Jesus' return as lottery puzzle: a reply to Donald Smith

AbstractIn his recent article, ‘Lottery puzzles and Jesus' return’, Donald Smith says that Christians should accept a very robust scepticism about the future because a Christian ought to think that the probability of Jesus' return happening at any future moment is inscrutable to her. But I think that Smith's argument lacks the power rationally to persuade Christians who are antecedently uncommitted as to whether or not we can or do have any substantive knowledge about the future. Moreover, I think that Christians who are so antecedently uncommitted have available objections they can reasonably press against Smith's arguments. In the article, I attempt to bring out these objections.