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Abstract
Jamie Carlin Watson has recently challenged my Bayesian formulation of the evidential argument from evil. My approach depends upon certain critical assumptions, but Watson argues that I am not entitled to those assumptions. I reply briefly, showing why I am entitled to those assumptions, and thus, why my argument survives his critique.
Notes
1. Watson, “Many Irrelevant Evils,” 365–378.
2. Bass, “Many Inscrutable Evils,” 118–32.
3. There are also, presumably, evils that we would not be prepared to classify.
4. I have argued elsewhere that omniscience is not a possible property (Bass, “Omniscience and the Identification Problem,” 78–91), but I shall not here rely upon that argument.
5. Watson, “Many Irrelevant Evils,” 372. I have doubts about the coherence of the magic bean rock hypothesis, but for the sake of argument, I grant its possibility.
6. Watson, “Many Irrelevant Evils,” 372.
7. If OM had issued many mathematical claims that appeared false (but not shown to be false) to competent mathematicians, we would be warranted in inferring, with high probability, the presence of falsehoods among OM’s pronouncements.
8. Indeed, it is utterly unclear how an unexamined rock could appear to contain magic beans.
9. Note that the concern is about greater probability. Some number of inscrutable evils might be highly probable, even if there were no gratuitous evil. The question we are concerned with is whether additional inscrutable evils increase the probability of gratuitous evils.
10. Watson, “Many Irrelevant Evils,” 373.
11. The passage also contains a different sort of mistake, which I omitted with ellipses. Part of the paragraph raised the following questions: ‘[W]ould we, for every instance of gratuitous evil, perceive no justification? Might not some gratuitous evils mimic scrutable evils in their seeming to be justified? Might not some mimic inscrutable-but-justified evils?’ (Watson, “Many Irrelevant Evils,” 373). If there are any instances of gratuitous evil that appear to us to be justified … then, there are instances of gratuitous evil, and there is no God. Such possibilities cannot help Watson’s case.
12. See Hick, Evil and the God of Love, for example.
13. Bass, “Many Inscrutable Evils,” 130.
14. Watson, “Many Irrelevant Evils,” 375.
15. A collection including several of the seminal articles on skeptical theism is Howard-Snyder, The Evidential Argument.
16. Bass, “Many Inscrutable Evils,” 130 (footnote omitted).
17. Sehon, “The Problem of Evil,” 72–3.
18. Also see Wielenberg, “Sceptical Theism and Divine Lies,” 509–23.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Robert Bass
Robert Bass teaches for the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and has long-standing interests in philosophy of religion.