Paul Nash: “Landscape of a
dream”, 1936-38.
Abstract: The article argues that the principle of
complementarity, as employed in quantum physics, is also relevant
to moral philosophy. The moral of the heart is complementary to
an entropic morality that equates evil with disorder. The
Augustinian and Neoplatonic view of evil as privation is
identified with modern principles of thermodynamics. Although it
is untenable as a monist moral principle, it becomes functional
as a complementary opposite of moral evil. This has a bearing on
the ideal of Self; the ideal nature and conduct of
personality.
Keywords: privatio boni, entropy, disorder, Self,
theodicy, Plotinus, St Augustine, Carl Jung, Proclus.
Evil as privation
An issue of central concern to Carl Jung was the theological
statement of privatio boni, which implies that evil is
merely the privation of good. God is the summum bonum
(supreme good). If the good of his creation is the Swiss cheese,
then evil is the holes in the cheese. Jung argued that it gives
rise to negative inflation in human psychology, in as much as
mankind is made responsible for the degradation of God’s
beautiful creation. After all, moral evil is not the only
consequence of the Fall; also earthquakes follow from our
wrongdoings. In Jung’s view, good and evil is solely a
concern of psychology, on the grounds that evil is terribly real
as a psychic experience. These are equivalent opposites that
always predicate one another. Thus, he repudiated the
“metaphysical” interpretation of evil. As long as
evil is viewed as non-being and an “accidental lack of
perfection”, nobody will take his own shadow seriously.
Even so, Father Victor White has characterized Jung’s
standpoint as “quasi-Manichaean dualism” (cf. Jung,
1973, pp. 539f; 1979, para. 98).
The difficulty arises from a conflation of the Neoplatonic view
and the view of moral evil introduced by Jesus. After all, one
cannot say that moral evil is relative absence of moral good.
Hitler was not “less good”. According to Plotinus
(father of Neoplatonism, c. 204/5 – 270 AD), evil is
a consequence of the derivation of reality from the original One
(the first Good). At each successive stage of emanation from the
first spiritual principle yet more imperfection is introduced.
The end product, which is inert matter, is manifestly evil,
because it represents absolute absence of form and measure.
Plotinus, although he also grapples with problems of moral evil,
adopts a metaphysical view of good and evil. His notion of evil
as privation or absence of good was appropriated by
St Augustine (354 – 430 AD). Augustine, who was
strongly influenced by Neoplatonism, said that concupiscence does
not have true ‘being’. Rather, it is bad quality — the privation of
good, something similar to a wound. Concupiscence was for him the
central expression of evil. Augustine writes:
What, after all, is anything we call evil except the privation of good? In animal bodies, for instance, sickness and wounds are nothing but the privation of health. When a cure is effected, the evils which were present (i.e., the sickness and the wounds) do not retreat and go elsewhere. Rather, they simply do not exist any more. For such evil is not a substance; the wound or the disease is a defect of the bodily substance which, as a substance, is good. Evil, then, is an accident, i.e., a privation of that good which is called health. Thus, whatever defects there are in a soul are privations of a natural good. When a cure takes place, they are not transferred elsewhere but, since they are no longer present in the state of health, they no longer exist at all. (St Augustine, Enchiridion, ch. 3.11)
John Hick (2007) criticizes Augustine’s view as ‘aesthetic’ rather than ethical. God is like the Artist who is enjoying the products of his creative activity, where ‘good’ is equated with ‘measure, form and order’ (cf. Hick, 2007, p. 53). Directing his words to God, Augustine says: “To thee there is no such thing as evil” (Confessions, 7:13). Evil is not cognizable in the divine mind. Thus, there simply is no reality to evil in the creation as a whole. It seems to privilege the divine point of view and fails to do justice to the personal and human perspective. According to Hick, we must instead make distinction between ‘metaphysical’ and ‘empirical’ accounts of the reality of evil. The metaphysical definition of evil as privation is irrelevant to experiential evil, which is not privative. After all, pain can hardly be described as the absence of pleasure. This is in accordance with the view proposed here, i.e., that there are two complementary accounts of evil. Says Hick:
