British philosopher John Mackie, in his oft reprinted article “Evil and Omnipotence,” wrote: “It can be shown, not merely that religious beliefs lack rational support, but that they are positively irrational, that several parts of the essential theological doctrine are inconsistent with one another.”154 But things began to change with the publication of Alvin Plantinga’s book God, Freedom, and Evil in 1974, along with his more technical and rigorously argued book The Nature of Necessity the same year.155 In these works, Plantinga argues that “the existence of evil is not logically incompatible
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