J. L. Mackie (1977) Evil & Omnipotence - PART 1
J.L. Mackie's 1977 essay begins by setting out the Problem of Evil & Suffering.
In section A, Mackie outlines the "Adequate Solutions" offered by some religious thinkers. Although he admits that these solutions work up to a point, Mackie describes them as "half-hearted" because, he argues, they don't take the idea of evil seriously enough. |
Mackie makes a distinction between 3 interpretations of the Problem of Evil & Suffering:
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Mackie presents the problem in terms of his own inconsistent triad. There are three propositions (God's goodness, God's omnipotence; the existence of evil). A theist must believe all three. However, if any two are true, the third must be false.
Mackie confines himself to what he calls "ordinary theism" because of course there are other religions with different conceptions of God, such as Sikhism and Hinduism. |
God can do all things that are possible - Thomas Aquinas
Charles Hartshorne argues that omnipotence cannot mean absolute power. This is because power is the ability to influence other things and, if those things exist, they must be able to resist power to some extent. This makes absolute or perfect power a contradictory thing.
there must be some resistance, however slight, to the "absolute" power, and how can power which is resisted be absolute? - Charles Hartshorne |
Even within mainstream Christianity, there are elements of these ideas. Many Christian groups believe God is assembling a group of "elect" Christians who will be "raptured" at the Eschaton (end of the world). They will join God in Heaven while everyone else suffers under the Devil on Earth.
This seems to involve the view that God's goodness is not opposed to evil but can exist alongside it (for a period of time, anyway). |
Mackie finishes off with a reference to Alexander Pope's poetry. Pope says that "all discord [is] harmony not understood". In other words, things seem pointless or destructive, but that's only because you're looking at them in the wrong way. If you understood "the big picture", you would see that they aren't really destructive at all.
Things that seem like "partial evil" (bad from my viewpoint) are really "universal good" (good for everyone, in the long run). |
In 2014, over two hundred schoolgirls were kidnapped from their school in Chibok, Nigeria by the Boko Haram terrorist group. Although some have escaped or been rescued, the majority are still prisoners. There are stories of sexual abuse, forced marriage and forced religious conversion. Most of the families in Chibok are Christian and prayed for the safe return of their daughters. It doesn't comfort these families if God can't answer their prayers. Even worse is the idea that the loss of their daughters isn't really a bad thing at all and they need to change their viewpoint and look for the "universal good" in Pope's poem.
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With that in perspective, you should question whether Mackie is right to treat these solutions as inadequate. Rick Warren's quote is a good one in this context. Billions of Catholics and Hindus might be wrong and Mackie might be right.
But perhaps you think it's unlikely that religious beliefs as flawed and inconsistent as Mackie presents them would command the loyalty of so many people for so long. |
On the other hand, there's a lot of hypocrisy and foolishness in religion. It's not unusual for religious people to hold wildly contradictory beliefs at the same time.
One of the reasons why philosophy of religion matters is because it demands religious people "join up the dots" in their beliefs and consider whether they are contradictory or not. This isn't something people like to do - whether they're religious or not. |