Paying the cost of skeptical theism

In this paper I show that two arguments for the inconsistency of skeptical theism fail. After setting up the debate in “Introduction” section, I show in “The initial debate” section why Mylan Engel’s argument (Engel 2004) against skeptical theism does not succeed. In “COST” section I strengthen the argument so that it both avoids my reply to Engel and parallels Jon Laraudogoitia’s argument against skeptical theism (Laraudogoitia 2000). In “COST*” section, I provide three replies—one by an evidentialist theist, one by a closure-denying theist, and one by a necessitarian theist, and argue that the necessitarian’s reply successfully rebuts the inconsistency charge. I conclude that skeptical theism which accepts God’s necessary existence is immune to both kinds of arguments for its inconsistency.