Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
4Extract 1: J.L. Mackie ‘Evil and Omnipotence’ (1977)
Taken from: T he Philosophy of Religion, edit ed by B Mit c hell (Oxford, OUP, 1977),
Chapter V, Evil and Omnipotenc e, pp. 92–104.
The traditional arguments for the existenc e of God have been fairly thoroughly
c rit ic ized by philosophers. But t he t heologian c an, if he wishes, ac c ept t his c rit ic ism.
He c an admit t hat no rat ional proof of God’s exist enc e is possible. And he c an st ill
ret ain all t hat is essent ial t o his posit ion, by holding t hat God’s exist enc e is known
is some other non-rat ional way. I t hink, however, t hat a more t elling c rit ic ism c an
be made by way of the traditional problem of evil. Here it can be shown, not that
religious beliefs lac k rat ional support, but that they are positively irrational, that the
several parts of the essential theologic al doc trine are inc onsistent with one another,
so that the theologian c an maintain his position as a whole only by a muc h more
extreme rejection of reason than in the former case. He must now be prepared to
believe, not merely what cannot be proved, but what can be disproved from ot her
beliefs t hat he also holds.
The problem of evil, in the sense in whic h I shall be using the phrase, is a
problem only for someone who believes that there is a God who is both omnipotent
and wholly good. And it is a logic al problem, t he problem of c larifying and
rec onc iling a number of beliefs: it is not a sc ient ific problem t hat might be solved
by furt her observat ions, or a prac t ic al problem t hat might be solved by a dec ision
or an ac tion. These points are obvious; I mention them only bec ause they are
sometimes ignored by theologians, who sometimes parry a statement of the
problem with suc h remarks as ‘Well, c an you solve the problem yourself?’ or ‘T his is
a mystery which may be revealed to us later’ or ‘Evil is somet hing t o be fac ed and
overcome, not to be merely discussed.’
In it s simplest form t he problem is t his: God is omnipot ent : God is wholly
good; and yet evil exist s. T here seems to be some contradiction between these
three propositions, so that if any two of them were true, the third would be false.
But at the same time all three are essential parts of most theological positions: the
theologian, it seems, at once must adhere and c annot c onsistently adhere t o all
three. (The problem does not arise only for theists, but I shall disc uss it in the form
in whic h it present s it self for ordinary t heism.)
However, the contradiction does not arise immediately; to show it we need
so me addit ional premisses, or perhaps some quasi-logic al rules c onnec t ing t he
t erms ‘good’, ‘evil’ and ‘omnipot ent ’. T hese addit ional princ iples are t hat good is
opposed t o evil, in suc h a way t hat a good t hing always eliminat es evil as far as it
c an, and that t here are no limit s to what an omnipotent thing c an do. From these it
follows t hat a good omnipot ent t hing eliminat es evil c omplet ely, and t hen t he
propositions that a good omnipotent thing exists, and that evil exists, are
inc ompat ible.