Consider the following scenario:
Farmer Joe is concerned about his cow, Daisy. In fact, he is so concerned that when his wife tells him that Daisy is happily grazing on the field, Farmer Joe wants to see for himself. He doesn't want merely to have a 99 percent probability that Daisy is safe, he wants to be able to say that he
knows
that Daisy is safe. Farmer Joe then goes out to the field and, standing by the gate, sees in the distance, behind some trees, a white and black shape that he recognizes as his Daisy. He goes back home and tells his wife that he knows that Daisy is safe on the field. Yet, at this point, does Farmer Joe really know it?
Discuss why or why not you think that Farmer Joe has knowledge or his cow’s whereabouts.
What do you think is required of Joe to be able to say that he knows that Daisy is on the field?
This assignment tests the student’s ability to articulate and evaluate arguments for and against the existence of God.
AS Instructions:
Write a 1000-word, double-spaced paper (approximately 4-5 pages) explaining the major arguments for the existence of God. Explain which argument you find the most convincing and why. Then explain the problem of evil proposed by J.L. Mackie. Do you find the problem convincing? Explain in detail your answer.
Upload as a word document. You may use any style that you prefer, i.e., APA, MLA, Chicago.
Evil and Omnipotence Mind Association Evil and Omnipotence Author(s): P. M. Farrell Source: Mind, Vol. 67, No. 267 (Jul., 1958), pp. 399-403 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2251539 Accessed: 24-04-2019 18:49 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Mind Association, Oxford University Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Mind This content downloaded from 131.125.182.136 on Wed, 24 Apr 2019 18:49:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EVIL AND OMNIPOTENCE PROFESSOR MACKIE has stated the problem of evil with great clarity and at its most rigorous level, in MIND of April 1955. It would be surprising, however, if such a study in analysis issuing in such a daring conclusion were to pass unchallenged. I suggest that it is open to criticism on a number of grounds. In logic, for instance, it cannot proceed conclusively beyond the first particular proposition of the conclusion: " of the proposed solutions of the problem of evil which we have examined, none has stood up to criticism " (p. 212), i.e. some proposed solutions have not withstood criticism. Mackie is, therefore, rightly cautious in his following universal proposition where his study " strongly suggests that there is no valid solution of the problem which does not modify at least one of the constituent propositions in a way which would seriously affect the essential core of the theistic position " (my italics). He admits, i.e. that this proposition is in the order of suggestion-and that there may be other solutions requiring examination, i.e. that there are possibly other, and therefore conceivably contrary, data unexamined. This is scarcely satisfactory, and considerably more than unsatisfactory in a study which proposes to show that the theologian is in a positively irrational position (p. 200). I do not insist, however, on this quite valid but somewhat barren objection. Nor, in this discussion, do I insist on the historical inadequacy of the study. It must be noticed, however, that the force of Mackie's rigorous statement of the problem " in its simplest form " (p. 200) was not lost on earlier theologians. It was known accurately to St. Augustine who none the less concludes rationally to the fact of evil, not as incompatible with omnipotence and goodness, but as a special manifestation of their eminence.' It is formulated in another intellectual tradition by St. Thomas Aquinas who offers it as a principal objection to the existence of God.2 Its formulation there is remarkable for its precision and for the ultimate metaphysical and logical ground in which it is rooted in the first proposition: If one of two contraries be infinite, then the other is excluded absolutely. But the idea of God is that of an infinite good. There- fore if God should exist, there could be no evil. But evil exists. Consequently God does not. It would seem that minds capable of stating the problem with such scientific rigour are not likely to have claimed lightly that ultimately there is no contradiction. Yet this study fails to state adequately, and in one case not at all, the principal factors in the analysis in which the problem-Is radioally resolved. In a, study specifically concerned with traditional arguments this is, indeed, a 1 Enchiridion, 11-Latin Patrology, 40,236. 2 Summa Theol. I, 2, art. 3, corp. and 1st objection. 