Joseph Garcia

Philosophy 101

11/30/09

Paper #3

The article by J.L Mackie, “Evil and Omnipotence”, discusses the different arguments of

an omnipotent God and whether evil could really exist. The main argument of the article is that

religious beliefs of theists and God’s existence are irrational for the most part and they can be

supported by other beliefs that a theist has. In other words, God’s existence cannot be proven,

but it can be disproved by the same beliefs that a person has of him, holds. Mackie also argues

that, if God were omnipotent, or all powerful, and also wholly good, then he would cancel out all

evil and there would only be good in the world. Mackie states that this is not true because evil

does exist. This is the problem with evil and a wholly good and omnipotent God. (Mackie, 200)

A few solutions that Mackie discusses to this problem is to believe that “God is not

wholly good, or not quite omnipotent, or that evil does not really exist, or that good is not

opposed to the kind of evil that does exist” (Mackie, 201). A few other solutions that people have

decided to believe are that God is not omnipotent and there are limits to what he can do. Also

some say that evil is an illusion and only exists in our world and maybe things that we call evil

are not really evil (Mackie, 201). Others believe that evil is only a privation of good and evil is a

positive sense and is not oppose to good. Some also believe that “disorder is harmony not

understood, and that partial evil is universal good” (Mackie, 201). Mackie then discusses some

problems with these beliefs.

Mackie argues that these thoughts also have problems with them. If people accepted that

God had limited power but still used omnipotent to describe him, they may still trick themselves
into thinking that he is still all powerful. People believe that evil is an illusion may come to

believe that the illusion itself is evil (Mackie, 202). Going along the same guidelines, people who

think that evil is a privation of good may come to think that privation of good is evil. Lastly, the

saying that disorder is only harmony not understood and that partial evil is universal good, is

saying that there is still evil, but just a little bit of it (Mackie, 202).Mackie then goes on to

explain that there are then a few fallacious solutions that implicitly keep all the propositions but

implicitly rejects one of them to eliminate the problem of evil (Mackie, 202). This means that it

keeps all the ideas that God is good, omnipotent, and that evil exists, but at the same time it

quietly rejects one of these statements to make the solution appear believable. Mackie then

discusses four of these fallacious solutions in detail. I will summarize the first of the four

fallacious solutions Mackie describes.

The first fallacious solution Mackie discusses is that” good cannot exist without evil” or

“evil is necessary as a counterpart to good” (Mackie, 203). This is stating that good and evil need

each other to exist. Saying this sets a limit to what God can do and saying that God is not

omnipotent or puts a limit on what an omnipotent being can do (Mackie, 203). Mackie then

states that some theists believe that God is able to do what is logically impossible. This means

that God can do whatever he wants but chooses to be logical and has a logical way of doing

things that we can understand (Mackie, 203). This is saying that God created logic and, can

basically do anything that may be seen to us as impossible but just chooses not to.

Mackie than goes on to explain that maybe good and evil are counterparts, as small is to

great. If there were nothing great then there would be nothing to compare something small to and

vice versa. Then, at the same time he says that maybe they can be used in a sense of greater or

smaller. This means that you could describe something as being greater than before and this
would have no need for using smaller. In reference to good and evil you could describe

something as being gooder that before and not use evil but just say it is not as good as it once

was. This way good could be considered as not needing evil to exist. Also Mackie argues that if

good and evil were counterparts, and also needed each there to exist, then there would only be

enough good to sustain evil and vice versa. So, this means that there would be a limited supply of

good to go around. In other words Mackie is saying that using this solution all the evil in the

world is necessary and that it is just enough to sustain good (Mackie, 205). Throughout this

solution Mackie argues that if God were really wholly good and omnipotent then there would be

no evil. This is the main point of his argument and he is able to somewhat disprove these claims

by showing how theists can explain the existence of evil and at the same time claim that God is

wholly good and omnipotent. As stated before Mackie says that if this were really true then it

would be logical to think that God would cancel out all evil and it would not exist.
 Sources

J.L. Mackie, “Evil and Omnipotence”.