Phil 100 Notesheet
The Problem of Evil
Reading: J.L. Mackie, 'Evil and Omnipotence', Mind Vol LXIV No 254 (1955) pp 200-212; in the Reader, pp. 65-73.
Introduction: there are several alleged proofs of the existence of God.
The ontological argument
The teleological argument
There couldn't possibly be a Universe unless something beyond the Universe brought it into being
The Universe wouldn't stay in existence unless something beyond it was sustaining it in existence
We wouldn't have the idea of God unless there really were a God
The argument from miracles
The 'problem of evil' can be claimed as a proof that God's existence can be disproved.
'The problem of evil': God could not have created a world in which bad things happen.
Our world, it is said, is one in which there are a good number of awful things. How can a God have created a world like this? S/he couldn't, but it is, therefore there isn't.
Premise 1: God is perfectly good
Gods are not always thought of as good.
Pindar:
Single is the race, single
Of men and of gods;
From a single mother we both draw breath.
But a difference of power in everything
Keeps us apart;
For the one is as nothing, but the brazen sky
Stays a fixt habitation for ever.
Yet we can in greatness of mind
Or of body be like the Immortals,
Though we know not to what goal
By day or in the nights
Fate has written that we shall run.
" A people gets the gods which it deserves. The wayward and inscrutable demons who pester man [sic] are born of nameless terrors and inhibiting ignorance; the grinning, gloating ogres of the Aztecs mirrored a race brutalised by incessant war and fearful of unknown privations; before the Romans were moved by Greek influences to abandon their stubborn rusticity, their gods were prosaic, functional, and sanitary; the passion of the Jews for legalistic discipline in all departments of life and their exclusive nationalism found an appropriate champion in Jehovah." C.M.Bowra, The Greek Experience, New York and Washington, 1969, Praeger, p.42.
Premise 2: God is omnipotent
Premise 3: God knows everything
Attempts to resolve 'the problem of evil'
The Free-will argument
Does omniscience include knowledge of the future?
Why would an omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient Creator choose to create creatures with free-will?
Against the free will argument: some bad things that happen don't appear to be the fault of human beings
1.We are just seeing a bit of the picture.
.1 apparently bad things will be revealed as good
.2 bad things will seem justified
2. The Universe is better with some bad things in it than it could be if there were no bad things.
The problem of evil as a disproof of the existence of God:
It involves confusion to say that a being who is
wholly good
all-powerful
all-knowing
created an imperfect world.
VP