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7/17/2019 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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Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford
ox P
Oxford New York Toronto
Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi
Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo
Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town
Melbourne Auckland
and associated companies
in
Berlin Ibadan
Oxford
s
a trade mark ofOxford University Press
Published in the United States
by Oxford University Press, New York
Except where othenvise stated
©
Oxford University Press, 1990
First published 1990
Paperback reprinted 1992
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in anyform or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
the prior permission
of
Oxford University Press
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way
of
trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or othenvise circulated
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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
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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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