Assessing the case for theism › Where disagreement remains

The strongest response to Mackie can accept his demand for reasons while contesting his assessment of them. A theist can argue that the world's existence, regularity, consciousness, and religious experience jointly support a personal explanation. Mackie explicitly considers this cumulative strategy. He concludes that the divine hypothesis introduces greater difficulties than its naturalistic competitor. The disagreement is over comparative explanatory weight, not whether accumulation is allowed.

Another response questions our ability to judge which evils a good God could permit. A limited observer might fail to understand a morally sufficient reason. That possibility prevents us from treating an unexplained case as an automatic disproof. Yet it creates a further question: how much uncertainty about divine purposes is compatible with confidently interpreting favorable features of the world as evidence of divine goodness? This is a question for assessing the arguments together, rather than a quotation from Mackie.

For personal inquiry, separate the claims that an argument fails, that belief is unsupported, and that its negation is supported. They require different work. Mackie's overall atheist conclusion depends on his positive comparison of explanations and the additional pressure of evil. It does not follow from finding one flaw in one proof.

The same discipline helps in work. Suppose a team proposes an opaque system because it gives a plausible account of past outcomes. Ask which alternatives were compared, which assumptions were added, and what evidence would change the decision. This is an application of explanatory comparison, not a claim that Mackie anticipated contemporary AI. His book rewards the reader willing to reconstruct an opponent's best argument and then identify the exact point where support runs out.