As an element in human experience, evil is positive and powerful. Empirically, it is not merely the absence of something else but a reality with its own distinctive and often terrifying quality and power. (ibid. p. 55)
In the antique world evil was associated with disorder, understood as lack of form and measure. Accordingly, should a slave abscond, an upstanding citizen would react with moral indignation. Because the slave’s escape serves to undermine order, it is connected with the principle of evil. Today, however, we would view it as exemplary conduct on part of the abscondee. This has to do with the fact that we put emphasis on the inner moral aspect of good and evil, which Carl Jung sees as the only correct measure of morality. I shall argue that he threw the child out with the bathwater. We must retain a metaphysical or Neoplatonic view of good and evil alongside the morality of the heart. The privatio boni is still a valid principle as long as we forgo theology’s conflation of the two standalone moral principles. Augustine struggled to avoid the Manichaean or dualistic interpretation, and that’s why he adopted the Neoplatonic form of monism. However, it becomes muddled when tied together with Jesus’s moral creed, although it is not as bad as Jung portrays it. Stewart Sutherland says:
The idealism and monism of Plato the metaphysician was what was preserved in the various legacies which Augustine encountered in neo-Platonism, and which he used to construct a theological and metaphysical system with which to counteract the forms of dualism to be found in the Manicheism of his youth. (Sutherland, 1995, p. 477)
Augustine’s view of evil is somewhat incoherent. He
accepted without question the existence of the devil, and he
discusses demonic creatures as though they were objective forces
of evil. However, he fails to give a satisfactory account of how
a ‘no-thing’ could be a force. The doctrine of the
privatio boni, although it was received into the
tradition, has had little influence on Christian history (cf.
Astley et al., 2003, ch. 3.4). It was regarded as mere
philosophy remote from gruesome reality. Christians continued to
regard evil as a fact of existence. As a matter of fact, no other
religion has created so many depictions of evil; in altarpieces, illuminated
manuscripts, and sermons. Christianity has been very occupied
with evil. It is only in the modern world that evil has been
downplayed, despite the fact that it has come to expression as
never before. Maybe Jung is barking up the wrong tree.
Jung has a point however, because what he is really after is the
concept of summum bonum. After all, the privatio
boni problem remains part and parcel of monotheism. If God is
good, then evil is necessarily metaphysically inferior to good.
It was different before, in the polytheistic era. In those times
good gods were pitted against evil ones, as exemplified by the
Asir gods of Norse mythology, always at war with the giants or
the Vanir. The Asir-Vanir war resulted in a unified pantheon — a motley crew that
included the crooked Loki. So the divine multitude that people
worshipped and celebrated could be devious, and sometimes
downright evil.
Privation in Neoplatonism
Although Augustine’s theodicy is profoundly influenced by
Neoplatonism, the identity of being and goodness was formulated
in Christian terms. Whereas Neoplatonic ‘being’ or
‘existence’ is capable of degrees, Augustine tends
toward an additional use of ‘being’. It is viewed as
plain existence; the creature or thing as occupant of space-time.
Failing to distinguish between the two leads to the conclusion
that if anything came to lose its quota of goodness it would
thereby cease to exist altogether (cf. Hicks, 2007, p. 50).
In the Neoplatonic version this does not occur. Rather, utter
privation of Good gives rise to a kind of
“anti-being”, identifiable as matter void of form.
(This, in itself, is connected with serious theological problems,
something which Proclus later attempted to rectify.) Plotinus
remained true to Platonic theology, according to which Intellect
as well as all the undescended beings are entirely free of
corrupting influences. It is only with the worldly emanation that
evil emerges, which explains why evil must be associated with
matter (cf. Phillips, 2007, p. 88). In his concept,
privation is something more than mere absence of being. It is
really an opposition to the Good, and not a mere
“malfunctioning”.
