Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

98 Theism and Explanation
(2.1.2) that a hypothesis (H) should be regarded as a potential explanation
of some fact (E) if it meets the requirement of the second premise
of Peirce’s abductive schema. I also argued (2.1.4) that an intentional
explanation takes us from H to E—meeting the requirement of that second
premise—by way of an argument. More precisely, an intentional
explanation is a kind of practical syllogism (Appendix 2.1), which has
a particular intention as its premise and a description of the explanandum
as its conclusion. While a hypothesis that meets this requirement
has explanat ory force, our confi dence about its explanatory force may
vary. We will be confi dent about the explanatory force of an intentional
hypothesis to the extent that we are confi dent about the truth of the
premises of the practical syllogism involved.
What I have argued in this chapter, against theological and modal
sceptics, is that in the case of a divine agent we can have some degree of
confi dence in the premises of such a syllogism. By using the rationality
principle, we can form some idea of how a divine agent might be expected
to act, given a posited divine intention. Complete scepticism in this regard
is unwarranted. As we have seen, if complete scepticism were warranted, it
would be an apparently decisive in principle objection to proposed theistic
explanations, since it would render this kind of syllogism impossible. So the
atheist might hope that the sceptic is right. But my argument has proceeded
on the assumption, backed up by appeal to the rationality principle, that we
are not required to be complete sceptics.
Nonetheless, I have also suggested that the sceptics have a point. A
degree of scepticism does seem warranted. To say that the explanandum
is, or is not, the best way in which God could have achieved a posited goal
involves a diffi cult judgement, about matters that are “remote from common
life and experience.” 56 Even if we can fathom this particular abyss, we
cannot have a high degree of confi dence in the judgements we make. And
this means that we cannot be confi dent that whatever we specify really is
the best means of achieving a posited divine goal. Assuming, for example,
that Mackie’s famous argument against the free will defence is correct—
that God could have created free creatures who always chose the good—
then it is striking how long it took for someone to come up with it. Even
now, if my students’ reactions are anything to go by, it can take a while to
see that this is a logically possible state of affairs.
To what point has this discussion led? If an account of divine action
is to be even a potential explanation of some state of affairs, we must
be able to specify how we would expect a divine agent to act in order to
achieve his goals. Only then would the account of divine action have any
explanatory force. Using the rationality principle, I have argued, we can
indeed make some provisional judgements in this regard. But the fl ip-side
of that principle, in the case of a divine agent, is what I have called an
optimality condition. We are warranted in regarding a theistic hypothesis