Excerpts from Mackie and Rowe(1).pdf

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THE

PRO LEM OF EVIL

ite

M RILYN

McCORD

D MS

n

RO ERT

MERRIHEW D MS



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First published 1990

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EVIL

AND O M N I P O T E N C E

J L M CKIE

traditional arguments for the existence of God have been fairly

thC)rouglhlycriticised by philosophers. But the theologian can, if he wishes,

this criticism. He can admit that no rational proof of God s existence

oo:ssltJle. And he can still retain all that

is

essential to his position, by

that

God s

existence is known in some other, non-rational way. I

however, that a more telling criticism can be made by way of the

tra diti:onal problem of evil. Here it can be shown, not that religious beliefs

rational support, but

that

they are positively irrational, that the several

of the essential theological doctrine are inconsistent with one another,

the theologian can maintain his position

as

a whole only by a much

extreme rejection of reason than in the former case. He must now be



A A D E QU A TE S O L UT I ON S

27

VIL AND

OM NI POTENCE

B

F A L LA C I OU S S O L UT I ON S

these half-hearted solutions, which explicitly reject bu t implicitly

one of the constituent propositions, there are definitely fallacious

sol111ti<ms which explicitly maintain all the constituent propositions, but

imlPli<jtly reject

at

least

o ne o f t he m

in the course

of

the argument

that

expllaills away the problem of evil.

There are, in fact, many so-called solutions which purport to remove th e

C011tr:adiction without abandoning any of its constituent propositions.

must be fallacious, as we can see from the very s tatement of the

pro1ble:m,

butit is not so easy to see in each case precisely where the fallacy

I suggest that in all cases the fallacy has the general form suggested

above: in order to solve the problem one (or perhaps more) ofits constituent

propositions

is

given up, but in such a way that it appears to have been

and can therefore be asser ted without qualification in other

COI lte) ts. Sometimes there is a further complication: the supposed solution

to and fro between, say, two

of

the constituent propositions, at one

asserting the first of these but covertly abandoning the second, at

point asserting the second bu t covertly abandoning the first. These

g a ~ ; o n a b l y be suspected of thinking, in other contexts, that his power is

unlimited. Those who say that evil is an illusion may also be thinking,

that this illusion is itself an evil. Those who say that evil is

privation ofgood mayalso b.e

t h i ~ k i n g

inconsistently, that,privatio.n

is an evil. (The fallacy here IS akm to some forms of the naturalIstIc

in ethics, where some think, for example, that good

is

just what

Arltributes to evolutionary progress, and that evolutionary progress is

good.)

Pope meant what he said in the first line of his couplet, that

di:sorder is only harmony not understood, th e artial evil of the second

must, for consistency, mean

that

which, taken in isolation, falsely

to be evil , but it would more naturally mean

that

which, in

is61lati

1

n, really is evil .

Th e

second line, in fact, hesitates between two

that partial evil isn t really evil, since only the universal quality is

and that partial evil is really an evil, but only a li tt le one.

addition, therefore, to adequate solutions, we must recognise un

satisfclct<)ry

inconsistent solutions, in which there is only a half-hearted or

t e n l P C r a I ~ Y

rejection of one

of

the propositions which together constitute

problem. In these , one of the constituent p r p s t ~ s is explicitly

tej,ect,ed, bu t it is covertly re-asserted or assumed elsewherem the system.

J L M ACKIE

6

Now once

th e

problem is fully stated it

is

clear that it can be solved, in

sense tha t the problem will not arise if one gives up at least one of

propositions that constitute it. you are prepared to say that Go d is

wholly good; or

no t

quite omnipotent, or that evil does not exist, or

good is not opposed to the kind of evil that exists, or that there are limits to

what anomnipotent thing can do, then theproblem ofevil will not arise for

you.

There are , then, quite a number of adequate solutions of the problem of

evil, and some of these have been adopted,

or

almost adopted, by various

thinkers. For example, a few have been prepared to denyGod somnipotence,

and rather more have been prepared to keep the term omnipotence bu t

severely to restrict its meaning, recording quite a number

of

things that an

omnipoten t being cannot do. Some have said tha t evil

is

an illusion,

perhaps because they held that the whole world of temporal, changing

things is an illusion, and that what we call evil belongs only to this world,

or perhaps because they held that although temporal things r much as

we see them, those that we call evil are not really evil. Some have said that

what we call evil is merely the privation of good, that evil in a posit ive

sense, evil tha t would really be opposed to good, does not exist. Many

have agreed with Pope that disorder is harmony not understood, and that

partial evil is universal good. Whether any of these views is tru is,

of

course, another question.

Bu t

each of them gives an adequate solution of

the problem of evil in the sense that ifyou accept i t this problem does not

ar ise for you, though you may,

of

course, have

oth r

problems to face.

Bu t often enough these adequate solutions are only lmost adopted. Th e

thinkers who restrict God s power, bu t keep the term omnipotence , may

theists, bu t I shall discuss i t in the form in which it presents it self

ordinary theism.)

However, the contradiction does not arise immediately; to show it

need some additional premises, or perhaps some quasi-logical rules con

necting the terms good , evil , and omnipotent . These additional principles

ar e that good is opposed to evil, in such a way tha t a good thing alway

eliminates evil as far as it can, and that t here are no limits to what a

omnipotent thing can do. From these it follows that a good omnipoten

thing eliminates evil completely, and then the propositions that a goo

omnipotent thing exists, and that evil exists, are incompatible.

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