More on Good and Evil

If you have been following this blog, you may have noticed that several of us have talked about Heaven & Hell, and which one is the better one. While none of us have really come up with a concrete answer (I don't think there really is one), I wold like to expand that subject in another direction: Good and Evil.

Reading through Paradise Lost, one knows that there is a battle between good and evil, but which is which? Satan at the beginning seems "good" to the reader, and God for once seems almost "evil" in his actions. But then as the poem continues the roles switch to the more expected views. Earlier in the semester our group was responsible for analyzing other publications of John Milton, and one quote still sticks out to me:

"Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of god is so involved and interwoven with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned" ( from Areopagitica)

Our group established that one must be exposed to both forces in order for free will to function in a productive way (that is to make the correct decisions). But these forces are "interwoven" in a way that ensures that in order for one to exist, the other too must exist. We see this in Paradise Lost, most notably during the fall and the eating of the apple. In order for either Adam or Eve to choose good (obeying God) or evil (disobeying), they had to be exposed to both. We reasoned in class that this could be Gods reason for not intervening. Furthermore I believe that it is important to think about how paradise is filled with good, but still allows evil in. This makes me wonder if evil is really as bad as we make it out to be.

As I read through Good Omens I noticed a similar feeling to keep both good and evil, and found a couple quotes to support this. The first one occurs when the Them are discussing plans to change the world and to possibly get rid of their gang rivals.

"'What your all sayin',' he summed up, in his best chairman tones, 'is that it wouldn't be any good at all if the Greasy Johnsonites beat the Them or the other way round?'

'Thats right,' said Pepper.'Because,' she added,'if we beat them, we'd have to be our own deadly enemies'" (p.317)

The case of survival comes into play here. For the Them (which believe they are good so we will assume this) the survival of the Johnsonites (therefore evil) is crucial because without them there would be no rivalry. They would have no one to fight, no one to challenge themselves to. It would lead to an inward destruction. The same goes for Heaven & Hell, Good & Evil. Without each other thee would be no opponents, and they would be left fighting each other, most likely leading to destruction by their own people.

My next reference comes a bit later, when everyone is at the air base, and Adam is deciding whether to end the world or not.

But even if you win, you can't really beat the other side, because you don't really want to. I mean, not for good." (p.362)

The first question that popped into my head after reading this was: Why didn't God just destroy the fallen angels when they originally rebelled? Why allow them to survive? I believe this quote sums it up quite nicely. Essentially, God has to have an opposing force, and this leads him to hold back when he battles the angels. In this way he beats them in that battle and sends them to Hell; but God still allows the angels to survive so that he has an enemy. The same goes for Good ad Evil- one side cant truly win, because then there wouldn't be any opponents, no sides to chose, no point to free will.

I see that my post is becoming quite long,so I apologize for the length. However I thought that this concept was pretty interesting, and I hope the rest of you do too. As always, feel free to comment or disagree.

Rebecca R.