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Why Christians Should Embrace Skeptical Theism

Why Christians Should Embrace Skeptical Theism (Matt Manry)

“Ultimately, we need to admit that we don’t know God’s reasons for permitting evil. It is beyond the realm of human knowledge, and that is part of our creaturely condition.” -J. Todd Billings 

“Given our real cognitive limits regarding God, a quest for a full explanation of God’s purposes in allowing evil is sure to fail in our current predicament.” -Paul K. Moser

The problem of evil and suffering has been a hot topic of discussion within the realm of theological and philosophical discourse for a long time. Thousands of academic papers have been published on the topic — from both Christian and atheistic perspectives. While a number of these papers have focused in on theodicy (an attempt to answer the question of why God allows evil and suffering), I believe that it might be time to finally move on from this endeavor and offer up a different defense.

Now the Logical Problem of Evil is believed to have been defeated by Alvin Plantinga’s free-will defense. However, ever since the defeat of the logical problem, the Evidential Problem of Evil has seemingly been wreaking a lot of havoc for Christians. Philosopher William Rowe formulates the Evidential Problem of Evil in the following manner:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. (Therefore) There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.

So how are Christians supposed to answer this form of the problem of evil? How are they supposed to defend the rationality of the Christian faith against this?  Answer: Skeptical Theism.

What is skeptical theism? The Notre Dame Center for Philosophy of Religion defines it this way: “We have no reason to think that we could discern divine purpose in (God) allowing horrendous evils if there were any, and so we have no warrant for believing that such evils do not serve a divine purpose.” This actually aligns well with what the Bible communicates to us.

For example, at the end of the Book of Job is Job given a reason by God for why he allowed the evil and suffering to occur in his life? Well, no. In John 9 when the disciples ask Jesus why a man was born blind, does Jesus give them a full detailed reason as to why this happened? It doesn’t seem like it. What about when the Galileans were killed by the tower falling at Siloam (Luke 13)? Does Jesus give a specific reason for why this had to happen? He does not.

We know that we live in a sinful world, and that suffering and evil results from the fall of mankind (Gen. 3). However, we do not know why specific moments of evil occur in people’s lives. For example, is the reason that Zach, a sixteen-year-old male, who was just recently diagnosed with leukemia, receive that diagnosis because of the fact that he had stolen money from his mother’s purse over the last year? I hope that you would not be willing to answer, “Yes!” Now of course there are exceptions. If you go out and get drunk, drive your car into a ditch, and become paralyzed, then there does seem to be a direct correlation between sin and suffering. However, are we in a cognitive position that would allow us to make this declaration about every particular act of horrendous suffering and evil that occurs? If we are to be cognitively humble, then it seems that we should withhold judgment when looking at various acts of evil throughout the world.

As Christians, we should be willing to embrace skeptical theism when viewing particular acts of suffering and evil in the world. There is plenty of evil and suffering that occurs in this world and we are in no position to judge why it had to happen. The distance between the mind of God and the minds of human beings is vast. We must always remember the words found in Isaiah 55:8, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.” We must trust that God has a divine, sovereign purpose in allowing the evil and suffering in the world. We may not know what it specifically is, but we must still trust him. And this is one of the reasons why I believe that Christians should be willing to embrace skeptical theism as a defense against the problem of evil and suffering.

Matt Manry is an editor for Credo Magazine as well as Assistant Pastor at Life Bible Church in Canton, Georgia. He is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Religion at Reformed Theological Seminary and a Masters of Arts in Christian and Classical Studies from Knox Theological Seminary.

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