J. L. Mackie: The Coexistence Of Good And Evil

The topic of God is often associated with two basic states of existence: one of great goodness and pleasure; the other, wickedness and suffering. The association comes from these experiences being discussed as evidence towards the probability of an immaterial mind, the generally accepted theist perspective being God is a benevolent, omnipotent identity who is good and thus worthy of worship, or being displayed as liabilities by the atheist perspective where it attempts to dissect that ideal character projected onto God. Through deductive reasoning and philosophical endeavor, more objective concepts can be obtained beyond the experiences of suffering and of pleasure, where the discussion alludes to the nature of good, evil, and eventually, a conversation of God’s possible nature.

An interesting introduction to the topic is contemplating the coexistence of good and evil, pleasure and suffering. The interesting factor lies with which theological perspective one approaches good and evil with: as counterparts, in conjunction with concepts of free will, or as a necessary means. J.L. Mackie entertains different ideas in his essay, Evil and Omnipotence, in how evil and good coincide with each other. …show more content…
And if that’s the case, God could have created a humanity that is always freely choosing the good option in scenarios, a humanity that wouldn’t even create the idea of choosing the evil option. To Mackie, this would be the work of a benevolent and omnipotent God because: a) He has subjects who always freely choose the good option in decision-making, and b) His omnipotence is sanctioned by the fact He knows that humanity will always freely choose that good option—God is truly all-knowing. According to how humanity acts in the world, this is not actually how things turn