We are not in the Dark: Refuting Popular Arguments Against Skeptical Theism

American Philosophical Quarterly 58 (2):125-134 (2021)
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Abstract

Critics of skeptical theism often claim that if it (skeptical theism) is true, then we are in the dark about whether (or for all we know) there is a morally justifying for God to radically deceive us. From here, it is argued that radical skepticism follows: if we are truly in the dark about whether there is a morally justifying reason for God to radically deceive us, then we cannot know anything. In this article, I show that skeptical theism does not entail that we are in the dark about whether (or for all we know) there is a morally justifying reason for God to deceive us. And hence arguments against skeptical theism that make use of this assumption fail.

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Perry Hendricks
Purdue University

Citations of this work

Skeptical Theism Proved.Perry Hendricks - 2020 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 6 (2):264-274.
Skeptical Theism.Timothy Perrine - 2023 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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References found in this work

The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism.William L. Rowe - 1979 - American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (4):335 - 341.
Evil and omnipotence.J. L. Mackie - 1955 - Mind 64 (254):200-212.
Warranted Christian Belief.Alvin Plantinga - 2000 - Philosophia Christi 3 (2):327-328.
The Problem of Evil.Peter van Inwagen - 2007 - Philosophical Quarterly 57 (229):696-698.

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