Wykstra's Initial Response to the Evidential Problem of Evil
Consider William Rowe's evidential (or "probabilistic") argument from evil:
1. Pointless (i.e. gratuitous) suffering exists.
2. If an omni-God existed, pointless suffering would not exist.
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3. Therefore, an omni-God does not exist [1].
In justifying premise 1, Rowe takes it to be the case that there are instances of evil which, probably speaking, are not related to the actualization of greater goods or to the prevention of evils just as bad or worse. As noted in my post, "Rowe's Evidential Argument From Evil," Stephen Wykstra elucidates what he takes to be Rowe's underlying justification for premise 1. Consider the following:
1*. It appears that p.
2*. If it appears that p, then one is prima facie justified in believing that p.
_________________
3*. Therefore, one is prima facie justified in believing that p.
2* (read, "two-star) is an affirmation of what Richard Swinburne calls the principle of credulity (PC) -- that "what one seems to perceive is probably so" [2]. To move from 1* to 3*, one must affirm 2* (implicitly, at least). This, Wykstra maintains, is what Rowe does in order to justify premise 1. Simply let p stand for 'pointless suffering exists.' This being the case, the hidden premise justifying premise 1 in Rowe's argument is the following:
1.1. It appears that pointless suffering exists.
(1.1.) in conjunction with PC seems to warrant premise 1.
WYKSTRA'S RESPONSE
Wykstra argues that, in order for Rowe to be justified in moving from "it appears that pointless suffering exists" to "pointless suffering exists," an additional, necessary condition must be met. In revision of Swinburne's principle of credulity, Wykstra introduces the Condition of Reasonable Epistemic Access (CORNEA):
EMENDATION 2: THE EVIDENTIAL-CONNECTION
Wykstra further adds that C should be understood as endorsing an "evidential connection" between the cognized situation and the resulting belief-inclination. That is, one takes s (the cognized situation) to be evidence supporting the claim 'it appears that p.' As an example of how this works, Wykstra introduces the peculiar character, Mort -- a man who is inclined to believe that any woman who does not smile at him hates him. When Mort talks to Betty, Betty does not smile at him. Thus, it appears to Mort that Betty hates him, and he concludes, "Betty hates me." Mort takes there to be an evidential-connection between Betty's lack of a smile and the belief-inclination 'it appears that Betty hates me'; the former is evidence for the latter. Since Mort affirms the principle of credulity, he concludes that Betty hates him. If, however, Mort gets counseling and learns that when a woman does not smile at him it does not necessarily mean she hates him, then there can no longer be an evidential-connection between a women's lack of a smile and what appears to be the case. Mort may continue to have the belief-inclination that "it appears that Betty hates me," but he will understand that "this belief-forming disposition is completely unreliable" (Wykstra: 153). Thus, Mort will have to remind himself that Betty's lack of a smile is not evidence for the conclusion that Betty hates him, even if the belief-inclination 'Betty hates me' continues to surface.
CORNEA APPLIED TO ROWE'S ARGUMENT
In light of these considerations, Wykstra argues that CORNEA has not been satisfied in Rowe's justification of premise 1. Consider some instance of intense suffering, S. In order for an evidential connection to exist between how one cognizes S and the claim 'it appears that S is pointless,' it must be reasonable for one to believe that, given one's cognitive faculties and the use made of them, if S indeed has a point (i.e., it is not pointless), then such a point would cognizable to us. But why think that we are in a position to know how S would be cognized differently if it was not pointless? Wykstra writes, "Return, then, to Rowe's fawn, suffering in a distant forest. Rowe's claim is that the suffering appears not to serve any God-justifying purpose. It is clear, I think, that the feature of the cognized situation crucial to Rowe's claim is that there is no outweighing good within our ken served by the fawn's suffering...If CORNEA is correct...[then] one is entitled to claim ‘this suffering does not appear (i.e., appears not) to serve any Divinely-purposed outweighing good’ only if it is reasonable to believe that if such a Divinely-purposed good exists, it would be within our ken” (Wykstra: 157). Wykstra maintains that we are not in a good epistemic position to say that S appears to be pointless, because we are not in a good position to discern the goods that might serve to justify God's allowance of S.
If this is the case, then the evidential connection thought to exist between some cognized instance of intense suffering and the claim 'this instance of intense suffering appears to be pointless' is bankrupt. One may continue to have the belief-inclination that "pointless evil exists," but this cannot be connected evidentially to one's cognitive-epistemic assessment of the situation, for one's cognitive-epistemic access to the situation is severely limited.
