Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

Potential Theistic Explanations 97
designing intelligence.” 49 It is only when the discussion moves to theology
that this issue arises, being transformed—Dembski argues—into the familiar
problem of evil. The theist, he writes, must “reconcile the following three
proposi tions: (1) God is good; (2) God is all-powerful; (3) Evil exists.” 50
Dembski is confi dent this can be done, since (as he puts it) “philosophical
theology has abundant resources for dealing with the problem of evil.” 51 In
any case, what was originally well designed can become corrupted: teleology
can become dysteleology. “The perversion of design,” Dembski argues,
“is not explained by denying design, but by accepting it and meeting the
problem of evil head on.” 52
But Dembski’s comments understate the diffi culty of the theist’s task.
It is not enough to reconcile the three propositions which Dembski lists,
in the sense of showing they do not give rise to a contradiction. It is not
suffi cient to show that affi rming the existence of God is compatible with
recognizing the existence of evil. In the present context—that of offering
explanations that posit the existence of such a God—the theist must show
that the world with all its suffering is precisely what we would expect an
omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect being to create. He must show
that this world is what we “would, beforehand, expect from a very powerful,
wise, and benevolent Deity.” 53 In Hume’s Dialogues, Philo makes this
very point against Cleanthes.
I will allow, that pain or misery in man is compatible with infi nite
power and goodness in the Deity, even in your sense of these attributes:
What are you advanced by all these concessions? A mere possible compatibility
is not suffi cient. You must prove these pure, unmixed, and
uncontrollable attributes from the present mixed and confused phenomena,
and from these alone. 54
This is why the most powerful form of the atheist’s argument from evil is an
evidential argument that compares two hypotheses, the theistic hypothesis
and the “hypothesis of indifference.” According to the theistic hypothesis,
the world was created by an all-powerful and benevolent deity. According
to the hypothesis of indifference, “neither the nature nor the condition of
sentient beings on earth is the result of benevolent or malevolent actions
performed by non-human persons.” 55 Which of these, the atheist asks,
would render the observable facts less surprising, if indeed it were true?
That is the question which the explanation-offering theist must face.
5.5 THE CONSEQUENCES OF SCEPTICISM
Let me end this chapter by seeing if I can sharpen up my argument,
expressing my claims with a little more precision. I suggested earlier