Colleagues,
Thanks for your enthusiasm and commitment to defining "God" and "evil" last night.
There are, broadly, two ways to formulate the problem of evil: the logical problem of evil and the evidential problem of evil. The logical problem of evil suggests that, if God were to have certain essential qualities and yet there is evil in the world, then the belief in such a God would be irrational. Mackie offers a formulation of the logical problem of evil; Plantinga responds with the famous “free-will defense.” Interestingly, the logical problem of evil is something that a majority of philosophers of religion consider to be “solved” by Plantinga. We will ask: Is Mackie’s depiction of the logical problem of evil sufficient? Is Plantinga’s response satisfying?
For many of you, this experience will be your first exposure to academic philosophy. This will be, by far, our hardest week in terms of technical content. So, do not feel discouraged as you read; rather, know that it is our task as a class to work through the content together. To best prepare for this, though, you should put your eyes on these arguments before we meet. Give yourself time, underline and highlight liberally, reach out to me with questions, and know that it is very common to read a paper several times.
Required:
Mackie, J.L. “Evil and Omnipotence” from Mind, New Series, Vol. 64, No. 254 (1955), 200-212.
Plantinga, Alvin. “The Free Will Defense” from God, Freedom, and Evil (1977), 12-49.
Optional:
None
JL Mackie (1917-1981) offers a contemporary statement of what professional philosophers call “the logical problem of evil.” Essentially, he argues that theism is logically incoherent and therefore irrational. Mackie claims that the theistic belief that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good and the belief that there is evil in the world are logically inconsistent. Since the alleged inconsistency in theism is implicit rather than explicit, Mackie offers various supplementary statements to highlight the inconsistency, mostly in the form of definitions of key terms, such as omnipotence. Omnipotence, he says, is the power to bring about any logically possible state of affairs, including the prevention or elimination of evil. Mackie then goes on to show why various theistic attempts to eliminate the inconsistency are weak and unsuccessful, conclusion that any adequate theistic answer would have to modify at least one key theistic concept. For example, theists unwittingly modify the concept of omnipotence by saying that God limits himself to allow for creaturely freedom to commit evil because this is a corollary to the freedom to do good. For Mackie, this kind of move implicitly surrenders the core theistic position by denying a strong definition of omnipotence. The Paradox of Omnipotence, which he explains, is the problem of whether an omnipotent deity can create finite creatures that it cannot subsequently control. He argues that it is not possible that God is genuinely omnipotent and that he was unable to create a universe containing moral good but no moral evil.
Omnipotence: All-powerful.
Omniscience: All-knowing.
Omnibenevolent: All-good.
In "The Free Will Defense," philosopher Alvin Plantinga seeks to refute JL Mackie’s basic contention that it is not possible both that God is omnipotent and that he was unable to create a universe containing moral good but no moral evil. Plantinga’s famous argument has become known as the Free Will Defense. Using the language of “possible worlds” (related to modal logic), he develops a scenario of human freedom in relation to divine omnipotence. In his scenario, God actualizes a world that contains creatures with free will so that they have the power to do good, but they sometimes choose to do evil. That is the danger and risk of free choice. Given that God decided to initiate a world containing free creatures, it was not possible for God to ensure that the free creatures would always do good and never wrong. To be sure, Mackie’s compatibilist view of free will leads him to conclude that omnipotence can bring about any logically possible world, including worlds in which free creatures never commit evil. And certainly, there are such possible worlds. However, working from an incompatibilist view of free will, Plantinga shows that the essence of created freedom is that things can happen that are decided by free creatures and not under God’s control. So, it is not within the scope of omnipotence to determine the outcome of free creaturely choice. Plantinga, then, claims to have shown-- contrary to Mackie-- that it is logically possible for God to exist and for evil to exist, thus defending against the charge of inconsistency.
Possible worlds: Possible worlds in philosophy refer to hypothetical ways reality could have been, distinct from the actual world we inhabit. They serve as a conceptual tool for analyzing statements about necessity and possibility: something is necessary if it holds true in all possible worlds, while something is possible if it holds true in at least one possible world, including the actual world. Contingent truths, those that are true in some possible worlds but not others, highlight the nuanced relationships between actuality and potentiality within philosophical discourse. Ex: I can conceive of a possible world in which all of humanity worships rubber duckies. I cannot conceive of a possible world in which a square has 3 sides. One is contingent; the other is necessary.
Determinism: Determinism is the philosophical idea that every event or state of affairs, including human actions and choices, is determined (!!!) by preceding causes in such a way that could not have been otherwise. Often associated with God's omniscience.
Compatibilism: The belief that free will is compatible with determinism.
Incompatibilism: The belief that free will is incompatible with determinism.