Many irrelevant evils: a response to the Bayesian problem of evil

Abstract

Robert Bass argues that the evidential problem of evil can be strengthened by the application of a Bayesian conditionalization argument. I argue that, whatever the merits of Bayesian conditionalization arguments, they are unsuccessful in substantiating the evidential problem of evil because the problem of evil doesn’t meet the necessary conditions for applying the formula informatively. I offer two examples to show that a successful application of the Bayesian formula must pass two tests, the competency test and the connection test. I then show that the problem of evil passes neither, and is therefore not strengthened by the Bayesian analysis. I conclude that Bass’s reformulated argument poses no substantive threat to theism.