it is cut off from its origin, for “without a Creator the creature vanishes.” Still less can a creature attain its ultimate end without the help of God’s grace.

Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil. He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it
So, God permits all human actions, not because of their value on their own face and in the context of human understanding of those actions, but because God knows the good that God’s Providence will accomplish in creation.

It seems that the answer to your and Perplexity’s assertions is this: one cannot presume a theism at a 10-foot view that isn’t more appropriately described by the 10,000-foot view! There’s “permission”, at the macro level, which allows for the actions at the micro level…
 
Gorgias
your quote from CCC:
****The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator. God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: ****“For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
That’s true, but what does it mean?

Aquinas explains that one of his creatures could not even have a thought, or use his will, unless God “moves” his thought or will. But the creature is resp
onsible for choosing what to think about and what to will.

**This is true even in hell. The devil can’t do whatever he’s doing without God “moving” his thoughts and will. Saying that **what the devil does is with God’s permission is really stretching it, I would say. :eek:
 
I’m using skeptical theism as a noun. I think your distinction between absolute skepticism and a generalized system of doubt is artificial, but granting it, it’s irrelevant.
No, no. You’ve misunderstood. I was referring strictly to the root word, “skeptic.” In the case of Skeptical theism, it’s an adjective (skeptical). In the case of Cartesian skepticism, it’s a noun (skepticism). So the former system is, in essence, theism. The other, in essence, is skepticism.

My distinction is not artificial. Absolute skepticism means that doubts about a proposition cannot be resolved by any means. All questions remain gridlocked. In the case of conditional skepticism, the doubt only remains until certain criteria are met, then certainty can be attained (“Cogito ergo sum,” anyone?)
My point was that we can plug any hypothesis we want to in Bayes’ theorem. It doesn’t matter what it’s intended for, or what it’s contents are. There’s nothing about skeptical hypotheses per se that excuses them from being able to go through the theorem. In fact, of all the skeptical hypotheses I’ve put through the theorem, only one comes up with absurdities: skeptical theism.
Well, of course you can, but it’s obvious before you even do so what the outcome will be. As I said, the reason you derive absurdity from it is because you’re attempting to use it to do exactly what it says you cannot do. Skeptical theism says you cannot expect any particular action on God’s behalf, because you cannot understand how he operates. So if you plug ST into an equation to decide whether, based on ST, you can expect God to do something, you’re just being absurd. So naturally, you will derive absurdity from it.

Like I said, the reason other “skeptical hypotheses” work here is because they are NOT absolute in their skepticism. There are ways around in it. In the case of Cartesian logic, if you can prove something logically, the skepticism becomes moot. Skepticism in these cases is resolvable. By ST, it is irresolvable. Absolute skepticism = no predictive power.
That doesn’t make it wrong. It just means, prima facie, you shouldn’t try to use it to make predictions.
All we’re doing is saying “look, let’s suppose that skeptical theism is true, that is, that our world is such that God exists, and we shouldn’t think we’re privy to God’s moral reasons. Does this supposition along with the information in our background knowledge lead us to expect X?”
The premise negates the question. The premise eliminates the possibility of prediction, and you then try to ask if, based on a supposition that flat-out denies having predictive power, you can predict something. I know I’m repeating myself here, but it just seems so obvious, yet you cling to it.

In conclusion, if we are not privy to God’s moral reasons, then all phenomena become equally likely. Further, you are discounting and/or discarding the free will that is part and parcel of the theistic package, as empther correctly pointed out. If theism is true, free will is true, and if free will is true, then any action within the bounds of the laws of physics is both possible and, to greater or lesser degrees, probable.
 
  1. If we can’t be sure that God wouldn’t prevent E, then we can’t be sure that E would occur. (because on theism, no event occurs unless God permits it)
I don’t follow this at all

While we might not be sure that E will or would not occur given we don’t know God’s reasons for preventing or allowing E - nevertheless if E does actually occur, then it doesn’t matter one iota that we don’t know the reasons behind it.
 
I don’t follow this at all

While we might not be sure that E will or would not occur given we don’t know God’s reasons for preventing or allowing E - nevertheless if E does actually occur, then it doesn’t matter one iota that we don’t know the reasons behind it.
I agree. But, we’re not concerned with whether E actually occurs, we’re only concerned with whether it would if skeptical theism were true.
 
I agree. But, we’re not concerned with whether E actually occurs, we’re only concerned with whether it would if skeptical theism were true.
Well, It might or might not - depending on whether God wants to allow or prevent it (as your particular Skeptical Theist might think)

I must admit I personally don’t adhere to this kind of theism (It seems to me that God is quite non-interventionist, I don’t see much evidence for a God who is constantly interfering in the world answering prayer of believers and the like)
 
Well, It might or might not - depending on whether God wants to allow or prevent it (as your particular Skeptical Theist might think)

I must admit I personally don’t adhere to this kind of theism (It seems to me that God is quite non-interventionist, I don’t see much evidence for a God who is constantly interfering in the world answering prayer of believers and the like)
Exactly! It depends on whether God would allow it, and skeptical theism says we can’t know if God would allow it or prevent it, so it follows that we can’t know whether any event would occur, given that skeptical theism is true. (Note, this is quite different from saying we wouldn’t know that any events occur)
 
Gorgias
your quote from CCC:

That’s true, but what does it mean?