In conclusion, Wykstra's main point is that we are not in a good epistemic position to know or discern the range of goods that might justify God in allowing S. We simply lack "cognitive access" to the situation. Wykstra goes as far as saying that our ability to understand what God is up to and to understand what His justifying reasons are for permitting intense evil is akin to the understanding of a one month old baby with respect to its parents' decisions -- pretty slim. As he puts it, there very well may be goods "beyond our ken" that justify God in allowing S, and we are unlikely to have any cognitive access to them. While we may have the inclination to believe that certain instances of evil are pointless, we are not justified in believing that they actually are pointless. Summarizing his case, Wykstra writes the following:
“Rowe, I have allowed, is right in claiming that a wholly good God must be 'against' suffering in this sense: such a being would allow suffering only if there were an outweighing good served by so doing. Rowe is also correct in seeing that such goods are, in a great many cases, nowhere within our ken. The linchpin of my critique has been that if theism is true, this is just what one would expect: for if we think carefully about the sort of being theism proposes for our belief, it is entirely expectable -- given what we know of our cognitive limits -- that the goods by virtue of which this Being allows known suffering should very often be beyond our ken. Since this state of affairs is just what one should expect if theism were true, how can its obtaining be evidence against theism?” (Wykstra: 159).
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Footnotes:
[1] Rowe, William. "The Evidential Argument from Evil." Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings. Ed. Michael Peterson, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Basinger. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print. ***The argument cited is a summarized form of Rowe's argument. See my post, "Rowe's Evidential Argument from Evil," for his original wording.
[2] Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God.
[3] Wykstra, Stephen J. "The Humean Obstacle to Evidential Arguments from Suffering: on Avoiding the Evils of 'Appearance.'."Calvin.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.
1. Pointless (i.e. gratuitous) suffering exists.
2. If an omni-God existed, pointless suffering would not exist.
______________________
3. Therefore, an omni-God does not exist [1].
In justifying premise 1, Rowe takes it to be the case that there are instances of evil which, probably speaking, are not related to the actualization of greater goods or to the prevention of evils just as bad or worse. As noted in my post, "Rowe's Evidential Argument From Evil," Stephen Wykstra elucidates what he takes to be Rowe's underlying justification for premise 1. Consider the following:
1*. It appears that p.
2*. If it appears that p, then one is prima facie justified in believing that p.
_________________
3*. Therefore, one is prima facie justified in believing that p.
2* (read, "two-star) is an affirmation of what Richard Swinburne calls the principle of credulity (PC) -- that "what one seems to perceive is probably so" [2]. To move from 1* to 3*, one must affirm 2* (implicitly, at least). This, Wykstra maintains, is what Rowe does in order to justify premise 1. Simply let p stand for 'pointless suffering exists.' This being the case, the hidden premise justifying premise 1 in Rowe's argument is the following:
1.1. It appears that pointless suffering exists.
(1.1.) in conjunction with PC seems to warrant premise 1.
WYKSTRA'S RESPONSE
Wykstra argues that, in order for Rowe to be justified in moving from "it appears that pointless suffering exists" to "pointless suffering exists," an additional, necessary condition must be met. In revision of Swinburne's principle of credulity, Wykstra introduces the Condition of Reasonable Epistemic Access (CORNEA):
"On the basis of cognized situation s, human H is entitled to claim ‘It Appears that p’ only if it is reasonable for H to believe that, given her cognitive faculties and the use she has made of them, if p were not the case, s would likely be different than it is in some way discernible by her” [3]. In other words, consider the following propositions (let s represent some cognized situation):
C: if s, then it is reasonable to claim 'it appears that p.'
C*: if not-p, then s* would be the/a cognized situation.
CORNEA is asserting that if one is to affirm C, one must know C*. That is, one is justified in affirming that 'it appears that p' on the basis of s if and only if one knows how things would appear differently if p were not actually the case (i.e., s*).
EMENDATION 1: EPISTEMIC-COGNITIVE APPEARANCE
Wysktra's revision of Swinburne's principle of credulity involves an appreciation of the kind of 'appears' claim that CORNEA is addressing. Wykstra writes, "Swinburne is concerned with that epistemic sense of ‘appears’ covering what we might call ‘sensory-epistemic appearing’, i.e., belief-inclinations triggered by ‘sensory experiences.’ But we also often find ourselves with belief-inclinations produced when a broad (and perhaps largely tacit) range of considerations are brought to bear upon ‘cognized situations’” (Wykstra: 154). Wykstra gives an example of a chess-master who, after examining the layout of the pieces on the board some time after his game began, claims, "it appears that I am going to lose." Clearly, the chess-master is making such a claim in a cognitive-epistemic sense, not a sensory-epistemic sense; taking a number of things into consideration, he is cognizing (and perhaps even visualizing) how the game will conclude without directly seeing the finished game.
