Eyre Lines

There has been some discussion in the blogosphere recently about good and evil (James McGrath’s facebook feed has more of it), generally along the lines of whether God can be regarded as entirely good, and if good can exist without evil, and if so whether there must perforce be an “evil” deity (I would assume “Satan”) and whether therefore this evil deity must necessarily be equal to as well as opposite to a good God. In the process there has been mention of Taoism, and how it regards “good” as being attained from a balancing of yin and yang, positive and negative aspects. Those positive and negative aspects are sometimes confused with “good and evil”. There is also discussion as to whether this Taoist viewpoint can possibly coexist with Christianity.

So far as Taoism is concerned, I don’t think the fact that Taoism is a religion means automatically that Christians need to reject the yin-yang concept; Taoism is also a philosophy (the religious aspects are not fundamental to the philosophy), and Christianity should, I think, be able to adapt itself to being seen in the light of more than one overarching philosophy (though I’m inclined to think that the adaptation to scientific-rationalist materialism is fraught with problems resolvable only via some species of post-modernism).

I am naturally tempted to quote Isaiah 45:7 “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things” (KJV – most other translations avoid “evil” but still have much of the same sense, and the Hebrew definitely has in part the sense of “evil” as well as “calamity” or “disaster”), and to point out that the “satan” of the Hebrew Scriptures is determinedly an agent of God, most notably in Job. I am inclined to think that the Satan of the New Testament represents an element of dualist thinking creeping into Judaism (via the intertestamentals, notably Sirach, Jubilees, Wisdom and overwhelmingly Enoch).

I don’t relate well to dualism. My own experience (the “zap”) pretty much precludes there being more than one deity or deity-like entity in existence (using “existence” in a very loose way indeed). The Jewish tradition which developed into Christianity became possibly the most ardently monotheist religious tradition of any (and no, I don’t think this is particularly dented in theory by trinitarianism, however much the practice may start looking like tritheism). I am therefore predisposed to see the dualist tendency of the intertestamentals as being an aberration which we could do to move beyond, rather than as an innovation to be adopted and incorporated. My recent post about fatted calves indicates pretty well how I am obliged to see the relationship of God with creation.

As such, the Taoist concept of balancing positive and negative to produce a “good” result (which nonetheless may not be “good” from the perspective of some part of it) has some attractions. It goes beyond the concept of thesis-antithesis-synthesis with which I am very comfortable (and which is a sound corrective to “either-of” thinking), and gives the possibility of thinking of things as inevitably both-one-and-the-other, rather than as eliding the opposites and thus losing any benefit of making a distinction in the first place. It also resonates well with the Isaiah 45 quotation.

However, I am inclined to think that there is a basic error in the whole “good -v- evil” dichotomy, and that is in using the terms without a referent. I start with evil; I cannot conceive of absolute evil, for many reasons including that it would be instantly self-destructive. If I can’t do that, it becomes difficult to think of absolute good.

Indeed, when I settle down to think of what “good” or “evil” is, I inevitably end up asking myself “relative to who or what?” The vast majority of things which occur can be seen to be “good” in relation to something while being “bad” in relation to something else, even without invoking any general principle of good relative to A must be bad relative to not A (which does not invariably work, as sometimes cooperative strategies function well). Indeed, I have yet to see some “good” effect on anything or anyone which I cannot see as “bad” in relation to something or someone else. There are, of course, quite independent of religion, concepts of morality and ethics which prefer the good of the many to the good of the one as being logically superior (though taking this to extremes results in extremely painful decisions which most people would balk at). However, I end up finding it very difficult to accept that any absolute good or absolute bad (or evil) can be said to exist, at least not in the real world.

It is, of course, clear that an absolute morality can be constructed by appealing to something independent of material reality. Certain philosophies (for example political philosophies) will do, for instance, and probably all religions will do. The first depend on some abstract principles which are “above” any effects on humans (or any lower form of existence), the second on God; that which is good in relation to God is an absolute good, as God (at least a monotheistic God) is absolute where everything else is relative. However, then to say “God is good” becomes a redundancy; of course God is good to God (and conversely, referring back to an earlier argument, Satan must be evil to Satan, and therefore cease to be). It seems to me that we have in the Hebrew scriptures at least a near approach to this position, which (to adjust a well known phrase) is basically “God commands it, I do it, that settles it”.

Despite Paul’s apparent attitude in Romans 3:10-18 (in which “all have sinned” and the Law is held up as impossible to follow adequately), in Phil. 3:6 he says he is “as to righteousness under the law, blameless”, and this rather confirms the position of some observant Jews of my acquaintance, who do not find strict adherence to all of the 613 mitzvot difficult (let alone impossible) even as massively extended by generations of rabbis “placing a fence around the Torah” and extending their scope to as not to come even vaguely close to actually contavening one of those. They don’t actually say “God commands it, I do it, that settles it”, but this is close to their position.

I can see the attraction of that; a detailed code rather smaller than the list of laws of most developed nations (which one is also expected to follow perfectly by the civil authorities!) which is all that God requires of you as a condition of being righteous, i.e. “good”. But I am not Jewish, I was not brought up Jewish, I am through and through a Jesus-follower with the sermon on the mount (Matt. 5-7 cf Lk. 6:12-49) prominent in my consciousness as a standard – and that asks that we be “perfect, as our father in heaven is perfect”, that we not even bear anger towards our fellow men (or call them “fool”), that omissions are as worthy of blame as commissions. And that, as was pointed out in the second Alpha talk last night, is impossible for everyone.

I therefore don’t have the “God commands it, I do it, that settles it” position, just a “God commands it through Jesus in his lifetime teachings, I get as close as I can to doing it, nothing is settled by it”. The talk (as I’ve adverted to previously) presented a straight PSA answer to why I should nonetheless feel secure; I can’t swallow PSA myself, and will be adverting to the reasons shortly (I hope, should I ever finish writing the relevant post series). In point of fact, I experience God (and Jesus), I love and trust God (and Jesus) and that is sufficient. Sure, I can never feel smug about being perfect and never will do, but that’s OK with me – and actually, for all their theoretical reliance on Torah observance, my Jewish friends tend also to feel they can always do more and better.

But really, this only tells me (or my Jewish friends) what I should do and not do, it does not give me any overarching concept of good and evil. As I outlined recently, my very existence is from the point of view of some organisms or entities a bad thing, a sin, an evil – and yet from the Godly point of view in Genesis 1, it is at least in principle good. My experience forces me to see God in everything, everything in God, and “everything” includes bad things, even evil things, includes “natural evil” in the form of natural disasters and accidents. Is this a Taoist yin and yang position after all? It certainly arrives at much the same position. Beyond that, I can really see no alternative to complete relativism.

My own balance is found in trying to tread lightly on the world (rather than any insects), in trying to treat my fellow humans as I would treat Jesus (mindful of Matt. 25) and in attempting to remember always that the earth and all that is in it is sacred, holy, in God, and to be treasured and taken care of.