Guilt as Divine Evidence of Culpability? A Bayesian and Cross-Cultural Appraisal - 26

Felt guilt by itself does not identify divine conviction or establish culpability before a specified deity. The apologetic inference is comparative: if a deity uses guilt as a source-specific signal, the complete pattern of guilt should be more expected under that account than under ordinary human explanations. Yet guilt has well-established interpersonal and self-regulatory functions; its objects and expression are shaped by learning and culture; and it can occur without wrongdoing or become clinically distorted in scrupulosity. These strands make guilt unsurprising under ordinary psychological accounts and expose a gap between feeling morally accused and knowing who, if anyone, is doing the accusing. The strongest reply is that emotions can sometimes provide defeasible moral justification. That point protects guilt's possible evidential value concerning wrongdoing, but it does not identify a supernatural source, a particular God-concept, or culpability under that account. A divine-conviction model could gain support through independently verified, source-specific, and predictively superior markers. Until such markers are supplied, guilt should prompt examination of harm, responsibility, and repair without being promoted into public evidence of divine origin.