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consider other possible solutions to the problem.

In his article "Evil and Omnipotence," Mackie proceeds to outline several enticing solutions that may seem to work but, in fact, have logical problems. These are different from the solutions considered above because those didn't have logical problems, though they did have reasons for not accepting them. I will address four of these so-called "inadequate solutions.

1. Evil is a contrast to good. This solution proceeds by pointing out that we could not know what good was without comparing it will something not good; that is, evil. We need evil to contrast with good. For example, if everything in the universe were colored blue, we wouldn't know what blue was. Therefore, we need some red to give us a contrast. But there is a problem with this solution. For the purposes of contrast just how much red do we need? Very little. So, with regard to evil as a contrast to good, we should only have a very little evil. But it seems that we have a lot of evil in the world; much more than is needed for simple contrast. So this solution does not seem to explain why there is so much evil in the world.

2. Evil is a necessary cause to good. This solution can be dismissed fairly easily since it represents a severe restriction on God's omnipotence. If good cannot arise at all but for evil then in what sense can God be called all powerful? Perhaps to make this work it needs to be modified as follows:

3. The world is better with evil than without. What this solution postulate is that evil may give rise to a higher good, not as a matter of necessity but as the best means only. In showing how this might work we can combine it with the first solution of evil as a contrast. So consider that pleasure and pain are contrasting good and evil; we'll call them first order good and first order evil. We do not need to say that one explains the other but we do need to address why there is pain. What we might say is that pain is the best way to give rise to a higher good. If such a higher good exists, and if the evil of pain can give rise to it, then clearly, the universe is better off that it would be without the higher good. So what possible higher good could arise from pain? Well, perhaps compassion or sympathy.

Let's call these second order goods. But, if there are second-order goods it seems likely that there are second order evils as well. One example of such an evil might be cruelty. In order to explain this second order evil we need to appeal,

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