Proclean theodicy allows for the reality of evil as
“secondary existence”. Medieval scholars must have
thought that it makes sense, considering its centrality in the
academic discussion of evil during the Middle Ages. Proclus
(412 – 485 AD),
while maintaining Plotinus’s view that there is no Form of
evil, wants to prove that “matter is neither good nor
evil” and cleverly develops the notion of privation (cf.
Proclus, 2003, ch. 36). In his treatise On the Existence
of Evils, he claims that there are two forms of privation:
(1) privation as lack and (2) as contrariety
(‘subcontrariety’). The latter is evil proper. It
has existence and form, yet only in a secondary sense. Unlike the
Forms, it has no telos (purpose) of its own. It receives
all its power from Good, because it is a parasitic hypostasis — a
parhupostasis (ibid. chs. 50-54).
Proclus concludes that the Good, due to the greatness of its
power, empowers also evil — the privation of itself.
His point is that evil cannot be a mere lack of good, because
mere ‘lack’ cannot have the power to thwart the
creative power of the Forms. Accordingly, evil must be the
privation of the very Form of Good, but not of
‘being’, as in Augustine (ibid. ch. 40). Thus,
Proclus came to reject Plotinus’s notion that matter is the
primary cause of sinfulness itself, in the way it lures the soul
into immersion in materiality and concomitant sensuality and
corruption. Rather, evil is engendered in souls as a secondary
existence; it takes on the appearance of what is good and are
among things that exist (cf. Proclus, 2003, ch. 61). It
sounds like a rather modern view of evil, considering that Proclus thinks
psychologically and focuses on the empirical aspect of evil.
Although Plotinus and Proclus have the same aim, they solve the
theological problems in different ways. Whether Proclus succeeds
is a different question. The notion of evil as
parhupostasis makes me think of a nuclear power plant,
which is good because it creates energy for production. On the
other hand, it also produces the most evil substance we know, as
a rest product, and charges it with destructive energy that will
last for hundreds of thousand years.
Complementarity
The different monist and dualist theories have created much
headache for theologians and philosophers alike. In the realms of
metaphysics, theology, moral philosophy and psychology, they give
rise to problems of a contradictory nature that cannot be
resolved. The principle of complementarity, as formulated by
Niels Bohr, may unravel many of them. Complementarity
implies that two monist theories are both regarded as true,
despite the fact that they are mutually exclusive. In
consequence, either the one or the other is
applicable, but never at the same time. Both models are necessary
to arrive at a consummate picture of reality. It is not
sufficient to resort only to the one explanatory model, because
reality transcends it. In that case, we must change to the other
model. (The principle is also applied in a relative sense,
according to which one complementary property takes precedence
over another, whose measurement is more inexact.)
By resort to complementarity we may rise above both monism and
dualism. At any given instance, we do have resort to a monist
model. However, as no monist model is totally satisfactory and
capable of solving all the problems, it might be necessary to
switch to another monist model. The two are mutually exclusive;
conclusions drawn from either one contradicts the other. By
example, in a recent speech, British politician Nigel Farage
said that “we must not allow our compassion to imperil our
security” (YouTube, here). Masses of refugees fleeing from
poverty will in the end threaten the stability and orderliness of
the European countries. The antique dweller would immediately
grasp the validity of the argument, i.e., that
disorder is the metaphysical equivalent of evil. In the present
time, however, we aim to maximize moral good, which is to show
compassion to as many refugees as possible. A one-eyed fixation
on a monist ideal gives rise to untold evils in another form.
Should we adopt the other perspective and rigidly keep to the
metaphysical ideal, then society will eventually take a
totalitarian form. Fascism and Communism are obvious examples
where orderliness is over-emphasized, resulting in untold moral
evils.
Jesus said that we must not resist evil (Matt. 5:39), meaning
that one must not go to the extremes. One should contribute
according to one’s ability, but then one must move out of
harms way. He practiced this principle himself. In order to avoid
persecution, he left Judea and retired to Galilee. Sometimes we
ought to turn the other cheek and abstain from resisting
evil. A one-eyed fixation on the ideals of right
conduct and moral good leads to harmful consequences.
