Is the model of Good/Evil Dualism Innate?

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While St. Thomas and others talked about evil being “an absence of good”, Christian theology generally includes belief in some version of a “power of evil” manifest in “bad people” “bad institutions” “bad parts of the ego” etc. Since these labels are applied to something that is real, we can see that the whole idea of evil as an “absence” is not a concept that enters our Western speech.

Indeed, the same can be said for many languages and belief systems. Though Zoroastrianism is the most explicit, elements of this “powers of good vs evil” seems to be pretty evident all over. Atheists whom I have met and discussed the topic all seemed to ascribe to a dualistic mindset.

So, is the model of such dualism innate? Is there a phenomenon of the mind going on here?

I hope to hear from a broad spectrum of Catholics, people of other religions and atheists here, so please send people this way!
 
people have an innate tendency toward dualisms. Toward either/or - and they make either and or very different and yet equal in power and type.

If you think you see people doing it with evil, this is because people do it with everything.
 
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OneSheep said:
So, is the model of such dualism innate? Is there a phenomenon of the mind going on here?
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I don’t think it would be right to say dualism is innate to people. I think the concepts of good and evil are innate to people, but dualism is simply a primitive conception of how good and evil work.
 
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1Lord1Faith said:
I don’t think it would be right to say dualism is innate to people. I think the concepts of good and evil are innate to people, but dualism is simply a primitive conception of how good and evil work.
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Is it so “primitive” though? Last time I checked, most Christians believe in a devil, right?
 
Lucifer is a fallen angel. All angels are created by God. Therefore, angels aren’t equal to God, but they are His creations. So, there’s no dualism there.
 
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1Lord1Faith said:
Lucifer is a fallen angel. All angels are created by God. Therefore, angels aren’t equal to God, but they are His creations. So, there’s no dualism there.
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But in Christian theology, Lucifer has power, and it is a power in opposition to God, right?

I’m observing that it is very natural for people to see powers of good and evil.
 
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Opposition? Sure. But dualism implies that they would be equals. We know that’s not the case.
 
In Christianity evil is allowed to have its day, for a time. God is ultimately in control; He could squash creation and/or the whole angelic and human enterprise at any time. But he would never have created to begin with if He didn’t know that the endeavor was all worth it in the end.
 
No, I don’t think dualism is innate. Greek mythology, for example, imagined supernatural forces which were neither entirely favorable or entirely unfavorable in their character or their concern for humankind. If dualism were innate, there would not be examples of a cosmology that did not include it.

(…well, humans being humans, I will grant that the exception would be the purposefullly-chosen “anti-dualism dualism,” the one that in fact sees “dualism” as bad and what the adherents see as their “non-dualism” as good, with no one who doesn’t fit in one camp or the other, but I hope you see what I mean.)
 
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Good and evil definitely exist. I would say both are part of human nature no matter what belief or non-belief system or concept a person holds.
 
Yin yang is the root of Chinese philosophy. Whilst it may not be exactly dualism there are features similar.
Yin yang reflects nature which is Gods creation. Hence I think one day yin yang may be incorporated into catholic theology just as Aristotle was.
 
No. The history/background of yin-yang is a bit more complex than a few words. Christ is the answer, not a symbol.
 
The Aristotle idea of matter and form was foreign to early Christianity prior to Aquinas.

Matter and form can be explained in yin and yang.

I’m not saying incorporating without any modification. It’s about synthesising the concepts to explain theology better, exactly what Aquinas did. So the yin yang concept may be able to explain theological concepts which is difficult to explain now.

The theology is not changed. It is developed. So it can develop further with the help of yin yang principles.
 
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In terms of being, i see good as something that is essentially monistic. Only good “exists”, but some beings evidently lack what is good. This only makes sense if some beings are not essentially goodness itself, but rather good is what is given to them… The first cause, the original being, is goodness itself. Evil is unnatural in that it is merely parasitic to good things. It does not exist as such in its own right, but rather it is a privation of good which is possible because that which is not essentially identical with goodness itself can reject that which is good…Thus anything that undermines a human beings assent to God is evil, or rather it is a privation of God. A sin.

The problem with thinking that evil is an actual thing, is that you would have to think that evil can come from God, and that is not only contrary to Thomistic philosophy, it is also contrary to Catholic theology… God can create beings who are limited in being by their essential nature, but he cannot create evil because evil by itself is nothing at all, it has no power. Evil is a perversion of good. In other-word a man can only harm you with the good that he has, and that is a perversion of the good.

Thomism, might be wrong in how it explains evil, but it is certainly more right than it is wrong.
 
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Yes, but these additions do not change the fact that most Christians believe in two separate powers, which is dualism.

There is nothing wrong with dualism; I am thinking that it is a very natural way of encountering the self and the world. It makes sense that God would create us in a way that the formulation is innate. Can you see this?
 
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