Summary Of Evil And Omnipotence By J. L. Mackie

owe to prove his thesis about the problems of evil and atheism, Rowe asks three fundamental questions. The first question, “is there an argument for atheism based on the problem of evil that could rationally justify atheism?” Supporting his question, Rowe by uses the idea of human and animal suffering.is it reasonable for omnipotent, omniscient being(s) to permits its creation to suffer by extinguish each other for their own personal benefits. If there is such a thing as an omnibenevolent, omnipotent holy being how come the ultimate and unescapable suffering is this world has no vanish. How good is a god(s) that permits humanity to suffer greatly? In religious Christian Bible study, Jesus, many times referred to as god, vanish evil from

The Concept of Evil in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Stevenson The substance of the Bible and Greek myths - the premise of the evil that is in man - sometimes lurking deep in the psyche, sometimes controlling and consuming like a wild beast, is explored in Robert Louis Stevenson's (1850-94) short Victorian novel of 1886. Rarely does the mere title of a novel have the myth-making depth to grip the imagination and ensure its place in our language for generations to come. Today everyone knows what is meant by a 'Jekyll and Hyde character'. A handful of other novels with this quality perhaps come to mind; including 'Frankenstein'.

The question that was posed in this week’s discussion had me pondering not only what I felt about the statement, “God is good,” but also what the book referred to as a prerequisite that adhered to the statement. First I would like to take a look at what the author of the book refers to as “good” when referencing God. J.L. Mackie’s principle states, “It follows that a good omnipotent thing eliminates evil completely, and then the propositions that a good omnipotent things exists, and that evil exists, are incompatible” (Davies 209). This statement made by Mackie would suggest that if there was a good omnipotent “thing,” evil would not exist. Mackie believes that since evil exists, then there must not be a God. Mackie also points out a contradiction

John Hick discusses in his essay The Problem of Evil, the objections to the belief in the existence of God is the presence of evil in the world. He begins by posing the traditional challenge to theism in the form of the dilemma: That if God was perfectly loving, he must wish to abolish evil, and being all powerful, is able to perfectly do so as he will its. He then proceeds to present some views regarding this issue, giving insights from three point of views, that of contemporary Christian Science, the Boston Personalist school, and the theologian Augustine. The first opinion takes evil as an illusion, as a construct of the human mind. The second confers upon God finity, God as a struggling ruler,

Mackie saves the strongest and probably the most popular theistic response to this argument for last. The free will solution claims that the existence of 2nd order evils is not a product of God but of mankind’s own freewill. The supporters of this claim hold that freedom is a good even greater than 2nd order goods and believe that God is justified for letting 2nd order evils exist in exchange for the ultimate good of freedom. This is to say that even though God is omnipotent he chooses not to use his power to control the will of men. In comparison to the first two theistic responses this one seems to be the best. So it is surprising how easily Mackie disproves it. He asks, if God is all good and all powerful, and if free will is good enough to justify 2nd order evils, why didn’t he create men so that they would freely choose to do good? The only possible objection to this is to say that God’s power is limited and that he is not omnipotent. Also if God is omniscient doesn’t he already know the outcomes of the men which he has created? To truly allow man to have free will God would have to restrict his own power in order to be unable to control men and this leads us to the Paradox of omnipotence.

The problem of evil as suffering is a problem of what to do with the obstacle for the believer but also an obstacle to unbeliever to converge because they do not think it harmonising. In contradiction to compatibility, an atheist often suggested that the present of evil entails the absence of God. Atheist argued, if God exists, then as an omnipotent, he is able to prevent the evil occurrence. For omniscient, it implies under any circumstances evil will occur if he does not act. Then, being perfectly good, he will prevent its occurrence and so evil will not exist. Based on this above proclamation, the existence of God does not compatible with the evil of whatever kind. However, theists response to this logical problem of evil by an atheist is that necessarily perfectly good being, foreseeing the occurrence of evil and able to prevent it, will prevent evil. The essay will first, define what evil is according to Swinburne as one of the philosopher of religion, Second, Swinburne four categories of evil will be discussed (Physical evil, mental evil, state evil, moral evil). Third, Phillip logical and existential problem evil will be discussed through. How will all these above assertions be a problem to those that and does not believe in God.

On the topic of the existence of God, Ernest Nagel and Richard Swinburne have construct arguments that challenge one another. In Nagel’s article, “Does God Exist?” he argues that if God is all-powerful, omniscient, and benevolent; he would know when evil occurs and has the power to prevent it. Because evil occurs, God does not exist. This is the problem of evil. Challenging Nagel, the article by Swinburne, “Why God Allows Evil,” argues that God has the right to allow moral and natural evils to occur because those evils reap greater goods that make the lives of human-beings meaningful. He extends his argument to the idea that God seeks to provide human beings with goods such as freewill and responsibility of not only ourselves, but of the world and others. While Nagel utilizes the problem of evil as an objection to the existence of God, Swinburne employs it to show that God allows evil to occur to provide human beings with goods that go beyond moments of pleasure and joys of happiness.

Moving on to the second premise: in order for God to be classified as both omnipotent and wholly good, He would take the option to always make men choose good in their free will. Mackie’s thought process in believing this is linked with the definitions of omnipotent and wholly good in theism itself. These indicate that in order to be omnipotent, one must have no limit to what one can do, and in order to be wholly good, one would eliminate evil. What Mackie is

Mackie likewise rejects the quarrel for the reason that if it would be right then God cannot be kind or understanding, merits used to demarcate exclusively good.

The argument against the existence of God is incompatible with the existence of an all-loving, all-powerful God.

Now that Mackie has shown that Adequate Solutions will not prove to be sufficient solutions for the problem of evil, he moves to the next section, 'Fallicious Solutions.' This section is where the solutions to the problem of evil will prove applicable but fallacious through argument. Mackie explains that he will be trying to consider whether or not it is possible to arrive at an adequate solution by

In the article “Evil and Omnipotence,” J. L. Mackie outlines the problem of evil as being the result of three statements which are logically inconsistent with each other, where if any two were true then, in turn, the third would have to be false. The first statement of the problem of evil is “God is omnipotent,” the second “God is all good,” and the third “evil exists.” The problem of evil assumes that “omnipotence” means there are no limits to God’s power, that good is opposed to evil in the sense that anything all good would seek to eliminate as much evil as possible, and that therefore an omnipotent and all-good being should aim to completely eliminate evil.

LEIBNIZ’S CONCEPTION OF THE PROBLEM OF EVIL BY OKOJIE E. PETER epo4escriva@yahoo.com MAY 2013 INTRODUCTION For many centuries, philosophers have been discussing evil, how it exists in the world, and how this relates to God. The discussion on evil and its relations to us is not an easy one though. It is commonly called the problem of evil. The problem of evil in contemporary philosophy is generally regarded as an argument for atheism. The atheist contends that God and evil are incompatible, and given that evil clearly exists, God cannot exist. The problem is generally used to disprove God’s existence by showing an inconsistency between an all-powerful, all-good, and all-knowing God; and the existence of evil. Philosophers over the centuries

Full in symbolism and somewhat gothic in its analysis, that it has caused a great partition among the literary critics of Melville. Various critics have argued that the text defenses the association of slavery while others have argued that it sentences it. There are those who have not taken into consideration at all the racial problems concerning the blacks and the whites and have perceived the text as a story of moral disintegration and immorality of humanity.

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.