Mackie's Argument : Evil And Omnipotence

Some say, “Good cannot exist without evil”. Mackie replies to this saying if good is not allowed to exist without an evil counterpart we put a limitation on God. Therefore God is not omnipotent, it creates a non-contradiction fallacy. A person could argue with the example of redness, if something is red we would have to know what non-redness is, otherwise we would not notice that it was red in the first place. Like evil if evil did not exist we would not know what good is. The problem with this is, does it matter if we know if good exists or not? If God could have made people to exist to be all good, why didn’t he? Mackie believes this to be evidence for if there is a God he is not wholly good. Maybe, “Evil is necessary as a means to good” this would mean God is bound by casual laws, inferring that the rejection of an omnipotent God would only suffice this

In 1968, H.J. McCloskey, an Australian Philosopher wrote an article titled “On Being an Atheist” which is an attempt for his personal reasons to reject the belief in God. In the article McCloskey criticizes against the theistic proofs, which are cosmological argument and the teleological argument. Majority of the article is focused on the evil issues and catastrophic events to innocent people in a world that is supposedly designed by an omnipotent and loving God, which McCloskey believes is a valid case in his arguments against cosmological and teleological arguments as well as his assertions that evil is proof against God’s existence. But, it still remains that the most reasonable explanation for the creator of the universe

The philosopher J.L. Mackie wrote a very convincing piece on the problem of evil called “Evil and Omnipotence,” in which he attempts to show that one of the following premises must be false in order for them to be consistent with each other.

Because of the controversial nature of premise one, this helps prove Rowe’s point that God does not exist. Again, premise one states, a wholly good being could prevent evil. Then, again, premise two says that not a wholly being would prevent evil. Then, if he could and he would prevent evil, and there is evil, he must not exist. Put simply, Rowe argues that the existence of evil proves that God is not real. Now, let’s focus on only premise one.

The existence of evil does not prove that there is not a good God. The author makes a very good case against this argument. Evil points to the existence of a good God. God was in existence before there was evil so to say that evil proves there is no God is false. Some people say that evil points away from God’s existence, however, their claim has no support. The fact that we think and speak evil is proof that there is a good God because

A more extreme definition will first be considered, in which God is seen as a being which can do anything, regardless of logical possibility; triangles may be made to have no angle, and mathematical equations may be changed in what ever way desired. Such a requirement seems to be a contradiction, as requiring an agent to do that which is impossible is a contradiction, as by definition what is I'm possible can not be done under any circumstance; to abandon logic is to abandon every method by which humans can come to understand, defeating the entire process, whilst also placing unrealistic demands upon such a being (omnipotence source). It is therefore more accurate to define this argument in the realm of the possible, leaving the possibility that an omnipotent being can do anything possible, whenever they so choose. Such a claim leads the discussion back to that of the presence of evil, as an omnipotent being should be able to do that which they choose in regards to creating it. A possible reconciliation may be made, as omnipotence simply means maximal power, or in other words power which can not be surpassed by another; meaning they are not actually required to do all things possible either, they must only be the most powerful, which does not preclude another from being able to do something he can not, but only that such a being is not surpassed or

The fourth argument states that everything has a gradient to how “good” it is. It also states that God is the highest of this gradient, basically making God the perfect being. Yet if God is good then he would stop world hunger, wouldn't he? Or God could stop poverty or sadness, doing so would make them the perfect being, yet God doesn't do this and only an imperfect being would keep power to themselves and watch others struggle, this would make them bad and not good. Yet this is also only an opinion, implying that not every opinion of good or bad is the same, so how is one to decide God’s level of good. Does God decide his gradient of good, because if we are to assume God is the perfect being then he can surely spread it, after all nothing is stopping him? Or is God

However, people often question God’s omnipotence when they hear that He is all-powerful and nothing is impossible for him. Can God sin? Can God die? The response to this is that God is able to do anything that is not against his character; hence, Grudem’s definition “God is able to do all his

Nobody is able to penetrate God’s purpose in order to know for certain why in some point of the evolutionary process. He has created a completely new type of a living being which can be good or bad by its own choice (Kushner 95). However, he did it and the world has since seen many manifestation of nobility and no less of cruelty. The thing that leads Kushner to rethink his point of view of an omnipotent God is the question Kushner himself confronted as a young father when his first born child died. Kushner said that if he had to face the fact that God was either all-powerful but not kind, or thoroughly kind and loving, but not totally powerful, he would rather compromise God's power and affirm his love. I came to is that God could have been all-powerful at the beginning, but he chose to designate two areas of life off-limits to his power," Kushner says. "He would not arbitrarily interfere with laws of nature. And secondly, God would not take away our freedom to choose between good and

With no doubts, the reality of the world in which the humanity lives incorporates evil and suffering. That, in turn, presents a significant challenge to belief in the existence of God. In particular, God would certainly end all suffering and evil in the world if God were truly all-powerful. Surely, Gould would want to act somehow regarding these perpetual matters if God were morally perfect. Throughout the history, in everyday life and around the world, the humanity faces multiple examples of evil and suffering. Everything mentioned above seems to conflict with the claim that there is a perfectly good God, specifically, the claim of orthodox theist. The problem of evil is the aforementioned challenge itself posed by this obvious conflict.

“The problem of evil” has been the most powerful argument going against God’s existence. The core argument is whether the occurrence of evil in the world is an indication that God has never existed or questions the reason to believe in such a God. Since God has been understood from tradition to be omnipotent and supremely good, the existence of evil raises questions on His existence. This paper compares and contrasts the ontological and the teleological arguments of God’s existence with the problem of evil argument about God’s non-existence.

I am arguing about the issue whether God cannot or will not prevent evil, I chose to argue that God is not limited in either power or benevolence. The truth is that God will not prevent evil. This does not take away God’s benevolence. If we did not have free will, we might all have the mentality of robots. As a matter of fact, God does not want his children to be forced to love him, he wants us to willingly choose to follow him and to love him.

This is because the inconsistency in the concept of God in the presence of evil. To accept that a morally perfect God with all power; and one that at the same time is capable of eliminating evil but chooses not to will call into question the very nature of God. Put another way, a God that can not prevent all evil is not all powerful. If He knows there is evil and can prevent it but chooses not to, then He is not perfectly good. To bridge this apparent contradiction, some theologians introduce the concept of free will.

The problem of evil which forms as; ‘is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?’ (Lactanitus). Epicurus here challenges the properties we associate with God, suggesting that those properties do not add up to reality and be consistent with perceived belief about the nature and existence of God. We can form the problem into an inconsistent triad (J.L Mackie, 212) which runs that God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent and evil exists. He postulates that “no valid solution of the problem which does not modify at least one of the constituent propositions”, positing that is would be impossible to remove one of the characteristics of God without moving the image of God so far away from our traditional understanding that it becomes unrecognisable and the problem still remains.

The freewill argument maintains that God created man with morally significant freewill to choose between good and bad (Friesenhahn 54). It is, therefore, not possible for god to completely eliminate evil and human suffering without turning humans into robots without the ability to make moral decisions. Freewill, in this sense, is meant to offer a morally sufficient reason for God to permit evil in the universe.