Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/553

Rh definition includes goodness. This objection, therefore, cannot consistently be used, by the believers in an omnipotent God, against the existence of evil.

"The second alternative is one which can only be supported by metaphysical arguments of a somewhat abstruse and elaborate nature. To expound and examine these arguments in detail would take us too far from our subject. I will only say briefly that the theory of the unreality of evil now seems to me untenable. Supposing that it could be proved that all that we think evil was in reality good, the fact would still remain that we think it evil. This may be called a delusion or a mistake. But a delusion or mistake is as real as anything else. A savage's erroneous belief that the earth is stationary is just as real a fact as an astronomer's correct belief that it moves. The delusion that evil exists, then, is real. But then, to me at least, it seems certain that a delusion or an error which hid from us the goodness of the universe would itself be evil. And so there would be real evil after all" (pp. 208-210).

In the next chapter the writer proceeds to deal with the hypothesis of a non-omnipotent God. Such a God, Dr. McTaggart argues, must be either "creative" or non-creative; the conception of a non-creative deity—as maintained for instance by Prof. Howison—he holds to be the less difficult of the two. I may, however, be excused if I confine myself here to the author's argument against the idea of a non-omnipotent creative God; for he is here largely replying to a criticism which I had ventured to make upon his own theory of a non-personal Absolute consisting of human and other similarly limited spirits—spirits which are all alike uncreated and eternal. The gist of Dr. McTaggart's argument is contained in the following paragraphs:—

"The believers in the limitation of God's power assert that they have saved the possibility of his goodness, because it is possible that a non-omnipotent God might wish to make the universe much better than it is, and yet be unable to do so. That this is possible with a non-creative God, is, I think, beyond a doubt. But I am not so clear that it is possible with a creative God. It is quite possible, no doubt, that there are some things that the creator of the universe—if there is a creator—cannot do. But I cannot satisfy myself that it is possible that there could be anything which he willed to do, and which yet he could not do. And he would not be good—and consequently would not be God—unless he did will to remove the evil which he could not remove " (p. 224).

"But there is another very important difference between man and a creative God, even if that God is not omnipotent. No characteristic, and therefore no impotence, of a man can be explained entirely from his own nature. Nothing can happen in the universe which does not affect him, nothing can happen in him which does not affect the rest of the universe. And therefore when a man wills to do something and cannot do it, his impotence is "never due entirely to his own nature" (p. 228).