Skeptical Theism and the Problem of Moral Skepticism

Abstract

One objection to skeptical theism is that it implies radical moral skepticism. Humans cannot make any moral judgments on this view because of their ignorance of the inaccessible divine knowledge that is called upon to explain the existence of apparently gratuitous evil. In answering this objection, I propose two important moves for skeptical theists. First, skeptical theists should be positive skeptical theists (the existence of God positively implies the appearance of gratuitous evil), rather than negative skeptical theists (the appearance of gratuitous evil is probabilistically inscrutable given theism). Second, the skeptical theist can affirm a model of divine transcendence whereby the unknown divine moral knowledge is continuous with human moral knowledge. These two moves, I contend, assist in saving skeptical theism from accusations of radical moral skepticism.