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The Problem of Evil. Mackie – “A wholly good omnipotent being would eliminate evil completely; if there really are evils, then there cannot be any such being.”. The Inconsistent Triad.
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The Problem of Evil Mackie – “A wholly good omnipotent being would eliminate evil completely; if there really are evils, then there cannot be any such being.”
The Inconsistent Triad • This ‘triad’ of three ideas is ‘inconsistent’ because, it is alleged, we cannot believe all of them at the same time without contradiction. • If God created the universe and everything that is in it, then he could have made the world in any way he chose. He could have made a world where there was no evil. How could an omnipotent God fail at the task of creating a perfect world and keeping it perfect? If the world has goen wrong and deviated from God’s purposes, then why does God not use his omnipotence to make it right again/ • If God is omniscient he must have known what the world was going to be like when he made it; why did God not anticipate genocide, or hurricances or cancer?
What is theodicy? • Theodicy is the accepted name for the whole idea of trying to resolve the problem of evil with the existence of a good and omnipotent God is theodicy. • Theos - God • Dike - Justice • A theodicy therefore, is an attempt to justify God, to show that God can still have the character which is claimed by believers, even if the world does contain both natural and moral evil.