Evil as entropy
The Neoplatonic form of morality is underestimated today, except
perhaps in conservative circles. It is no longer a conscious
principle among the average citizen. Instead it has emerged in
another form in theories of physics. Modern cosmology has adopted
a view of the universe that formally coincides with the
Neoplatonic. In Neoplatonic and Gnostic thought, spirit comes
first as the highest principle. Its material and cultural
manifestations (emanations) are viewed as inferior to the
pristine source of spirit, ‘the One’ or
‘the Good’. Enfolded inside the spiritual source is
the whole structure of the orderly world, while the latter
constitutes a mere reflection of the Forms contained in the
Nous. With each subsequent step of unfoldment, disorder
increases until no more order remains.
Similarly, according to modern cosmology, in the beginning there
was maximum order. Initially, neither space nor matter existed.
Since then, disorder has continued to increase in the universal
system as a whole, following the second law of thermodynamics. It
says that the state of entropy of the entire universe will always
increase over time. Mohsen Kermanshahi says:
The second law of thermodynamics tells us that the entropy always increases in any isolated system […] This simply means that if a system is left to itself, its energy distribution will move towards equilibrium or in other words it will move towards maximum disorder.
If we take the space-time as an isolated system, then Second law of thermodynamics tells us that the universe has had maximal order and therefore minimum entropy in the beginning and is going towards maximum entropy and minimum internal organization as we go on.
At the surface, it seems that observation is pointing to the contrary. Reviewing the history of the universe, not only denies progress to maximal disorder, but it actually suggests that it is moving to obtain more complex and sophisticated structure as we go along. Universe progressed from creating sub-atomic particles to atoms of lightweight. Second and third generations of stars are creating heavier elements. From there simpler molecules are generated and they further developed themselves to more compound and complex organic molecules and their sophisticated functions.
But, in reality, many of these phenomena are part of a bigger process. During the main process the amount of disorganization and heat release increases and surpasses the formation portion of the process. Therefore, we cannot consider the formation part as an isolated system. We have to look at the whole system where the disorder prevails.
Briefly, it means that an isolated system can contain a subsystem that is open to energy flow from the main system […] As such, the whole combined isolated system still obeys the second law of thermodynamics, but it is possible that the subsystem can experience a decrease in entropy at the expense of its environment (the main system). (Kermanshahi, 2007, pp. 108-9)
This represents a conundrum to physicists, however. How could the pristine universe be in a state of maximum order? It is as if the energy itself was structured. An energy that transcends both space and time, and which enfolds all form, is remarkably coincident with the Neoplatonic conception of spirit. It is similar to the Heraclitean notion of the logos; equally universal energy and divine orderliness. The universe will continue to deteriorate until no more manifest forms remain. Fortunately, concurrently with the rise of universal entropy there emerges sublime order in the subsystems, such as galaxies, planets, and biological systems. This, too, coincides with Plotinian philosophy. Dominic J. O’Meara says:
We must distinguish then between the existence of degrees of perfection (relative to the One) and the existence of various forms of evil. Things on a lower level than the One, for example soul, can be perfect at their level (cf. 5. 6-8). The derivation of lower levels from the Good does not seem to necessitate the existence of evil (see also II. 9 [33]. 13. 28-34). And yet it does seem that evil is required by derivation in the sense that derivation must come to an end, beyond which the good does not continue to produce […] (I.8.7.16-23). (O’Meara, 1995, p. 83)
The thermodynamic model, which was once part and parcel of
moral consciousness, has instead taken mathematical form in the
theories of physicists. It is as if we, in the Western world,
take order for granted, and thus it is no concern of the soul
anymore. The concept has sunk into the realm of matter and
mathematics. Yet it is a fact that a degree of order is necessary
in a classroom at school. The introduction of disorder into an
orderly system is, generally speaking, a form of metaphysical
evil. In Augustinian theology humanity bears a heavy
responsibility for this corruption. However, although we are responsible for our
sinful deeds, the human soul is not to blame for the
deterioration or order, as it isn’t really contingent upon
human psychology. Jung is equally wrong in saying that good and
evil are always reciprocal factors of psychology. A deepened
symbolical understanding of the Fall of Man is required. After
all, we know that the laws of thermodynamics were present already
at the inception of the universe. Earthly human beings cannot be
held responsible for the entropy law.
