Is evil's existence incompatible with the existence of God?
Topic: Is the existence of evil incompatible with the existence of God? If not, is it a reason to suppose that God does not exist?
In a strong argument for atheism, J.L. Mackie presents the argument from evil. His logical argument for evil is comprised of showing theists’ beliefs to be inconsistent. He states that God being omnipotent and omni-benevolent is contradictory with the existence of evil. Though his argument seems to be a good one, Mackie does provide four responses, or theodicies that are possible solutions to the problem of evil. Three of these are that ‘evil is necessary as a counterpart to good’, ‘evil is a necessary means to good’, and that ‘the universe is better with some evil in it than it could be if there were no evil,’ which can be seen as deceptive. On the other hand, the fourth possible solution is the theodicy that ‘evil is due to human free will’, which since is not under God’s jurisdiction, can be consistent with the coexistence of God’s omni-benevolence, His omni-potency and the existence of evil. However, I believe that the success of this solution is also based upon the definition of God’s omnipotence. According to Mackie’s definition of omnipotence, I will now proceed to explore why I believe God is not omnipotent and that evil is in fact incompatible with the existence of God.
The point of Mackie’s argument is not to prove that God does not exist, but to show the inconsistency of what theists believe, which could then lead to further arguments to determine if God actually exists. The definition of God according to a theist is that God is perfection, which then leads to God being omni-benevolent or all good, omniscient, or all knowing, and omnipotent or all powerful. Mackie looks into God’s omni-benevolence and omni-potency and deems these characteristics of God to be inconsistent with the fact that there is evil in the world, meaning that these three propositions cannot all be true at once. He then logically explains that since God is omni-benevolent, he would want to bring about only good. In addition to that, He being omni-potent should then be a reason that God would have the power to bring about only good. But evil does exist in this world, which means that either God is not omni-benevolent or He is not omnipotent. This is the problem of evil. The two...