399 This content downloaded from 131.125.182.136 on Wed, 24 Apr 2019 18:49:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 400 P. M. FARRELL: very grave omission and certainly fatal to any. universal conclusion to which the study aspires. I would insist rather on a statement of the elements of what I consider a valid resolution of the problem based on traditional grounds either inadequately stated by Mackie or entirely omitted, thus rendering even his suggestion untenable. It will be observed, however, that this " discussion " form forces the argument into a context determined by the study in question and into an embar- rassing brevity. The Nature of Evil On analysis, evil reveals itself as the real privation of good. This traditional concept has been mentioned (pp. 202, 204) but not adequately. To suggest that evil is merely privation (p. 202) is to suggest that it is a mere absence of good. Privation is however much more, and the theologian recognises that it is. Mere absence is pure negation-as absence of feathers on a cow or lack of sight in a stone. Privation is real-blindness, e.g. in a human being, the lack of a limb, the passing of colour from the decaying rose. It is in this sense that evil is described as privation of good-as the real privation in a nature of an attribute or quality which that nature is intended to, and should, have. This description will be found to be valid of evil universally, of physical evil, of pain, of moral evil. It will be noticed that this concept, properly expressed, is much more radical and comprehensive than any division such as that proposed, e.g., between first and second order evils (p. 206). Evil, then, is the privative absence of good, and therefore of being. But as such it cannot be known, and consequently its core is said to be hollow. In itself it is privation, non-being, and can be known only by the surrounding or excluded good. Any attempt to define blindness, sickness, etc., or pain, will show that where the " defini- tion " is not merely a synonym or classification it must ultimately be expressed in relation to the good (vision, health, well-being) of which it is the deprivation-and not the mere absence. A number of consequences emerge. First, the theologian has clearly accepted this concept rationally, not a priori to accommodate omnipotence, but positively from experience and negatively fromn th-e failure of any other 'definition '- to accommodate the facts. Evil is accepted, i.e., as a reality not as an illusion (p. 201-202). Again it is always a negation or lacuna within a subject which is itself good. It follows also that as an absence of being it cannot be a cause in any formal sense. Consequently, there is no question of any " natural- istic fallacy " by which evil would be seen as contributing to physical or moral progress (p. 202 k - No4-being can con-tribute nothing s.ince it has nothing to contribute. It can, however, be a by-product of progress-and in fact, in comtingent being, it is a necessary consequence or by-product. This content downloaded from 131.125.182.136 on Wed, 24 Apr 2019 18:49:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EVIL AND OMNIPOTENCE 401 Contingent Being This leads to a- consideration of the very nature of contingent being (a consideration entirely omitted from the study). It is of the definition of contingent being that it should be such that it caii not-be-i.e. it must be capable of defection from being. If it cannot not-be, it is not contingent but necessary. But to defect fr6m being is to involve a privative absenice of good which is the " definition " of evil. Thus evil is involved in the very concept and definition of contingent being. Evil, i.e. is a iiecessary consequence of contin- gency. Omnipotence The question then occurs as to whether the omnipotence of God is limited by the fact that He has created contingent thinigs which defect from being and thus involve evil. I suggest that there is no limitation. In creating contingent things, God creates things which necessarily of their nature can defect from being. In creating being which cannot defect from being He creates not contingent, but necessary being. I am aware of the statement of the principle of contradiction implicit here-that God, could not create a being which would be at once and in identical respects contingent and necessary. This is not to admit the pseudo-paradox of omnipotence by which the impossibility of the creation of a contradiction would be seen as a limitation of omnipotence. By omnipotence I mean the power to effect everything possible, i.e. everything which could, in the nature of it, be. By contradiction I mean something, the nature of which could be objectively and simultaneously affirmed and denied of it. Since what is contradictory in the formal sense is neither being nor potentially being, it is not an object of the divine intellect, consequently not an object of the divine will, and therefore irrelevant to omnipotence. The contrary position would appear to rest on an illicit and unconscious attribution of some reality to non-being, or some -potency in the impossible. To argue from the limitation of contingent being to the limitation (and therefore denial) of omnipotence is also in fact to ignore the real in concentration on its limitation-on what it is not. Yet there could be no awareness of limitation were it not for the being which is limited. Limitation would consistently appear in the creator only if it could be demonstrated that it is impossible for him to create being which could, of its nature, defect from being. Goodness Finally, the question may be proposed: Since contingent being necessarily involves defection from being and therefore evil, why should God have created it at all ? The theologian knows from the principles proper to his own science subsequently confirmed by 26 This content downloaded from 131.125.182.136