It means that God is the reason that we do things – since God gives us existence – but we are the reason why we do individual things.
Aquinas explains that one of his creatures could not even have a thought, or use his will, unless God “moves” his thought or will. But the creature is resp
 
Exactly! It depends on whether God would allow it, and skeptical theism says we can’t know if God would allow it or prevent it, so it follows that we can’t know whether any event would occur, given that skeptical theism is true. (Note, this is quite different from saying we wouldn’t know that any events occur)
Why do you continuously ignore the charge that skeptical theism does NOT say we can’t know whether or not God would allow an event, but only that we can’t know WHY he allowed it?

On theism, free will is accepted, which leaves all possibilities open.

Your entire argument falls apart right there.
 
Exactly! It depends on whether God would allow it, and skeptical theism says we can’t know if God would allow it or prevent it, so it follows that we can’t know whether any event would occur, given that skeptical theism is true. (Note, this is quite different from saying we wouldn’t know that any events occur)
Hmm, well see i’d say that while the skeptical theist might not know the reasons for God allowing something to happen or not, they might well be reasonably certain that an event may or may not occur, due to simple observation and prior experience.

For example if a plane blows up mid air, the ST can be reasonably certain that the passengers on board would die, despite the ST not knowing why God would let that happen.
 
No, no. You’ve misunderstood. I was referring strictly to the root word, “skeptic.” In the case of Skeptical theism, it’s an adjective (skeptical). In the case of Cartesian skepticism, it’s a noun (skepticism). So the former system is, in essence, theism. The other, in essence, is skepticism.

My distinction is not artificial. Absolute skepticism means that doubts about a proposition cannot be resolved by any means. All questions remain gridlocked. In the case of conditional skepticism, the doubt only remains until certain criteria are met, then certainty can be attained (“Cogito ergo sum,” anyone?)
Ok, I’ll concede these points.
Well, of course you can, but it’s obvious before you even do so what the outcome will be.
Precisely! All I’m doing is translating skeptical theism (and what can be deduced from it) into probability. So, if I’m translating accurately, we should hope the outcome is obvious.
As I said, the reason you derive absurdity from it is because you’re attempting to use it to do exactly what it says you cannot do. Skeptical theism says you cannot expect any particular action on God’s behalf, because you cannot understand how he operates. So if you plug ST into an equation to decide whether, based on ST, you can expect God to do something, you’re just being absurd. So naturally, you will derive absurdity from it.
I would be doing exactly what skeptical theism says I cannot do if I was expecting particular actions on God’s behalf. But, I’m not. You see because the statement (your words) “you cannot expect any particular action on God’s behalf” entails the statement, “you cannot know whether God would permit or prevent any given event E.” So, when we ask how likely some event is, given that God exists, ST replies with the above statement. All I’ve done is translate that. It’s absurd whether I translate it or not.
Like I said, the reason other “skeptical hypotheses” work here is because they are NOT absolute in their skepticism. There are ways around in it. In the case of Cartesian logic, if you can prove something logically, the skepticism becomes moot. Skepticism in these cases is resolvable. By ST, it is irresolvable. Absolute skepticism = no predictive power. That doesn’t make it wrong. It just means, prima facie, you shouldn’t try to use it to make predictions.
I’m sorry but I can’t make heads or tails of your claim that skeptical theism shouldn’t be put through Bayes’ theorem because it’s absolute skepticism. I’ll have to chew on it more.
The premise negates the question. The premise eliminates the possibility of prediction, and you then try to ask if, based on a supposition that flat-out denies having predictive power, you can predict something. I know I’m repeating myself here, but it just seems so obvious, yet you cling to it.
Exactly though! Skeptical theism eliminates the possibility of prediction, which is absurd! We can’t say whether anything would happen, given that skeptical theism is true.

It means that the conditional probability of nearly anything given skeptical theism is 0.5 or inscrutable, including Washington’s death, whether a penny will fall when dropped etc. ad infinitum.
In conclusion, if we are not privy to God’s moral reasons, then all phenomena become equally likely.
This is exactly what I’ve been saying. The fact that skeptical theism means all phenomena become equally likely is the absurdity.
Further, you are discounting and/or discarding the free will that is part and parcel of the theistic package, as empther correctly pointed out. If theism is true, free will is true, and if free will is true, then any action within the bounds of the laws of physics is both possible and, to greater or lesser degrees, probable.
I’ve never heard this before. I think you guys might be thinking that Christian theism entails free-will. But, we’re dealing with bare-theism here.
 
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