EMENDATION 2: THE EVIDENTIAL-CONNECTION
Wykstra further adds that C should be understood as endorsing an "evidential connection" between the cognized situation and the resulting belief-inclination. That is, one takes s (the cognized situation) to be evidence supporting the claim 'it appears that p.' As an example of how this works, Wykstra introduces the peculiar character, Mort -- a man who is inclined to believe that any woman who does not smile at him hates him. When Mort talks to Betty, Betty does not smile at him. Thus, it appears to Mort that Betty hates him, and he concludes, "Betty hates me." Mort takes there to be an evidential-connection between Betty's lack of a smile and the belief-inclination 'it appears that Betty hates me'; the former is evidence for the latter. Since Mort affirms the principle of credulity, he concludes that Betty hates him. If, however, Mort gets counseling and learns that when a woman does not smile at him it does not necessarily mean she hates him, then there can no longer be an evidential-connection between a women's lack of a smile and what appears to be the case. Mort may continue to have the belief-inclination that "it appears that Betty hates me," but he will understand that "this belief-forming disposition is completely unreliable" (Wykstra: 153). Thus, Mort will have to remind himself that Betty's lack of a smile is not evidence for the conclusion that Betty hates him, even if the belief-inclination 'Betty hates me' continues to surface.
CORNEA APPLIED TO ROWE'S ARGUMENT
In light of these considerations, Wykstra argues that CORNEA has not been satisfied in Rowe's justification of premise 1. Consider some instance of intense suffering, S. In order for an evidential connection to exist between how one cognizes S and the claim 'it appears that S is pointless,' it must be reasonable for one to believe that, given one's cognitive faculties and the use made of them, if S indeed has a point (i.e., it is not pointless), then such a point would cognizable to us. But why think that we are in a position to know how S would be cognized differently if it was not pointless? Wykstra writes, "Return, then, to Rowe's fawn, suffering in a distant forest. Rowe's claim is that the suffering appears not to serve any God-justifying purpose. It is clear, I think, that the feature of the cognized situation crucial to Rowe's claim is that there is no outweighing good within our ken served by the fawn's suffering...If CORNEA is correct...[then] one is entitled to claim ‘this suffering does not appear (i.e., appears not) to serve any Divinely-purposed outweighing good’ only if it is reasonable to believe that if such a Divinely-purposed good exists, it would be within our ken” (Wykstra: 157). Wykstra maintains that we are not in a good epistemic position to say that S appears to be pointless, because we are not in a good position to discern the goods that might serve to justify God's allowance of S.
If this is the case, then the evidential connection thought to exist between some cognized instance of intense suffering and the claim 'this instance of intense suffering appears to be pointless' is bankrupt. One may continue to have the belief-inclination that "pointless evil exists," but this cannot be connected evidentially to one's cognitive-epistemic assessment of the situation, for one's cognitive-epistemic access to the situation is severely limited.
In conclusion, Wykstra's main point is that we are not in a good epistemic position to know or discern the range of goods that might justify God in allowing S. We simply lack "cognitive access" to the situation. Wykstra goes as far as saying that our ability to understand what God is up to and to understand what His justifying reasons are for permitting intense evil is akin to the understanding of a one month old baby with respect to its parents' decisions -- pretty slim. As he puts it, there very well may be goods "beyond our ken" that justify God in allowing S, and we are unlikely to have any cognitive access to them. While we may have the inclination to believe that certain instances of evil are pointless, we are not justified in believing that they actually are pointless. Summarizing his case, Wykstra writes the following:
“Rowe, I have allowed, is right in claiming that a wholly good God must be 'against' suffering in this sense: such a being would allow suffering only if there were an outweighing good served by so doing. Rowe is also correct in seeing that such goods are, in a great many cases, nowhere within our ken. The linchpin of my critique has been that if theism is true, this is just what one would expect: for if we think carefully about the sort of being theism proposes for our belief, it is entirely expectable -- given what we know of our cognitive limits -- that the goods by virtue of which this Being allows known suffering should very often be beyond our ken. Since this state of affairs is just what one should expect if theism were true, how can its obtaining be evidence against theism?” (Wykstra: 159).
______________________________________________________________
Footnotes:
[1] Rowe, William. "The Evidential Argument from Evil." Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings. Ed. Michael Peterson, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Basinger. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print. ***The argument cited is a summarized form of Rowe's argument. See my post, "Rowe's Evidential Argument from Evil," for his original wording.
[2] Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God.
[3] Wykstra, Stephen J. "The Humean Obstacle to Evidential Arguments from Suffering: on Avoiding the Evils of 'Appearance.'."Calvin.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.
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