Skeptical theism is a view taken in response to the evidential problem of evil

Problem of evil

In the philosophy of religion, the problem of evil is the question of how to explain evil if there exists a deity that is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient . Some philosophers have claimed that the existences of such a god and of evil are logically incompatible or unlikely...

 in the philosophy of religion

Philosophy of religion

Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of religious language and texts, and the relationship of religion and science...

. Skeptical theists accept that God exists and that we can know general truths about God but denies that in any particular case we can know the reasons for God acting in a particular way.

Background

The argument that skeptical theism is primarily responding to is the evidentiary problem of evil, which argues for the impossibility of God upon this basis:

1. If an omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent God exists, there should be no gratuitous evil.
2. There exists instances of gratuitous evil.
3. Therefore, an omniscient, omnibenveolent and omnipotent God does not exist.

The skeptical theist argues that on the basis of our limited knowledge of the reasons for God's actions, we cannot know the second premise.

In other formulations of the skeptical theism hypothesis, it has been described as the denial of the proposition that "If, after thinking hard, we can’t think of any God-justifying reason for permitting some horrific evil then it is likely that there is no such reason."

Consequences for morality

A critical response to the skeptical theist proposal is that accepting the argument is akin to adopting a skeptical approach to morality. The argument goes that if one is unable to determine whether some particular good or evil is truly good or evil, such that we cannot even believe that there exists at least one instance of gratuitous evil, how can we be said to have any meaningful morality?