In fact, evil could be seen as an autonomous power in the form of
a divine law of the universe. Entropy will always increase, as
long as we don’t take measures to counteract it. The
Neoplatonists said that, in order to retain perfection, it is
necessary to reconnect with the spiritual Forms — a process called
reversion (epistrophê). As long as the
“subsystem” opens itself to the light of God, an
increase of inner entropy can be avoided. It is clear that the
thermodynamic law has also a moral meaning and not only a
material meaning. The problem today is that we don’t take
the entropic form of evil seriously. Once it was associated with
the devil, who made us shudder. Today we shudder at the news
story about an abused child, yet are incapable of connecting such
phenomena with the ongoing deterioration of order. Instead we
focus solely on diverse pathological expressions of the human
psyche. Accordingly, the notion of disorder has been appropriated
by psychiatry: bipolar disorder, autism spectrum disorder,
etc.
Evil cannot be eradicated
Obviously, if evil is like a wound, or even parasitic on good, then
evil could be removed so that only good remains. This is what the
theological statement implies. Augustine says:
[Even] if the corruption is not arrested, it still does not cease having some good of which it cannot be further deprived. If, however, the corruption comes to be total and entire, there is no good left either, because it is no longer an entity at all. Wherefore corruption cannot consume the good without also consuming the thing itself. Every actual entity natura is therefore good; a greater good if it cannot be corrupted, a lesser good if it can be. Yet only the foolish and unknowing can deny that it is still good even when corrupted […]
13. From this it follows that there is nothing to be called evil if there is nothing good. A good that wholly lacks an evil aspect is entirely good […] Nothing evil exists in itself, but only as an evil aspect of some actual entity. (St Augustine, Enchiridion, ch. 4. 12-13)
The notion that evil can be removed is highly detrimental. In this
way evil is seen as unreal, as it has no metaphysical existence of its own. Regardless of
its metaphysical relation to good, we today know that evil
cannot be removed, no matter what we do. Should we make an
enormous effort to heal all the “wounds” in
existence, it would only create an enormous rise in entropy
elsewhere. This entropy increase would be even greater than the
order created. So says the second law of thermodynamics. Thus,
even if the subsystem itself is whole and good, the evil exported
is even greater than the good created. Accordingly, good always
gives rise to evil. However, such evil can for the most part be
swept under the carpet. One may, for instance, export the waste
products to Africa. Or one may redefine evil and say that it is
not really evil. Killing more and more animals and appropriating
more and more forest land to feed more and more people
isn’t really evil. But it is evil, nonetheless.
It seems that a form of privatio boni has become an
integral part of the modern soul on account of our
“monotheistic temperament”. Alternatively, it is a
vestige of the past, inherent in our brain. After all, most
politicians seem to endorse a view that evil is like a wound that
could be healed. This is highly detrimental, because it is
generative of evil as a secondary effect. (Chuang-tzu made this realization already in the
4th century BC.) If we embark on a crusade against evil, then it
is certain to bring horrible aftereffects, amply evinced by
George W. Bush’s “tenth crusade”.
It seems that most Western people today are thinking in terms of
privatio boni. Evil is due to a “mistake”, a
“misunderstanding”, a “glitch in the
system”, or a “psychiatric disorder”. It can always be
remedied. It seems that Jung was correct, then; he had correctly
grasped the nature of evil as perceived by the general
population. But perhaps he shouldn’t have blamed the
Catholics. After all, also atheist humanists subscribe to this
notion. Thus, Augustine’s theological statement can hardly
be responsible for this deeply ingrained perception of evil. In
terms of cognitive science, it has its roots in the instinctual
foundation of conceptualization, i.e., the “metaphorical
unconscious” (vid. Lakoff & Johnson, 1999).
