Does Divine Mystery Lead to Moral Paralysis? The Agency of the Spirit and the Skeptical Theist Response to the Problem of Evil (Part 2)

The recent and hotly debated versions of skeptical theism have been formed in response to William Rowe’s evidential argument from evil. The argument that Rowe put forward claims:

(1)           An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.

(2)           There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.

(3)           There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.[1]

Rowe concedes that we cannot establish the truth of (2), for we would have to be omniscient ourselves in order to demonstrated such a claim. Nevertheless, we are rationally justified, says Rowe, in holding (2) to be true in the absence of reasons which would justify God for allowing instances of intense suffering. And as we are justified in believing (2) to be true, this amounts to good evidence for thinking that God does not exist.

The skeptical theist responds to Rowe’s argument by extending Rowe’s concession – that we are not in a position to judge the truth of (2) because of our non-omniscience – to cover the evidential force of the argument as well. In other words, skeptical theists reject the so-called “noseeum” inference: the claim that because we can’t see the reasons that would justify God to allow evil, they probably aren’t there (if we no see ‘um, they ain’t there!). The skeptical theist instead claims that given our cognitive limitations in relation to God’s omniscience and omnipotence, it is unlikely that we would spot the God-justifying reasons for allowing various instances of evil. Thus, our inability to spot God’s reasons for allowing evil is not evidence that there are no such reasons.

The most discussed form of the skeptical theist argument has been put forward by Michael Bergmann, who defends the following three skeptical theses:

            ST1:  We have no good reason for thinking that the possible goods we know of are representative of the possible goods there are. 

            ST2:  We have no good reason for thinking that the possible evils we know of are representative of the possible evils there are.

            ST3:  We have no good reason for thinking that the entailment relations we know of between possible goods and the permission of possible evils are representative of the entailment relations there are between possible goods and the permission of possible evils.[2]

            These theses are meant to explicate the nature of our cognitive limitations and demonstrate why it is that our inability to spot God’s reasons for allowing particular instances of evil is not evidence that no such reasons exist. The key premise here for Bergmann’s position states that our access to knowledge in the realm of values is quite limited, to the extent that there could be goods beyond our knowledge which justify God in permitting evil. Thus, the probability of the existence of God is not significantly lowered through Rowe’s evidential arguments. Another payoff for the skeptical theist is that instead of needing to give a philosophical explanation for God’s reasons for action, she can simply point to the epistemic gap between human and divine cognition. Further, the skeptical theist is in no danger of onto-theologizing or disrespecting divine transcendence, for she allows divine mystery to take the place of human pretensions to knowledge.

            But a problem with the skeptical theist’s position thus far articulated lurks in the background and has been exposed by numerous recent commentators. The issue is that the skeptical theist’s skepticism about our knowledge of the realm of value when considering the problem of evil spills over into a skepticism of our knowledge of the realm of value when it comes to our moral obligations. If it is the case that for all we know, there could be justifying goods (which we haven’t discovered) that allow God to permit some evil (E), then it follows that for all we know, there could be justifying goods that allow us to permit (E). For example, Charles, a football player, sees a child being abducted from a store by a malevolent-looking but rather small thug. It is easily within Charles’ power to prevent the thug from forcing the child into his van.[3] If Charles is a skeptical theist in the manner outlined above, however, he reasons that he just doesn’t know enough about goods, evils, and the interconnections between them to be able to make a judgment as to the ultimate good or evil that will result from the situation that he is watching. For all he knows, there could be some greater good that results from the child being abducted than if the child had not been abducted at all. Thus, Charles, given his acceptance of ST 1-3, is morally paralyzed, for he just is not in a position to be able to determine what his moral obligations are.

            This places the skeptical theist in the awkward position of trying to explain our moral obligations when our access to knowledge in the realm of value has been severed. If we can have knowledge of moral obligations, then we should be able, at least in principle, to have knowledge of a morally justifying reason for God’s permitting evil; if it is unlikely that we could have knowledge of a reason for God’s permitting evil, then it is unlikely that we can know what to make of moral obligations.

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[1] William Rowe, “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism,” American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1979): 335-341.

            [2] Michael Bergmann, “Sceptical Theism and Rowe’s New Evidential Argument from Evil,” Noûs 35 (2001) 279.

[3] This story is (roughly) borrowed from Michael Bergmann and Michael Rea, “In Defense of Skeptical Theism: A Reply to Almeida and Oppy,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83 (2005): 241-251.

Ricoeur on Forgiveness

I love the work of Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005). Perhaps the most important thread that runs through all of his writings is his philosophy of the self. Ricoeur follows Kierkegaard in thinking that we never can say that we’ve “arrived” at the self, but the self is always “on the way.” We can never have immediate access to our true selves, rather, the self is always to some extent hidden, mediated by language, interpretation, and most importantly, the Other. We thus need a hermeneutics of the self that guides us into a richer understanding of who we are.  

I’ve recently been reading some essays on Ricoeur’s later works from the book A Passion for the Possible: Thinking with Paul Ricoeur, published by Fordham University Press and edited by Brian Treanor and Henry Isaac Venema. A number of these essays investigate Ricoeur’s treatment of the theme of forgiveness at the end of his book Memory, History, and Forgetting. In the epilogue to this text, titled "Difficult Forgiveness," Ricoeur sets the question of forgiveness in relation to an anthropology of the self which he dubs the "capable man" or "capable being." What Ricoeur has in mind is to look into a problem that he sees with traditional notions of forgiveness, namely the problem that forgiveness poses to an ethical and narrative understanding of the self.

