The Collapse of the All-Good God

[JR5]

This essay examines the theological dead-end created by the privatio boni model, in which evil is reduced to absence and God remains wholly good by definition. Jung’s system is presented as a radical alternative: a metaphysics in which opposites coinhabit the divine, the Shadow belongs to God as much as to man, and consciousness arises only through the crucifixion-tension of those poles. By reintegrating evil into the God-image through Abraxas, Jung resolves the logical contradictions and psychic distortions produced by the unstable, all-good God thesis.

https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/the-collapse-of-the-all-good-god

 

[Northumber]

This essay examines the theological dead-end created by the privatio boni model, in which evil is reduced to absence and God remains wholly good by definition. Jung’s system is presented as a radical alternative: a metaphysics in which opposites coinhabit the divine, the Shadow belongs to God as much as to man, and consciousness arises only through the crucifixion-tension of those poles. By reintegrating evil into the God-image through Abraxas, Jung resolves the logical contradictions and psychic distortions produced by the unstable, all-good God thesis.

https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/the-collapse-of-the-all-good-god

I haven't read it yet (I will), but my gut says: no, God is all good, and I'm fine with an impenetrable mystery existing with the question of evil.

I do like the attempt to reintegrate "the bad" somehow with "the good". This is the story of Noah and his sons ...trying to cover his nakedness. Also the image of Christ reintegrating Adam (saving his father who had fallen).

 

[Blade Runner]

The only place where evil matters is IF God exists in the first place, which is a proof in itself. Others don't see this.

CS Lewis also writes on how one quite literally has to go through things and struggle or you can't acquire any virtue or godliness, holiness, character, etc. That ONLY happens when you are tested and work things out in a world that has suffering, constraints, frailties, foibles, and strength/weakness. He'll say for example, "There's no such thing as faith if you are looking at God, face to face." Or, if you aren't prone to temptation or sin, there is no active right against it, and thus no development. This does bring up the question of how one progresses into greater love and understanding of God after one dies (theosis), and I think that is the correct teaching (otherwise we are just living to do the least we can to "get in"), but it's hard to guess at how that looks. It's pretty clear to me that there are hierarchies and levels of "heaven" or paradise, and that "equality" in that sense is always a lie, here and in the afterlife. That's why you see it cause so many problems, already, here.

 

[Northumber]

The only place where evil matters is IF God exists in the first place, which is a proof in itself. Others don't see this.

CS Lewis also writes on how one quite literally has to go through things and struggle or you can't acquire any virtue or godliness, holiness, character, etc. That ONLY happens when you are tested and work things out in a world that has suffering, constraints, frailties, foibles, and strength/weakness. He'll say for example, "There's no such thing as faith if you are looking at God, face to face." Or, if you aren't prone to temptation or sin, there is no active right against it, and thus no development. This does bring up the question of how one progresses into greater love and understanding of God after one dies (theosis), and I think that is the correct teaching (otherwise we are just living to do the least we can to "get in"), but it's hard to guess at how that looks. It's pretty clear to me that there are hierarchies and levels of "heaven" or paradise, and that "equality" in that sense is always a lie, here and in the afterlife. That's why you see it cause so many problems, already, here.

Agreed.

I think one can look toward nature for some clues (not all, because nature is in a fallen state too, but clues are there.)

It's in the structures you mentioned (ie. hierarchy). The cosmos has binaries in it (good/evil , order/chaos , etc) but they are arranged on an underlying structure that provides a scaffolding. And there is variation in those levels depending on your vantage. It's fractal, a hierarchy. You see it in a mountain, a tree, a circulatory system, it's everywhere. Our attention is hierarchical.

So... how exactly does evil (real evil) fit in? I still don't know because I think it's intrinsically bad. Maybe it's more like a parasite in the structure. Or a feedback loop. Or a tumor. It's still not the best analogy, I'll have to think about it.

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

Very good. God being reduced to "the Good" is one of the hallmarks of Platonism, which still survives and masquerades as Christianity. People think God is somehow evil for sending sinners to Hell, so they reject the Bible and believe in an idol who has no divine wrath instead. The Platonists became Gnostics and that's what many of these "Christians" are.

Isaiah 45:7:
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

The evil that God creates is not an objective substance of evil, but personal calamity. When bad things happen to bad people, that is God's doing. God is not evil, but He can be your evil.

That said, the solution for the Platonic-Christian syncretist idol is not Jung's even-more idolatrous god. The Scriptures themselves provide the truth and the right balance.

 

[Wutang]

What about when personal calamity falls upon someone like Job is supposed to be a virtuous and God-fearing man? Pretty much all of the theodicy I've encountered says that God does allow evil to happen since the world is now fallen but they'll make clear He isn't the cause of it. In the story of Job, he is tormented but God isn't the one that is actively tormenting him.

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

What about when personal calamity falls upon someone like Job is supposed to be a virtuous and God-fearing man? Pretty much all of the theodicy I've encountered says that God does allow evil to happen since the world is now fallen but they'll make clear He isn't the cause of it. In the story of Job, he is tormented but God isn't the one that is actively tormenting him.

In Job, I don't think God's agency can be ruled out completely since Satan has to ask God if he can torment Job. Whatever evil happens to Job happens by God's permission, but it is not God enacting retributive vengeance (the Law) against Job as He does in the case of unrepentant sinners. The personal calamity that Job endures is of the other kind; it is for a sanctifying purpose, it's meant to show that God can make good out of a bad situation and that He does so in the lives of His saints.

The broad, evil in the fallen world line of thought still tends to ascribe calamity to nature rather than God. This is also known as karmic law. People, even Christians, tend to like this because it keeps God's hands clean in their mind. They just don't like the idea that "the wrath of God is being revealed against all ungodliness." The early Christians did not think this way. Not only is the Bible clear that God is vengeful against sin (He appears evil to the sinner), but other early sources like the Didache say, "The events that befall thee thou shalt accept as good, knowing that nothing happens without God."

If you press the Platonic All-Good God (more like Feel-Good God) too far, then you end up in a system where some kind of ultimate Dualism is necessary. This is exactly what happened in the various Gnostic schemes. The All-Good God sits in the background doing nothing while the Evil God (Demiurge) is working overtime, all so the Gnostics could account for evil.

Edit: I want to add that the Epicurean Paradox (Classical Theodicy) is geared towards the Platonic Monad and not towards the Biblical YHWH, which is why the paradox necessitates the Demiurge in the former and falls short as a critique in the latter.

 

[Wutang]

When I was speaking about personal calamity I wasn't thinking of cases when God enacts vengeance as punishment for some sort of transgression but for acts that we would consider evil such as someone getting robbed or murdered by a random passerby on the street. The victim had an evil committed against him. If God is the active agent for such a thing to happen, how can this be reconciled with God being good?

I suppose a way to get around this would be to argue that even when God is somehow causing disaster to happen to people like in the case of the sort of random acts of violence against people we see in the news, He is somehow punishing them for the purposes of justice but that would seem to even cause more problems for theodicy. What's would be the purpose of God not just merely allowing someone to die in a mass shooting but being the active cause of it?

As for the Demiurge, doesn't Satan play a similar role in that he is the actual cause of evil in the world? To go back to Job, he is the being that is directly attacking Job, not God.