THE PROBLEM OF EVILEdited by

MARILYN McCORD ADAMSand

ROBERT MERRIHEW ADAMS

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford ox2 6DP

Oxford New York TorontoDelhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi

Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong TokyoNairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town

Melbourne Auckland

and associated companies inBerlin Ibadan

Oxford is a trade mark ofOxford University Press

Published in the United Statesby Oxford University Press, New York

Except where othenvise stated © Oxford University Press, 1990

First published 1990Paperback reprinted 1992

All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without

the prior permission ofOxford University Press

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by wayoftrade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or othenvise circulated

without the publisher's prior consent in any form ofbinding or ,coverother than that in which it is published and without a similar condition

including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The problem ofevil.-(O),ford readings in philosophy).I. Evil

1. Adams, Marilyn McCord II. Adams, Robert MerrihewII1.84

ISBN 0--19-824867-9ISBN 0-19-824866-0 (Pbk)

Library ofCongress Cataloging in Publication Data

The Problem ofevil/edited by Marilyn McCord Adams and RobertMerrihew Adams.

p. cm.-(Oxford readings in philosophy)Includes bibliographical references.

I. Good and evil. 2. Theodicy. I. Adams, Marilyn McCord.lI. Adams, Robert Merrihew. IlI. Series.

BJ/401.P76 1990 2I6-dc20 90-34004

ISBN 0-19-824867-9ISBN 0-19-824866-0 (Pbk.)

Printed and bound inGreat Britain by Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd,

Midsomer Norton, Avon

I

EVIL AND OMNIPOTENCE

J. L. MACKIE

traditional arguments for the existence of God have been fairlythC)rouglhlycriticised by philosophers. But the theologian can, if he wishes,

this criticism. He can admit that no rational proof of God's existenceoo:ssltJle. And he can still retain all that is essential to his position, by

that God's existence is known in some other, non-rational way. Ihowever, that a more telling criticism can be made by way of the

tra,diti:onal problem of evil. Here it can be shown, not that religious beliefsrational support, but that they are positively irrational, that the severalof the essential theological doctrine are inconsistent with one another,

the theologian can maintain his position as a whole only by a muchextreme rejection of reason than in the former case. He must now be

prep31red to believe, not merely what cannot be proved, but what can bedis(Jrcwed from other beliefs that he also holds.

problem of evil, in the sense in which I shall be using the-phrase, is aprc)bll~m only for someone who believes that there is a God who is bothOI11nir)otl~nt and wholly good. And it is a logical problem, the problem ofclarif:ying and reconciling a number of beliefs: it is not a scientific problem

might be solved by further observations, or a practical problem thatbe solved by a decision or an action. These points are obvious; I

mention them only because they are sometimes ignored by theologians,sometimes parry a statement of the problem with such remarks as

can you solve the problem yourself?' or 'This is a mystery which mayrevealed to us later' or 'Evil is something to be faced and overcome, notbe merely discussed'.In its simplest form the problem is this: God is omnipotent; God is wholly

and yet evil exists. There seems to be some contradiction betweenthree propositions, so that if any two of them were true the thirdbe false. But at the same time all three are essential parts of most

the:olc)gical positions: the theologian, it seems, at once must adhere andconsistently adhere to all three. (The problem does not arise only for

L. Mackie, 'Evil and Omnipotence', first published in Mind, 64 (1955), pp. 200-12. Reprintedby permission of Oxford University Press.

A. ADEQUATE SOLUTIONS

27EVIL AND OMNIPOTENCE

B. FALLACIOUS SOLUTIONS

these half-hearted solutions, which explicitly reject but implicitlyone of the constituent propositions, there are definitely fallacious

sol111ti<ms which explicitly maintain all the constituent propositions, butimlPli<jtly reject at least one of them in the course of the argument thatexpllaills away the problem of evil.

There are, in fact, many so-called solutions which purport to remove theC011tr:adiction without abandoning any of its constituent propositions.

must be fallacious, as we can see from the very statement of thepro1ble:m, but it is not so easy to see in each case precisely where the fallacy

I suggest that in all cases the fallacy has the general form suggestedabove: in order to solve the problem one (or perhaps more) of its constituentpropositions is given up, but in such a way that it appears to have been

and can therefore be asserted without qualification in otherCOI'lte)(ts. Sometimes there is a further complication: the supposed solution

to and fro between, say, two of the constituent propositions, at oneasserting the first of these but covertly abandoning the second, at

point asserting the second but covertly abandoning the first. These

.ga~;onably be suspected of thinking, in other contexts, that his power isunlimited. Those who say that evil is an illusion may also be thinking,

that this illusion is itself an evil. Those who say that 'evil' isprivation of good may also b.e thi~king, inconsistently, that,privatio.n ~f

is an evil. (The fallacy here IS akm to some forms of the naturalIstIcin ethics, where some think, for example, that 'good' is just what

"Arltributes to evolutionary progress, and that evolutionary progress isgood.) If Pope meant what he said in the first line of his couplet, that

'di:sorder' is only harmony not understood, the 'partial evil' of the secondmust, for consistency, mean 'that which, taken in isolation, falsely

to be evil', but it would more naturally mean 'that which, inis61lati1on, really is evil'. The second line, in fact, hesitates between two

that 'partial evil' isn't really evil, since only the universal quality isand that 'partial evil' is really an evil, but only a little one.addition, therefore, to adequate solutions, we must recognise un­

satisfclct<)ry inconsistent solutions, in which there is only a half-hearted ortenlPC,raI~Y rejection of one of the propositions which together constitute

problem. In these, one of the constituent propositio~s is explicitlytej,ect,ed, but it is covertly re-asserted or assumed elsewhere m the system.

J. L. MACKIE26

Now once the problem is fully stated it is clear that it can be solved, insense that the problem will not arise if one gives up at least one ofpropositions that constitute it. If you are prepared to say that God iswholly good; or not quite omnipotent, or that evil does not exist, orgood is not opposed to the kind of evil that exists, or that there are limits towhat an omnipotent thing can do, then the problem of evil will not arise foryou.

There are, then, quite a number of adequate solutions of the problem ofevil, and some of these have been adopted, or almost adopted, by variousthinkers. For example, a few have been prepared to deny God'somnipotence,and rather more have been prepared to keep the term 'omnipotence' butseverely to restrict its meaning, recording quite a number of things that anomnipotent being cannot do. Some have said that evil is an illusion,perhaps because they held that the whole world of temporal, changingthings is an illusion, and that what we call evil belongs only to this world,or perhaps because they held that although temporal things are much aswe see them, those that we call evil are not really evil. Some have said thatwhat we call evil is merely the privation of good, that evil in a positivesense, evil that would really be opposed to good, does not exist. Manyhave agreed with Pope that disorder is harmony not understood, and thatpartial evil is universal good. Whether any of these views is true is, ofcourse, another question. But each of them gives an adequate solution ofthe problem of evil in the sense that if you accept it this problem does notarise for you, though you may, of course, have other problems to face.

But often enough these adequate solutions are only almost adopted. Thethinkers who restrict God's power, but keep the term 'omnipotence', may

theists, but I shall discuss it in the form in which it presents itselfordinary theism.)

However, the contradiction does not arise immediately; to show itneed some additional premises, or perhaps some quasi-logical rules con­necting the terms 'good', 'evil', and 'omnipotent'. These additional principlesare that good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a good thing alwayeliminates evil as far as it can, and that there are no limits to what aomnipotent thing can do. From these it follows that a good omnipotenthing eliminates evil completely, and then the propositions that a gooomnipotent thing exists, and that evil exists, are incompatible.