Goodness is a universal. It shares in God, in existence, and is predicated of a panoply of things. Yet how can this goodness, which we all recognize, be hitched to things and processes which admit of decay and even sin? For example, in order to live, certain living things need to destroy other living things. That is a law of nature. Thus a steak shares in goodness because it is nutritious. Yet it is also the death of an animal who likely suffered, perhaps traumatically. Likewise, the building of a palace or library, a good thing, involves the destruction of a natural habitat, say. Or take the idea of exercise. Certain muscles are exerted to the point of break-down, so as to be built up once more. This is also a good had by way of destruction.
So can we say that the world is a, for lack of a better word, "mixture" of good and evil, such that at least some goodness involves the necessity of some evil? Why should goodness, which finds its Source and Reason in the Summum Bonum, Highest Good of God, contain any trace of evil? And yet it seems to. So does the Source then include evil too? If so, how can God be All-Good?
Goodness as a Universal
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Dimmesdale
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Dimmesdale
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Re: Goodness as a Universal
Post #2[Replying to post 1 by Dimmesdale]
For the world to be neither good or bad but a "mixture" of good and bad seems to me ontologically sloppy. Either the world is all-good or all-bad, it seems, not a mixture. Yet how can this be? If goodness is a real universal, there has to be absolute solidity philosophically. This is not to say there are not bad aspects in the world, just that they ought not to have real existence.
A "mixture" of good and bad comprising the world seems bad philosophy and bad form; it is also inelegant.
For the world to be neither good or bad but a "mixture" of good and bad seems to me ontologically sloppy. Either the world is all-good or all-bad, it seems, not a mixture. Yet how can this be? If goodness is a real universal, there has to be absolute solidity philosophically. This is not to say there are not bad aspects in the world, just that they ought not to have real existence.
A "mixture" of good and bad comprising the world seems bad philosophy and bad form; it is also inelegant.
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Dimmesdale
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Re: Goodness as a Universal
Post #3[Replying to post 2 by Dimmesdale]
Perhaps one can sort of "gesture" in the direction of a solution by supposing that evil only "appears" to exist. That really the world IS all-good and hence has no "real" trace of evil. Yet how can one morally be justified in saying this? There are evils in poverty, in moral depravity, etc. How can we skirt these?
The answer may be that there is ultimately only One Will in the world, and that is the will of God and we cannot ascribe any malice to this one universal will, but only to the splintered egoic shards that exist as epiphenomenons of this superintending will and that claim doership, but in reality are only conduits of the One Will's grace and foreseeing Wisdom.
Yet how can something like a rape or some act of sheer cruelty ever be ascribed to God? Once again, if we see things only through the lens of the benighted "doer" then recrimination will fall upon recrimination and we will never accept it. But if we could accept that the Cause doing this, although it has such an effect, does not have in mind any cruelty, just as evolution does not have in mind cruelty although "it is what it is" - then we can forgive God because there is in reality nothing to forgive. God simply does what he does because it is It's Nature. It cannot help being any other way in fact.
This I think is the true meaning of "fiat voluntas tua."
Perhaps one can sort of "gesture" in the direction of a solution by supposing that evil only "appears" to exist. That really the world IS all-good and hence has no "real" trace of evil. Yet how can one morally be justified in saying this? There are evils in poverty, in moral depravity, etc. How can we skirt these?
The answer may be that there is ultimately only One Will in the world, and that is the will of God and we cannot ascribe any malice to this one universal will, but only to the splintered egoic shards that exist as epiphenomenons of this superintending will and that claim doership, but in reality are only conduits of the One Will's grace and foreseeing Wisdom.
Yet how can something like a rape or some act of sheer cruelty ever be ascribed to God? Once again, if we see things only through the lens of the benighted "doer" then recrimination will fall upon recrimination and we will never accept it. But if we could accept that the Cause doing this, although it has such an effect, does not have in mind any cruelty, just as evolution does not have in mind cruelty although "it is what it is" - then we can forgive God because there is in reality nothing to forgive. God simply does what he does because it is It's Nature. It cannot help being any other way in fact.
This I think is the true meaning of "fiat voluntas tua."