He begins by defining forgiveness as that which "unbinds the action from the agent." When I am forgiven, the forgiver in essence removes my wrongful action from me. She says, "I forgive you. I no longer hold that action against you. I have taken that action away from my understanding of who you are."

Venema, in his essay "The Source of Ricoeur's Double Allegiance," puts the problem like this:

"If I am at fault for what I have done, then I am faced with an impossible situation; namely, the separation of action from agency, such that when forgiven my fault or action, it is no longer ascribed to who I am. If this is the case, then as Ricoeur argues, forgiveness might very well be the destruction of selfhood, which for Ricoeur is always a fundamental relation between who I am and what I do, between action and agent" (p.66).

In other words, for Ricoeur,  I cannot understand who I am without reference to what I have done. My actions and my identity are so closely intertwined, that to try to identify myself apart from my deeds is to render my self unrecognizable. And yet, this is just what forgiveness does. Thus, if someone forgives me, I truly accept and put on that forgiveness, I am at a loss as to now understand myself. For I know that I have a fault, but that fault is now thrown far from me. I am told that my action no longer counts toward my identity. And this problem stands in the way of the restoration that forgiveness is supposed to supply.

So, the question I want to ask is this: Is this a true problem for forgiveness? Or is Ricoeur just inventing a pseudo-problem? Next time, we'll look at how he goes about solving the problem of difficult forgiveness.

 

Does Divine Mystery Lead to Moral Paralysis? The Agency of the Spirit and the Skeptical Theist Response to the Problem of Evil (Intro)

A scene of the devastation of the recent tsunami that hit Japan, courtesy kerala365.com

I am here beginning a series of posts comprised of my paper on the skeptical theist response to the problem of evil. This first post is the introduction of the paper.
                            
                                      * * *
Recent discussions concerning the problem of evil have often featured two different responses to suffering: theodicy and skeptical theism. Theodicy in the Christian tradition is the attempt to give specific reasons for why an all-good, all-powerful God might allow evil and suffering in the world (in the vein of Leibniz). Skeptical theism, on the other hand, is the response to the problem of evil that claims that given our limited cognitive situation, if God has a reason to permit suffering, it is unlikely that we would be able to identify it (in the tradition of Job).


This paper will take as its problem recent objections to skeptical theism. The objectors claim that skeptical theism leads to moral skepticism and ultimately to moral paralysis. I will argue that while this conclusion does seem to follow for a broad skeptical theism, it need not follow for a more modest, limited form of skeptical theism which pairs divine mystery with Scriptural revelation. Further, I claim that reflecting on the agency of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s empowering work in human agency is the impetus for human moral agency.

What I'm Reading 

Sources of the Self by Charles Taylor:

On the Incarnation of the Word by St. Athanasius:

The Nature of Necessity by Alvin Plantinga:

A Word on Analytic and Continental Philosophy


I've described myself as a polyphonic thinker. What others may think of this, I'm not sure, but I like to think of it in this way: to be a polyphonic thinker is to draw one's reflections and ideas from a number of different resources. I propose that it is a good thing to learn to look at ideas and beliefs from a number of different angles and to use different kinds of tools in approaching a problem. Thus, when it comes to contemporary philosophy, I believe that it is good to think about issues from both of the "so-called" competing schools of thought, analytic and continental philosophy.

To grossly oversimplify, analytic philosophy is predominant among English-speaking philosophers and focuses on logically analyzing words and concepts, breaking down their meanings to their core components. Analytical philosophy strives to be very precise and very clear about its subject matter.

Continental philosophy, on the other hand, is predominant on continental Europe and focuses on synthesizing otherwise opposing views into a comprehensive understanding of the self and that which lies outside of the self. Continental philosophy strives to move the listener through expressing a unique vision of the world, rather than by rigorously arguing point by point.

Again, these descriptions are more like stereotypes than accurate depictions of the philosophers within the schools. But these serve the purpose in helping to understand why these very different ways of doing philosophy often clash with one another.

I believe it is important to be philosophically bi-lingual, that is, to be able to read and speak the languages of both of these traditions, in order to gather what is valuable from each of them. Each tradition has its virtues and vices. But if we can utilize the strengths from both traditions, we may just be able to achieve an advance in our understanding. 

Introduction

This blog is primarily intended to be an outlet for processing my ongoing thoughts and reflections on the things I'm reading or on other ideas I happen to be confronted with. It may, perhaps, have the secondary effects of provoking dialogue with the reader and/or causing the reader to reflect on something new themselves. I thus acknowledge that most of my musings will be provisional and incomplete. But such are a great deal of our thoughts, I suppose.

A word then, about myself and my interests. I am hoping to begin a PhD program in philosophy in the near future. I am interested in both analytic and continental schools of philosophy and their bearing on theology and religious studies. Therefore, my posts will largely be on philosophical and theological topics, though I may stray from time to time.

My posts will consist of about 3 things:

1.  Reflections on what I'm currently reading in philosophy and theology.
2. Amended versions of papers that I've written.
3. Topics in philosophy of religion that continually interest me.

As a preview of some of the things to come, I will say that I'm currently in various stages of reading Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity by Charles Taylor, On the Incarnation of the Word by Athanasius, and The Nature of Necessity by Alvin Plantinga.

I will also probably post parts of the paper on the problem of evil that I recently presented at the Society for Pentecostal Studies Conference.

Again, this blog may not be very interesting to the reader, but that's because it's more for me than for anyone else.