Evil and religion are in some ways often two contradicting concepts. That is, why does evil exist if God is truly omnipotent? Likewise, how can God be truly omnipotent if evil exists? Wouldn’t God pursue a world without evil? After all, God is considered to be omnibenevolent and omniscient. This, in addition to God’s omnipotence, should enable him to eradicate all evil from earth. Therefore, the existence of evil in today’s world is often used to argue against the existence of God. Nevertheless, evil still is present everywhere, thus arguing otherwise. Is there a reasonable explanation for this, or do we misinterpret the concept of evil? In this essay, I will reject the presence of evil in the world through the argument of free will, Mackie’s logical inconsistency argument, and finally Mackie’s logical challenge argument. This essay is structured in such a way that I will first defend the presence of evil and attempt to then explain the origin of evil through different schools of thought, to then introduce several counterargument, to ultimately arrive at a complete and well-informed conclusion.
One explanation for the existence of evil could be the argument of free will. That is, speaking in terms of free will, what does it mean to be free or possess free will? Free will is identical to freedom of choice, or the ability to do or not to do something. The concept implies that an omnipotent God does not assert its power to intervene in choice. Despite the fact that God wants to prevent evil, He allows it for the sake of people having free will. God's creation of beings with considerable free will is something that can be considered one of the greatest gift that can be given. He could not eliminate evil and suffering without consequently eliminating the greater good of free will. If individuals are granted the right of free will, than they are automatically also granted the right to engage in evil acts. Given that free will has remained available to us, the possibility of committing evil acts has likewise remained available, despite the existence of God.
Another argument that can explain the existence of evil could be that God is not responsible for the evil that takes place, but rather, beings are at fault; at some point in life, a being will be faced with a situation that requires moral choice and the ability to act freely, and they may potentially choose evil. The argument gives the impression that God knows that evil occurs, God does not want evil to occur, and God has the ability to prevent evil, but evil still exists because God wants us to have freedom of choice. Initially this would solve the problem, but referring back to the fact that God is all powerful means he still could prevent people from making bad decisions coming from their free will.
Philosopher Mackie explores the problem in more depth and provides a very valid nuance. He states that the problem of evil discussed above originates from logical inconsistency. If there is evil, why is God not restraining it? Evil still exists and so this would indicate God is not all powerful. However, the Bible claims He is. Mackie says that all God’s attributes being true, it would cause this logical inconsistency to arise. God’s prepositions – all-powerful, knowing, good and having free will – cannot be consistently kept together due to this contradiction.
However, Mackie provides a reasonable solution to this problem. That is, God uses evil as a necessary counterpart to good, with the ultimate result of the universe being better off. He uses evil to achieve the means to good. For example, God could say that in order to experience and value being good, one first needs to experience evil to draw a comparison. Through this process of trial and error, one can develop themself to become ‘good’ rather than evil. In some ways, evil can be seen as an instrument of God to correct, purify, and instruct (as a parent punishes his/her child). God is justified in permitting evil and suffering to ultimately promote character development. It seems that His goal would be to bring man to a point spiritual well-being and maturity. It is deemed necessary that man go through struggles in order to gain strength, a means of soul promoting, or to be conscious of certain emotions. For example, in order for a person to know “hot”, they must have known “cold” in order to draw a comparison. Without being aware of both, chances are you would not know how to distinguish between the two. In this case, in order for a person to possess happiness or feel sorrow, they must have been faced with a situation that evokes such feelings or emotions. Ultimately, although evil might exist and even though God is omnibenevolent, one can argue that the evil present in today’s world can be used to achieve goodness, thus explaining the fact that God allows evil to exist.
In order to remain consistent and concise, I will only touch on Mackie's arguments to evil being a direct result of freedom. For Mackie, the existence of evil is logically incompatible with the existence of a Christian God. Being all powerful, God could have created a world with both free will and no signs of evil. In other words, God could have created a world where man had the ability to choose between two actions (good or bad), but from his omnipotence, He would always see to it that man choose what was right. It is obvious that such a world was not created, so what does this say in terms of God's power? According to Mackie, God's inability to offer this possibility is a rational contradiction and limits not only his power, but his goodness as well. This further affirms the presence and the problem of evil and consequently denies the existence of God.
To conclude, the problem of evil is very delicate and asks for very precise analysis, simply because the two concepts contradict each other. However, if one looks at it in more depth, a balance can be found. There is an omnipotent God, but there is also evil in the world, why? Philosopher Mackie, argues that if one nullifies God himself, or at least some of His attributes, then evil needs no explanation. In response, some philosophers offer justifications for God permitting evil. The most credible of these is the free will defense, which states that there are no contradictions in God's attributes; He is capable of destroying evil, but refuses to do so since it would go at the expense of free will. In my paper, I have examined the problem of evil and the free will argument, using Mackie arguments on the subject. I have given reasons to both accept and reject the notion that the existence of both evil and God are incompatible. Perhaps no one will truly understand God's reason for allowing some things to happen. Moreover, there is a possibility that such knowledge is beyond our reasoning abilities at present.
Ultimately, we need to question ourselves if either God does not exist, or if we have misinterpreted his nature. Did we miss a nuanced reading in the Bible? It seems that free will and the existence of evil contradicts the traditional belief that God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent. However, this conclusion remains only valid if God has no good reason for allowing evil. That is, if God has good reasons for letting evil exist, than he could be omnipotent and omnibenevolent despite the existence of evil. If one can explain God's reason for allowing evil, then a belief in God could be rational.