Mackie wrote a very convincing piece on the problem of evil called evil and omnipotence, in which he attempts to show that one of the following premises must be false in order for them to be consistent with each other. My top 5 books on the problem of evil christianity today. That is, god is allpowerful, allknowing, and allgood. The standard form of this argument was provided by j. This volume fills that need, offering the most uptodate collection of recent scholarship on the problem of evil.
We dont see this fairness, which makes it less likely that god exists. Logical problem of evil internet encyclopedia of philosophy. Mackie on the problem of evil university of notre dame. For centuries, atheists argued that an allloving, allpowerful god is logically incompatible with the existence of evil, and thus the existence of evil provided a knockdown argument against god. There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true the third would be false. Unlike plantingas response to the logical problem of evil, which is merely a defense that is, a negative attempt to undermine a certain atheological argument without offering a positive account of why god allows evil and suffering, hicks response is a theodicy that is, a more comprehensive attempt to account for why god is justified in allowing evil and suffering. The socalled problem of evil is a puzzle arising from many theists conception of the divine. Dont let its analytical tone make you forget, as many do, that its author lost his mother in childhood and fought on the frontlines of the first world war. Lewiss classic is still the most wideranging, accessible, and cogent response to the problem of evil. The ethical philosopher john stuart mill also supported the problem of evil, pointing out the happiness and suffering are not dispensed on earth with any sort of fairness.
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