Sorites Paradoxes involve vague predicates of discrete quantities that upon analysis turn out to lead to absurdities, or arbitrary cut off points. For example, consider the phrase "heap of sand." How many discrete granules of sand would it take to constitute a heap of sand? Let's say you choose 100,000 granules as sufficient to constitute a heap of sand. Would you say that 99,999 granules is also a heap of sand? If you answer no, then you would have to give some justification for your answer that wasn't arbitrary, which can't be done. If you answer yes, then we can repeat this process until we are down to a single granule, and at no point could we non-abritarirly say, okay, after subtracting that last granule we transitioned from a heap of sand to a non-heap of sand.
There are a few ways to escape the paradox. One, is to deny that heaps of sand exist, which seems absurd. Consider a parallel paradox, but instead of sand, think of baldness. We could ask how many hairs you can lose before you are bald, and we run into the same kind of paradox. But nobody wants to say that there are no clear cases of being bald. The other way to try and escape the paradox is to name some lower and upper limit cases that are clear examples of the predicate under consideration (baldness, heap of sand, being rich, etc.) even though we could accuse such limit cases as being wholly arbitrary.
Sorites paradoxes are also relevant to Divine Hiddenness arguments because the proponents of such arguments say that if God existed He would have given us a "heap of evidence" so that everyone would believe in Him. However, we do not have a "heap of evidence." Therefore, God doesn't exist. Since, there are clear cases of sufficient evidence, we don't want to take the first way out of this paradox and say that there is no such thing as enough evidence to consititue a "heap." The second alternative seems better, but then I would want to know what non-abitrary criteria we can use to determine whether or not the evidence we have falls into the classification of a "heap." Whatever discrete and quantitative criteria an atheist comes up with for establihsing a lower and upper bound (where everything within those bounds consitutes a heap of evidence) would undoubtedly have to let in the amount of evidence we do have. Therefore, the Divine Hiddenness argument is asking for something we already have, but it tries to obfuscate this evidence by relying on vague predicates.
There are a few ways to escape the paradox. One, is to deny that heaps of sand exist, which seems absurd. Consider a parallel paradox, but instead of sand, think of baldness. We could ask how many hairs you can lose before you are bald, and we run into the same kind of paradox. But nobody wants to say that there are no clear cases of being bald. The other way to try and escape the paradox is to name some lower and upper limit cases that are clear examples of the predicate under consideration (baldness, heap of sand, being rich, etc.) even though we could accuse such limit cases as being wholly arbitrary.
Sorites paradoxes are also relevant to Divine Hiddenness arguments because the proponents of such arguments say that if God existed He would have given us a "heap of evidence" so that everyone would believe in Him. However, we do not have a "heap of evidence." Therefore, God doesn't exist. Since, there are clear cases of sufficient evidence, we don't want to take the first way out of this paradox and say that there is no such thing as enough evidence to consititue a "heap." The second alternative seems better, but then I would want to know what non-abitrary criteria we can use to determine whether or not the evidence we have falls into the classification of a "heap." Whatever discrete and quantitative criteria an atheist comes up with for establihsing a lower and upper bound (where everything within those bounds consitutes a heap of evidence) would undoubtedly have to let in the amount of evidence we do have. Therefore, the Divine Hiddenness argument is asking for something we already have, but it tries to obfuscate this evidence by relying on vague predicates.
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