So abductive inference (IBE) is distinguished from enumerative induction. The former basically involves inverting deductive conditionals to generate hypotheses. So when asked why the grass is wet we immediately start coming up with deductive stories for how the grass might have gotten wet "It rained therefore the grass got wet", "The sprinkler was on therefor the grass got wet" (note that the idea that explanans deductively entail explanandum is almost certainly false but this was the dominant position in philosophy of science when abductive inference was first discussed and a lot of times people don't update their versions of IBE to take into account the, much better, causal model of explanation). Then the available hypotheses are compared and the best one chosen according to some set of ideal criteria. In contrast, enumerative induction involves looking at lots of particular pieces of evidence and generalizing "I've seen the grass be wet 100 times and 90 of those times it had rained, therefore it rained (with a 10% chance I'm wrong)".
Now, the "ideal criteria" for an IBE differ from philosopher to philosopher but everyone worth their salt will include degree of consistency with past observation so IBE essentially subsumes enumerative induction. Usually the additional criteria are vaguer things like parsimony and generality. Now, since enumerative induction is about the frequency of observations it is more conducive to mathematical analysis and the Bayesian method. But the things IBE adds to the picture of inference aren't things the Bayesian method has to ignore, you just have to incorporate the complexity of a hypothesis into its prior. But since objective Occam priors are the most confusing, controversial and least rigorous aspect of Bayesian epistemology there is room to claim that somehow our incorporation of economy into our inferences requires a vaguer, more subjective approach.
But that's stupid. The fact that we're bad Bayesian reasoners isn't a rebuttal to the foundational arguments of Bayesian epistemology (though, those aren't fantastic either). Your inferential method still has to correspond to Bayes' rule or your beliefs are vulnerable to being dutch booked and your behavior can be demonstrated to be suboptimal according to your own notion of utility (assuming certain plausible axioms about agency).
That the authors say things like "If one wants to evaluate the probability that this world exists and there are infinitely many possibilities, n, then no matter how small a probability one assigns to each one, the sum will be infinite" suggests they are either unfamiliar with or reject an approach identifying the ideal prior with the computational complexity of the hypothesis (note that a strict enumerative inductive approach can be redeemed if facts about computational complexity are nothing more than meta-inductive facts about our universe(s)).
Whether one accepts that approach or not it plainly can't be worse than relying on evolved, instinctual or aesthetic preference when picking hypotheses-- which I assume is where they're going with this. One needn't apply an explicitly Bayesian method at all to reject God on IBE grounds. Theism plainly fails any economy criteria one would want- and I could go on about why but this comment needs to end.
Thanks for the comment; I think it aligns well with many of the rest of the comments as well. I actually would be interested to know what you mean by "fails any economy criteria." I'm not familiar with that term.
I'm about 2/3 through an apologetics book that was recommended to me, Menssen and Sullivan's, The Agnostic Inquirer, and was quite surprised to run into a discussion of Bayes theorem and wanted some input from the LW community. The book is quite philosophical and I admit that I am probably not following all of it. I find heady philosophy to be one of these areas where something doesn't seem quite right (as in the conclusion that someone pushes), but I can't always identify what.
In any case, the primary point of the book is to attempt to replace the traditional apologetics method with a new one. The status quo has been to appeal to "natural theology," non-theological areas of discussion which attempt to bring one to the conclusion that some kind of theistic being exists, and from there establish that Christianity is the true formulation of what, exactly, this theistic being is/wants/does, etc by examining revealed theistic truths (aka the Bible). Menssen and Sullivan attempt to suggest that revelation need not be put off so long.
I don't want to get too into it, but think this helps set the stage. Their argument is as follows:
Issues Menssen and Sullivan have with Bayes applicability to this arena:
Then they begin trying to choose the best method for evaluating revelatory content. This is where Bayes comes in. The pages are almost all available via Google books HERE in Section 4.2.1, beginning on page 173. They suggest the following limitations: