Skeptical theism and suspicion of God
I have recently posted a video to my YouTube channel in which I present a phenomenological version of “skeptical theism” in response to the evidential argument from evil. It is effectively the same as the argument I made in a previous posting here.
I present a phenomenological demonstration that what appears in any particular experience is the whole of what is, ourselves included, and all at once. The contribution we ourselves make to experience as a part of that “whole” which appears to us consists in the fact that every appearance of a particular item within the whole is perspectival. We only see a part and not all of the object that is “out there” in the world, and we only see it from the point of view which is possible for us given how we are “on the inside” at the time of the experience. Another way of putting the point is that every appearance is really only an appearance (i) from a particular point of view and (ii) to a particular person. This means that, with the respect to the apparent gratuity of evils in the world, there are two points to be made: first, that we cannot assume the point of view necessary to see whether they are in fact gratuitous; second, even if we could assume the necessary point of view, we cannot simply assume that we are sufficiently similar to what God must be like in order to suppose that He would have judged them to be gratuitous.
Someone recently wrote me to ask how I would respond to the following objection to skeptical theism. I quote his message below:
I’ve sometimes seen an objection against skeptical theism that I would like to know how would you address. The objection says that skeptical theism proves too much. For if it’s true that, due to both our knowledge and moral limitations, we can’t expect to confidently assess whether God would have good reasons to allow the evils that, to us, seem unjustified, then it may well be the case that God could have good reasons to allow us to be deceived by, for instance, Christ’s resurrection into thinking that Christianity is the true religion because out of that massive deception some superior good may come about at the end. I hope I’m expressing myself clearly. How would you respond?
I admit that I have a hard time understanding the supposed force of the objection.
In the first place, skeptical theism (as I present it) is a thesis about our inability to make reliable judgments about the gratuity of certain evils which we know to have happened in history. More generally, it is a skepticism about our ability to understand the greater moral significance of events in time. This is because we cannot assume the appropriate point of view relative to those events in order to make such a judgment, and even if we could, we cannot assume in a biased manner that we could know how God would think about them. Understood in this way, skeptical theism is not a thesis about our inability to determine whether any evil could be justified in principle. Neither does it have to do with undermining our confidence in all appearances. Quite to the contrary, I would go so far as to say that no appearance is a false appearance, once one takes into consideration the fact that what appears is not just an individual object as being such-and-so, as we so often assume or judge to be the case, but rather the whole of being, ourselves included, all at once. The phenomenological interpretation of skeptical theism is not aimed at undermining our confidence in appearances, but merely in making clear what actually does appear and in what way, so that we can make well-founded statements about appearances.
The objection raises a hypothetical scenario. Could God have deceived us with respect to the resurrection of Christ for the sake of some greater good? I admit that I do not perfectly understand what motivates the question, but suppose that one answers: Yes. What follows? Is there any reason to think that God has so deceived us? Does anything suggest that this deception might actually have been the case? I would imagine not. Of course, it always possible that God is in fact deceiving us and is deceiving us so well that no evidence for the deception could be discovered by any of us. But then it is a question of interpreting the evidence which is actually available. It is a matter of making a hermeneutical decision.
One can interpret things in a “trusting” way and believe that God has in fact raised Jesus from the dead. Or one can interpret things in a “suspicious” way and maintain that the apparent resurrection of Christ and spread of Christianity is in fact a deception. It is true that one is forced to make a hermeneutical decision about how to understand the world and its appearance. But it is not obvious to me that the “suspicious” interpretation has anything going for it, except that it seems to tap into a kind of deep-seated suspicion of God that is in the heart. It appears to express something latent within the human heart — or at least within some human hearts—which doubts that there can really be good news, that things really can be good in the end. But whence does this primordial suspicion arise and what is its value as far as the truth is concerned? It also must be interpreted; it does not speak for itself. Is this suspicious inclination simply a matter of personality? Is it a temptation of the devil? Does it even exist in everyone? One must make a decision about how to understand it and what value to assign to it in the search for the truth.
The same problem of the hermeneutical decision arises in the case of any evil we experience. It is possible to interpret the evil of the world in a “trusting” way. This would amount to saying: This is terrible, but God will bring some good of it. It is also possible to interpret the evil of the world in a “suspicious” way. This would amount to saying: Nothing could justify this happening; God should have prevented this, and because He didn’t, He is either evil or else does not exist. The difference is a difference between two fundamental modes of interpreting the world, either trustingly or suspiciously. My suggestion is that the suspicious interpretation is ultimately grounded in an impulse deep within the human heart, one which makes it unbelievable that things might actually be good in the end.
It is interesting to me that this suspicious impulse does not move me to be suspicious of everyone. Generally speaking, I trust the goodwill of my parents and of my wife and friends. I do not seriously entertain the supposition that they could be deceiving me with respect to what they tell me and do for me. I do not take seriously the suggestion that they are all coordinating and planning some grand act of deception which ultimately is bad for me. Why, then, does this suspicious impulse seem to become active when it is a matter of God and of His love for us? Why are we always suspicious of God? The theological answer to this question points us to the doctrine of justification by faith. There is something deep and perverse in the human heart which makes it suspicious of God. The only way out is to trust. One must fight against the impulse to distrust God and trust Him. This is in fact what God wants from us. It is what Christ teaches us again and again:
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows (Matt. 10:29–31).
Christ teaches us not to be afraid of God, not to distrust Him. This is the hardest thing to do. It is hard because there is a deep-seated distrust and suspicion of God. This suspicious impulse rears its ugly head in philosophical discussions about God, in which every hypothetical proposal is more believable than that God means good for us in spite of the evils that take place in the world. But this impulse, which affects our judgments and which is responsible for why certain things appear to us the way they do, must itself be interpreted and understood. Speaking from the Christian point of view, it is simply the result of sin. It is a part of the brokenness of the human being. It must be healed.
Later addendum: But suppose that someone says the following:
All this is irrelevant. It appears to us that God could have no reason for allowing some evil thing to happen, and yet the suggestion is being made that He could nevertheless have some reason which is not apparent to us. Doesn’t that mean that He could be deceiving us about things for reasons which are not apparent to us? If we are mistaken about the apparent gratuity of evils, couldn’t we be mistaken about the apparent truth of things we believe?
I think that this formulation of the objection reveals how confused it is. The phenomenological skeptical theist does not say that we are deceived in our judgment that some evil is in fact evil, but only that we have no basis for saying that it is gratuitous. The evil of the event is given with it in experience. One sees a murder committed and simultaneously experiences its evil. Its gratuity, however, is not simply given in such a straightforward manner. This is because an evil is gratuitous not simply in itself, but only in relation to everything else, and not everything else is clearly given in any one experience. An evil is gratuitous only if nothing else justifies it. Because the connection of some evil with everything else is not given in the experience of it, it is understandable that one think it to be gratuitous, but this judgment nevertheless is without a basis. It is a judgment which goes beyond what is visible from the perspective of the person making it.
None of this specifically entails that we could be radically mistaken about even the most basic things we believe. In the first place, I would say that skepticism is a general philosophical problem that is not easily swept aside merely by a kind of naive presumption in favor of appearances. But more specifically, the phenomenological interpretation of skeptical theism has nothing to do with trying to undermine this inference: It appears to us that P; therefore, probably P. Rather, it is concerned with making clear what it is that actually appears to us and under what conditions. So this objection is confused and has nothing to do with the phenomenological interpretation of skeptical theism which I put forth.
