Assessing the case for theism › Evil: the scope of Mackie's concession

The problem of evil asks how a wholly good, all-powerful God can coexist with evil. Mackie says in chapter 9(a) that there is no explicit contradiction in those two claims alone. A contradiction requires connecting principles about what goodness would eliminate and what omnipotence makes possible. Those principles need examination too.

One answer appeals to goods that logically involve some evil. Courage in the face of danger, for example, cannot occur without danger. Mackie calls an evil absorbed when it is incorporated into a larger good that justifies it in the proposed way. He concedes that this possibility prevents the bare existence of evil from establishing an immediate inconsistency. He then asks whether all actual evils are absorbed. The existence of kindness in response to one injury does not establish that every injury is justified.

Plantinga distinguishes logically possible worlds from worlds God could actualize while leaving creatures significantly free. The possibility that every creaturely essence suffers from transworld depravity is meant to block the assumption that God could ensure morally significant freedom without any moral wrongdoing. This is a compatibility defense, not a claim to have discovered God's actual explanation for suffering. Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, chapter IX.

Mackie accepts part of the restriction on what worlds God could actualize, but challenges the further limitation on the possible people God could create. He maintains that people who always freely choose well are possible and asks why an omnipotent creator must face an independently restricted selection. That is his objection. It remains open to a defender of Plantinga to question whether Mackie has established the required inference from possibility to divine actualizability.

At the end of chapter 9, Mackie allows that some adjustment of traditional doctrines might avoid contradiction, while judging that no satisfactory account has been presented. His conclusion is therefore more careful than a simple declaration of logical impossibility. It is also more critical of free-will defenses than the claim that he accepts Plantinga wholesale. Chapter 9(a), pp. 150–155; chapter 9(f), pp. 172–176.

The difference between logical and evidential questions now becomes clear. A logical argument claims that the propositions cannot all be true. A compatibility defense needs a coherent possibility that defeats that claim. An evidential argument asks instead how well a hypothesis fits what we encounter. The answer cannot be settled merely by naming a possibility. Equally, describing suffering as unexplained does not by itself establish that no morally sufficient explanation exists. Each side has a further argumentative task.

This distinction also sets a limit on practical applications. A person may gain patience or compassion after a terrible loss. That fact would not, on its own, show that the loss was necessary for that person's development, or that anyone was justified in allowing it. We should be careful when turning another person's suffering into an example of a greater good. The philosophical question asks whether a proposed justification works; offering consolation requires attention to the person who suffered. These are different activities, and a familiar theodicy need not be an appropriate response to grief.