Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
6B. Fallacious Solutions
Besides these half-heart ed solut ions, whic h explic it ly rejec t but implic it ly assert
one of the c onstituent propositions, there are definitely fallac ious solutions whic h
explic it ly maint ain all of t he c onst it uent proposit ions, but implic it ly rejec t at least
one of them in the c ourse of the argument that explains away the problem of evil.
There are, in fac t, many so-c alled solutions whic h purport to remove the
c ontradic tions without abandoning any of its c onstituent propositions. These must
be fallac ious, as we can see from the very statement of the problem, but it is not so
easy to see in each case precisely where the fallacy lies. I suggest that in all cases
the fallacy has the general form suggested above: in order to solve the problem
one (or perhaps more) of its c onstituent propositions is given up, but in suc h a way
that it appears to have been retained, and can therefore be asserted without
qualific at ions in ot her c ont ext s. Sometimes there is a further complication: the
supposed solution moves to and fro between say, two of the constituent
propositions, at one point asserting the first of these but c overtly abandoning the
first. These fallac ious solutions often turn upon some equivoc ation with the words
‘good’ and ‘evil’, or upon some vagueness about the way in whic h good and evil are
opposed to one another, or about how muc h is meant by ‘omnipotenc e’. I propose
to examine some of these so-c alled solut ions, and t o exhibit t heir fallac ies in det ail.
Inc ident ally, I shall also be c onsidering whet her an adequat e solut ion c ould be
reached by a minor modification of one or more of the constituent propositions,
whic h would, however, st ill sat isfy all t he essent ial requirement s of ordinary t heism.
- ‘Good c annot exist wit hout evil’ or ‘Evil is nec essary as a c ounterpart to good.’
It is sometimes suggested that evil is necessary as a counterpart to good, that
if there were no evil there could be no good either, and that this solves the problem
of evil. It is true that it points to an answer to the question ‘Why should there be
evil?’ But it does so only by qualifying some of t he proposit ions t hat c onst it ut e t he
problem.
First, it sets a limit to what God can do, saying that God c annot create good
without simultaneously c reating evil, and this means either that God is not
omnipotent or that there are some limits to what an omnipotent thing c an do. It
may be replied that these limits are always presupposed, that omnipotence has
never meant the power to do what is logically impossible, and on the present view
the existenc e of good wit hout evil would be a logic al impossibilit y. T his
interpretation of omnipotence may, indeed, be accepted as a modification of our
original ac c ount whic h does not rejec t anything that is essential to theism, and I
shall in general assume it in the subsequent disc ussion. It is, perhaps, the most
c ommon theistic view, but I think that some theists at least have maintained that
God c an do what is logic ally impossible. Many theists, at any rate, have held that
logic it self is c reat ed or laid down by God, t hat logic is t he way in whic h God
arbit rarily c hooses t o t hink. (T his is, of c ourse, parallel t o t he et hic al view t hat
morally right ac tions are those whic h God arbitrarily c hooses to c ommand, and the
t wo views enc ount er similar diffic ult ies.) And t his ac c ount of logic is c learly
inc onsist ent wit h t he view t hat God is bound by logic al nec essit ies – unless it is