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Counter-Argument Towards J. L. Mackie’s Evil and Omnipotence

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Counter-Argument Towards J. L. Mackie’s Evil and Omnipotence In “Evil and Omnipotence” J. L. Mackie argues that God does not exist because of his idea of the 3-0-God which states that God has to be omniscient, omnipotent and omni-benevolent to fulfill the properties of a true God. Perhaps the strongest argument that Mackie gives is that God can only be two out of the three properties in order for evil to exist thus stating that god cannot exist because he does not fulfill all three properties. In this paper, I will argue that this argument fails because Mackie is basing his points on his own thoughts about God. Mackie starts out his argument by stating that the problem of evil proves that either no god exists or at least the god of Christianity, Judaism and Islamic does not exist since the problem of evil provokes the three properties of God. Mackie supports this claim by saying, “These additional principles are that good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can, and that there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do.” (Abel p.91) and concludes this claim with, “…propositions that a good omnipotent thing exists, and that evil exists, are incompatible.” (Abel p.91) Adequate solutions are also what backs up his major point about the problem of evil and states that God cannot be all knowing while being all-powerful and all-good because evil exists and would mean that God is unaware of evil in the world. God can be all-knowing and all-powerful but cannot be all-good since evil exists and gives God the false impression of being a true God. If God knows that there is evil and is all-good then that means God is not all-powerful and cannot defeat evil. In order for God and evil to both exist, one of the three properties must be false so Mackie’s conclusion to this claim is to either admit that God is not

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