Theodicy stuff

This is from a daily writting for my class, based off of the problem of evil, specifically as outlined by J.L. Mackie in Evil and Omnipotence
His argument is of the form:
1. God is omnipotent
2. God is wholly good
3. Evil exists
4. Any two of the above leads to a contradiction with the third.
5. Therefore one must deny one of the three.
6. The believer claims all three are true.
7. Therefore, the believer is not logical in these beliefs.

He uses what he calls "quasi-logical rules" to connect good, evil and omnipotence to show that the contradiction in line (4) occurs. They are:
a.) "good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can"
b.) "that there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do."
c.)from these two principles, "it follows that a good omnipotent thing eliminates evil completely and then the propositions that a good omnipotent thing exists [lines 1 and 2] and the evil exists are incompatible [line 3]"

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I don’t know how coherent this is, and I know it probably needs some editorial work, but I think it clear enough to get my point across.

I deny the premise that "a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can." Evil “is always and only the deprivation of what is Good” (West, Theology of the Body p.63), it is a non-entity; it is the lack of what should exist. In this sense it is nonsensical to say that a good thing always eliminates a no-thing. Perhaps what is meant by Mackie’s phrase is that a good thing must fulfill what lacks in good (or some similar concept). Or perhaps he means that a good thing immediately fulfills what lacks in good. The second of which I would claim nonsensical as well, as God (who in my understanding exists outside of time but still sustaining it) exists at every time via the essence of being “eternally now”. So a thing that lacks good could have been fulfilled previously or in the future and still be considered fulfilled “immediately”.

If by immediate, it is meant in the next human instant in time or some other such thing, then I would say that nothing could ever change or exist. Whereas, perfection is always constant and any change implies imperfection. If an object that is perfectly good exists, and a good thing (e.g., God) would not allow that object to be deprived of good, then God would not allow the object to change, as change implies imperfection, and a change from perfection is a deprivation, i.e., evil. Thus it seems to follow that if God created a perfect world, then it would be unchanging or nonexistent. But there is change and existence; therefore it is not the case that “a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can.”

Similar logic shows that an object can not be perfect if it is not whole, so that the world would have to be homogenous, and one thing; for it to be good. But this is also not the case, so the premise again is not the case (in the specific meanings).

I would suspect that any variation of “a good thing must fulfill what lacks in good” is a non-tenable position, as that would ultimately imply that a perfectly good thing (e.g., God) would make everything perfectly good (e.g., God), but this reaches an infinite regress or the creation of nothing (i.e., only the perfectly good thing exists). And neither of these are the case, such that it seems it is not the case that “a good thing must fulfill what lacks in good”. It seems that there are two primary possible problems with the statement, either a good thing cannot exist, or if it does it has no obligation to fulfill what lacks in good.

And though I take the later view, I don’t know that a defense of it would be succinct enough to write before I fall asleep.