Abstract
Skeptical theists hold that we should be skeptical about our ability to know the reasons that God would have for permitting evil, at least in particular cases. They argue for their view by setting aside actions that are wrong in themselves and focusing their attention on actions that are purportedly right or wrong simply in terms of their consequences. However, I argue in this paper that once skeptical theists are led to take into account actions that are wrong in themselves, as they must, they cannot escape the conclusion that there is a logical contradiction between the existence of an all-good, all-powerful God and what would have to be God’s permission of the significant and horrendous evil consequences of immoral actions found in our world.
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Notes
It is important to note that neither Bergmann nor other skeptical theists want to defend theism by appealing to a divine command theory. One reason for not doing so is that the problem of evil simply disappears under divine command theory because, according to the theory, whatever God wills or permits, is, by definition, right. The problem of evil only arises for theists and atheism assuming that divine command theory is utterly mistaken. Plantinga clearly recognized this in his debate with John Mackie. Otherwise, Plantinga could have simply appealed to divine command theory to put an end to his debate with Mackie. For additional reasons why both theists and atheists alike must reject divine command theory, see Sterba (2012, Chapter 1).
Notice too that in standard informed consent cases, one is consenting to something that would not be morally wrong if one consents to it. However, nothing similar seems to obtain in the cases we are considering.
The requirement of informed consent is only a necessary condition for moral justification. It may be met even when the more inclusive requirement of being reasonably acceptable to all those affected is not met. Notice too that I start this section by affirming that morality requires reasonable acceptability to those affected, then allow that giving one’s informed consent is a way of meeting that requirement under certain conditions, before concluding that giving such informed consent at some time or other by those who are capable of doing so is also a necessary condition for meeting morality’s reasonable acceptability requirement.
The rationale for focusing on just these parts of significant and especially horrendously evil actions is that they are the very parts to which an ideally just and powerful political state (for the reasons I have given) would restrict itself to preventing. Thus, God, it is assumed, should do the same. To assume anything else would require additional grounds.
See St. Paul, Letter to the Romans 3:8. See also (Finnis 1991) for how the principle is currently used. Now it might be objected that while God cannot do evil that good may come of it, he can permit evil that good may come of it. Of course, moral philosophers have recognized a distinction between doing and permitting evil. Doing evil is normally worse than permitting evil. But when the evil is significant and one can easily prevent it, then permitting evil can become morally equivalent to doing evil.
It is worth pointing out here that in cases of this sort, God’s abiding by the Pauline Principle, unlike our own abiding by it, does not involve the loss of overall good consequences. In cases of this sort, God would always have ways of securing good consequences overall without violating the principle.
We cannot have a right to be provided with a heavenly afterlife. Nor can we deserve it either. That is too strong a claim as well. Nor could we do anything that would make us worthy of the heavenly afterlife. But we could do what we could be reasonably expected to do to make ourselves less unworthy of a heavenly afterlife through soul-making. Yet even when we do all that we can reasonably expected to do to make ourselves less unworthy of a heavenly afterlife, according to Christian orthodoxy we still would not be worthy of a heavenly afterlife, just further along a continuum.
When I refer to anyone’s rights or having a right, I mean to be referring to conclusive rights which implies that these rights have not been forfeited. When I refer to not having a right, I mean to refer to not having even a prima facie right.
Securing the liberty to which one is entitled may sometimes involve interfering with the liberty of someone else, but not interfering with a liberty to which that person is entitled, as when the police in a just society stop (interfere with the liberty) of someone trying to steal your car. Furthermore, that to which we have a conclusive right cannot be in conflict with that to which anyone else has a conclusive right.
Sometimes I am assuming a conclusive right as here. At other times, as in the next sentence, I am assuming just a prima facie right.
Supererogatory goods are goods we ought to provide to others even though we are not required to do so. So while a Godly opportunity for soul-making is a gift and something that is good for us, it would be too strong to say that God ought to provide us with this opportunity. So the provision of this opportunity by God goes then beyond supererogation because there is no sense according to which God ought to provide this opportunity, although it is a good thing when he does.
It is worth pointing out here that in cases of this sort, God’s abiding by the Pauline Principle, unlike our abiding by it, does not involve the loss of overall good consequences. In cases of this sort, God would always have ways of securing good consequences overall without violating the principle.
There may be some limit on the resources that God could provide to human in cases where doing so would come into conflict with the basic needs of nonhuman living beings. Here a solution to the problem of natural evil would be needed (see Sterba forthcoming).
To complicate things here a bit, maybe even in this case, God’s intervention should not be completely successful. This is because if we discovered that only when we intervened ourselves, really doing our best, was the intervention completely successful, that could motivate us to always do our best, relying on God for help only when we could do no more ourselves. Of course, when we don’t intervene at all when we could, God’s intervention, we could imagine, would be even a bit less successful. This, hopefully, would inspire the right motivation in us.
It is worth pointing out here that in cases of this sort, God’s abiding by this constraint, unlike our own abiding by it, does not involve the loss of overall good consequences. This is because God would always have ways of securing good consequences overall without violating the constraint.
This is also something that superheroes almost always do as well in our imagination.
This possibility is covered by steps 1–4 of the Main Argument.
This possibility is covered by steps 5–7 of the Main Argument.
References
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Sterba, J. (2013). From Rationality to Equality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sterba, J. (forthcoming). Is a Good God Logically Possible?
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Sterba, J.P. Skeptical theism and the challenge of atheism. Int J Philos Relig 85, 173–191 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-018-9673-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-018-9673-2