Autonomous cognition, with regard to conceptual metaphors, always
operates beneath the level of cognitive awareness, inaccessible
to consciousness. At this level we are still animists. According
to the animistic “Folk Theory of Essence”, every
particular phenomenon is a kind of thing. Every entity has an
“essence” or “nature” which makes it what
it is (ibid. p. 214). For instance, a peacock has
peacock-essence. A more beautiful peacock is endowed with even more
peacock-essence than a less beautiful one. The most perfect of all is
the peacock spirit who is the originator of the species. He is
pure Being.
Thus, it is due to essences that different kinds partake in Being
and have existence. It gives rise to the notion of Grades of
Being, which means that goodness has Being, whereas evil is a
deprivation of its essence. This is how Homo sapiens always
reasons subliminally, following the Folk metaphor of Essence of
Being. Likewise, illness has less reality than health, because
health is the very Essence of Being, whereas sickness is a
privation of this very essence. Lakoff and Johnson say that we
must realize that most of our thought is unconscious and that we
are always thinking metaphorically. If we ignore this fact it
will leave us vulnerable to the cognitive unconscious, and it
will lead us into cognitive slavery (cf. Winther, 2014, here).
Christianity revoked this traditional thoughtway and declared
that all are equal before God (and only before God). No
one has more of the divine substance than anybody else, with one
exception. It had an enormous impact. Of course, cognitive
metaphor soon made an inroad in Christian theology, anyway. Some
are more good than others and therefore partake more fully in the
divine essence, equal to the Good. On account of people’s
natural way of thought, moral goodness became conflated with the
animistic thoughtway. Despite the Protestant principle of sola
fide (salvation through faith alone) natural man continued to
believe that good deeds lead to an increase in human essence. The
notion permeates Western political culture in its relation to the
Third World.
As a remedy, we must once and for all separate moral goodness
from its complementary opposite, the metaphysical Good.
Reinterpreted in thermodynamic terms, the latter makes very much
sense. Uplifted into consciousness, as a standalone principle
strengthened by refined concepts, it allows us to evade the
highly damaging “cognitive slavery” of the present
day.
The Self
The way in which the problem of good and evil is theoretically
formulated affects our ideal of Self; the ideal nature and
conduct of personality. Historically, the theological view of God
has also affected our ideal of personality. We are shaped in His
image and must strive to conform to the ideal. Jung had read
Nicholas of Cusa, the Christian theologian and
Neoplatonist. To Cusa, the opposites were enfolded in God, which
means that they have cancelled each other out. This condition he
denoted coincidentia oppositorum. Thus, Cusa denies that
God contains a diversity of opposites (cf. Winther, 2015a,
here). It
coincides with Plotinus’s view of the One, which is
simple.
Although Jung builds on the Neoplatonic view, he creates a
psychological version of it. To this end God (or the Self) is
pictured as a complexio oppositorum — an
entirely different concept, which implies that God is not simple.
Rather, the opposites are held in tension, as if keeping each
other in check. In consequence, opposites are always ready to fly
apart, and conscious personality must hold them on a tight leash.
(He attributes this view to Cusa; but this is incorrect.) Thus,
Jung’s Self could easily become ambivalent. Nevertheless,
his ideal of Self is arguably “good”, albeit in a
more obscure sense.
The Plotinian ideal of Self is spiritual, which means that it
involves worldly denial and the striving after simpleness, i.e.,
to become like the One. Jung imitated this model and created
instead a psychological ideal of Self which involves the
integration of opposites, keeping them in suspended animation in
consciousness. He rejected the trinitarian ideal of climbing the
spiritual ladder to achieve union with God. We are not to become
simple and unworldly but to become complex and worldly. I believe
that Jung is closest to Iamblichus’s form of Neoplatonism
in which the “horizontal striving” after wholeness becomes
identified with the vertical striving (the Plotinian ideal).
