Here's yet another new argument against traditional theism: Epistemic permissivism is a view that's growing in popularity amongst epistemologists. Permissivism is the view that there are cases (and belief in God is a case that's commonly used as an example) where there is more than one rational response to a given body of evidence. But according to traditional theism, permissivism is false, since the permissivism allows that one person can be justified by the relevant total body of evidence for God, and another can blamelessly disbelieve on the same body of evidence. At the very least, the truth of permissivism is considerably more surprising on the hypothesis of traditional theism than on the hypothesis of naturalism. Therefore, at the very least, the data of permissivism provides at least some evidence for naturalism vis-a-vis traditional theism.
Jordan's Important New Paper on Evil and Divine Sovereignty
Jordan, Jeff. "Evil and Divine Sovereignty", International Journal for Philosophy of Religion: 1-14 (forthcoming).
Abstract:
Since at least the tenth century, some theists have argued that God’s sovereignty as creator exempts God from moral evaluation, and so any argument employing moral principles or the idea of God as morally perfect is fallacious. In particular, any argument contending that the occurrence of pointless evil presents strong evidence against the existence of God is flawed, as God morally owes his creation nothing. This appeal to divine sovereignty, however, fails to rescue any theistic tradition proclaiming that God loves humans, as no one would be indifferent concerning the pointless suffering of her beloved.
Abstract:
Since at least the tenth century, some theists have argued that God’s sovereignty as creator exempts God from moral evaluation, and so any argument employing moral principles or the idea of God as morally perfect is fallacious. In particular, any argument contending that the occurrence of pointless evil presents strong evidence against the existence of God is flawed, as God morally owes his creation nothing. This appeal to divine sovereignty, however, fails to rescue any theistic tradition proclaiming that God loves humans, as no one would be indifferent concerning the pointless suffering of her beloved.
Call for Papers: "The Future of Philosophy of Religion"
From The European Journal for Philosophy of Religion. Details here.
Intriguing New Paper on the Evidential Problem of Evil
Bernáth, L., Kodaj, D. Evil and the god of indifference. Int J Philos Relig (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-020-09747-x
Abstract: The evidential problem of evil involves a rarely discussed challenge, namely the challenge of defending theism against the hypothesis of a morally indifferent creator. Our argument uses a Bayesian framework and it starts by showing that if the only alternative to classical theism is naturalistic atheism, then fine-tuning can render theism virtually certain, even in the face of evil. But if the alternatives include the hypothesis of a morally indifferent creator, theism is defeated even if the fine-tuning premise is accepted. The resulting version of the evidential problem is unsolvable using the tools that are currently deployed by theists against evil.
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