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Rowe's Argument For The Existence Of God

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Philosopher William Rowe agrees with Plantinga that propositions — that evil exists, God is omnipotent, and God is wholly good — is not logically inconsistent. Rowe does not believe it is impossible to allow God and his properties to exist along with evil. He takes a different route by focusing more on certain kinds of evil which evidently exist in the world, and not so much on the inconsistencies of the theist doctrines. This certain evil, in Rowe’s point of view, will show that a God who is all powerful and wholly good does not exist after all.
Rowe forms his argument starting with his first premise, “There exists instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.” Then, the second premise states, “An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil …show more content…

Mackie focuses on the broader logical inconsistency of proposition 1 to 3. This take on the argument shows a lot of loopholes in the argument which philosophers like Plantinga and Rowe can easily debunk. To do this all they needed to show were examples of certain circumstances where both God being omnipotent and benevolent can coexist with evil. It is evident that there exist sufferings and evils in the world which seem to not benefit anyone. Also, in this world there exist numerous people who claim that God exists in many forms, like through religious experiences and theistic proofs. Although God’s existence and the validity of the experiences that may imply God’s existence is still not known, it is enough to say that logically, evil can exist along with God and his properties, even in today’s

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