However, it is not certain that Iamblichus’s system holds
up to scrutiny (cf. Winther, 2015b, here).
I have argued that we must endorse both models, both Jung’s
and Plotinus’s, despite the fact that they are mutually
irreconcilable. They are complementary opposites, and thus either
one is relevant to a person during different periods in life.
Adequately, the Self remains one in practice. The spiritual Self
is a coincidentia oppositorum whereas the worldly
counterpart is a complexio oppositorum. In
accordance with the complementarian model of morality, I have
proposed a complementarian model of Self (cf. Winther, 2011,
here).
Monotheistic theology has no other choice than to regard evil as
miscreation or as non-being, because God cannot be ambivalent. It
would be like being married to a person who one day is good to
you and the next day evil. Ambivalence is characteristic of
psychopaths, narcissists and criminals. It won’t do as an
ideal of personality. That’s why the Self cannot be
ambivalent either. We know this, because people heavily dislike
two-faced people. It is much easier to deal with people who have
a constant personality. A routinely evil person probably does
less damage than an ambivalent person.
However, it is questionable whether Jung really saw the Self as
ambivalent. Rather, he viewed it as a complexio
oppositorum, not unlike the Norse pantheon where Odin has
“integrated” the forces of evil, which he has under firm control.
This makes sense; but the notions of an ambivalent God
and an ambivalent Self are both absurd. In that case the
psychopathic personality would be an ideal image of God. Because the notion of
one God having an ambivalent personality doesn’t work, and
because Jung rebuked the notion of God as summum bonum, he
in effect advocated a return to polytheism, or to Manichaean
dualism, or to an impersonal God, like the Indian Brahman. Of
course, if one proposes such a thing to a Catholic priest, then
it leads to a break in relations.
It is obvious that there is a limit to the amount of opposites
that can be integrated in personality. At some point
consciousness cannot stand the tension anymore. We don’t
have the energy and time for such a project, anyway. I cannot
become equally much extraverted as introverted, or equally much
feeling as thinking, or equally much instinctual as rational. I
can only better myself to a degree, and take away the worst
imbalances in my psychology. Only by adopting a more modest ideal
can one avoid becoming ambivalent. At a point in time we cannot
go further on the path of psychic integration. It is then that
the spiritual Self becomes the goal, at the point of reversion
(the Neoplatonic concept of epistrophê). The conclusion
is that the Jungian Self needs to be downsized, because it is
overbearing and exaggerated. There is no such thing as an
overpowering, ambivalent and multifarious Self that incorporates
all the opposites.
In his autobiography, Jung accounts for the dream about Akbar and
Uriah (Jung, 1989, pp. 217-20, here). Jung
associated the sultan Akbar with the “lord of this
world”. Uriah represents the vertical striving, considering
that he lives far above the mandala in a solitary
(hermit’s) chamber; a place “which no longer
corresponded to reality”. He is “the highest
presence” and Jung is compelled to bow before him. But he
could not bring his forehead quite down to the floor. It never
clicked; the coin never dropped. In the dream he is portrayed
as an “idiot” who cannot understand his
father’s brilliant biblical lecture. His father, the
minister, is a representative of the vertical path. From this analysis we
get an entirely different picture than Jung’s conscious
view.
Jung, in a dream, also encountered the notion that there is a
limit to the integrative path. He concluded that the Liverpool
dream depicted the climax of his current psychological progress
(ibid. p. 198). The dream brought with it a sense of
finality, since one could not go beyond the centre. This did not
result in a reversion in the vertical sense, however. Instead, he
continued on the horizontal plane and chose to revert the
ideals of integration and withdrawal of projections. He began,
tentatively, to entertain notions of
“anti-integration” in order to achieve the
re-enchantment of the world along lines of Neopaganism and
Postmodernism.
The theodicy problem
The question is whether the modern concepts of complementarity
and entropy have a bearing on the theodicy problem.
