Humans come to understand experiences through the basic functions of the mind. The word "experience" refers not only to personal involvement in certain events, but also to anything that can be detected by the senses, that is: people, inanimate objects and feelings. The ability to define, categorize, extend knowledge to other things and compare are the most fundamental functions. Without these functions, we would not be able to derive knowledge from our experiences, nor draw conclusions about their meaning. The physical world would ultimately be unintelligible. This makes us wonder how we can understand things that do not exist in the physical world, such as God. Our senses cannot directly experience things outside of this world, so we are greatly limited in our ability to know and understand God. The best possible solution is to combine our belief in God and our earthly experiences to create a better understanding of God and his qualities. Our experiences of evil are essential to understanding and appreciating God. Although it is commonly asserted that the existence of evil weakens the claim that God is omnibenevolent, this is contrary to the truth. Through our ability to expand our knowledge to arrive at new truths and our ability to compare our experiences, our minds can use the existence of evil to better understand and appreciate God and his omnibenevolence. First, it is important to illustrate how extension and comparison work in everyday life. -everyday situations before moving on to how these functions help us understand God. Let's say you have a friend you've known forever. We'll call him Patrick. Patrick is a generally reliable friend, so you settle for having this... middle of paper ... that contains varying amounts of goodness, something has to be good above all other things. In such a world we might know that God is good above all things, but without evil the significance of this knowledge is diminished. When there is good and evil, another dimension is added. Tension is added. Although it is a psychological response, humans are more constrained when there are two opposing sides. We see God as being so good that He can easily overcome and overcome the most evil things. Mackie is wrong to claim that it is fallacious to believe that the universe is better off with evil. Without evil, our minds could not begin to understand how special God truly is. Works Cited Mackie, JL “Evil and Omnipotence.” Philosophy of religions. 4th ed. Ed. Michael Peterson et al. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 288-296. Print.