David Hume formulates it thusly:
Epicurus’ old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then evil? (Hume, 1779)
In the Augustinian account responsibility for evil rests on created beings who have misused their freedom. Natural evil is the inevitable consequence (punishment) for their moral evil. It appeals to the metaphysical view of evil as non-being and therefore belongs in many a Catholic and Protestant account. It is fraught with many problems and has little appeal in modern theology. In the Irenaean view God has deliberately put natural evil in the world to create the best environment for “soul-making”. Moral evil is the fault of human beings, who are by God permitted to sin. It appeals to many a modern liberal theologian. The rationale is that suffering is necessary if the world is to be a place where we can grow up morally (cf. Astley et al., 2003, pp. 60-61). Dostoevsky, through the towering figure of Ivan Karamazov, criticizes this view:
Listen: if all have to suffer so as to buy eternal harmony by their suffering, what have the children to do with it — tell me please? It is entirely incomprehensible why they, too, should have to suffer and why they should have to buy harmony by their sufferings. Why should they, too, be used as dung for someone else’s future harmony? (1968, p. 251)
On the other hand, if the moral universe is complementary, it
means that a monistic model is insufficient. The principle of
compassion is not always applicable, as evident from the example
of mass immigration above. It will lead to increased entropy
(disorder) in society, which in turn will lead to immense human
suffering. But nor can the principle of orderliness always give a
satisfactory answer to all moral problems.
According to Christian theology the Godhead has a complementary
nature: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If God created the universe
in his image, it means that complementarity is an essential
condition that we must always take into consideration. We are
forced to navigate between the opposites and avoid monist
solutions. Do not inflexibly resist evil! God is indeed good, but
when the transcendental Form of the world became manifest in
reality its complementarian nature must needs give rise to the
problem of evil. An omnipotent God could indeed have imposed either of
the monist models to eradicate evil and, for example, make all
people compassionate. But it would lead to untold evils in its
aftermath.
In a complementarian world no monist solution will quite suffice.
The model presented here allows for a God who is good,
all-knowing, and all-powerful. Yet, He has no other choice than
to navigate between the opposites. Creation means the generation
of order at one end and the generation of disorder at the other.
In the present universe one plus one is two. God could revoke
this mathematical law, but it would lead to the demise of the
universe as we know it. It would be nice if one plus one were
three — then nobody
would have to starve. So why does God not impose this law on the
universe? Undoubtedly, it would lead to destructive consequences.
As physicists have revealed, to get this universe to work
requires a very delicate and fine-tuned adjustment of all its
parameters.
But why did God have to create the universe in his own image? The
answer would be that he had recourse to no other image, because
he was this image, and creation took shape as an emanation from
God. According to the Neoplatonic emanationist model, creation
means deterioration, a declension of the original image. From a
complementarian standpoint, this holds true, in a sense. There is
no problem of evil in the transcendental state of the
complementarian Form. But its implementation in reality brings
with it problems that are not present in its unrealized state.
Worldly creation is not possible without an escalation of evil
and disorder. Good always leads to evil consequences, at least in
the long-term perspective. To build a cathedral creates more
disorder (in the way of waste-products, deforestation, injured
workers, etc.) than it creates order in the form of a splendid
cathedral. To subsidize the expansion of humanity through Third
World aid is seen as the epitome of goodness. Yet it leads to
severe environmental consequences, such as pollution, extinction
of species, overfishing and deforestation. We are in the wake of
an enormous tragedy. What could God do about it if He is supposed
to be good?
Whereas God the Father is associated with orderliness (as evident
from the Old Testament) God the Son is associated with
compassion. The Holy Spirit mediates between the two and
humanity. It is logical to associate the Paraclete with a
principle of complementarity that may side with either
orderliness or compassion. Since he is involved with creation he
acquires something of its ambivalent complementarian nature.
“[W]hoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has
forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” (Mark 3:29).
A this-worldly spirit must needs take part in the
nature of this world; its creative as well as destructive sides.
The wind blows wherever it pleases. It is up to us to follow its
guidance, rather than resorting to moral fundamentalism, if we
are going to escape damnation.
© Mats Winther, 2015 (revised 2023).
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