Eutheism and dystheism

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Dystheism is the belief that there is a God that does exist and that this God is evil, or at best not wholly good. It is contrasted with eutheism, which is the belief that God exists and is good.

Eutheism and dystheism are dialectic opposites within the spectrum of theistic religious beliefs. Both are forms of theism, in that they are belief systems that assert the existence of God or gods in some form. (The opposing viewpoint to theism, of course, is atheism.)

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Foundations of eutheism and dystheism

The vast majority of theistic belief systems that posit a Singular God (monotheism) are eutheistic, leading to an erroneous general assumption that all theistic belief systems have a positive attitude about God. Gnosticism, Satanism, and Maltheism are examples of belief systems that have at least some dystheistic tenets. Many polytheistic belief systems assert the existence of a variety of both 'good' and 'bad' deities, but the strict dichotomy of eutheism vs. dystheism is usually (though not always) framed in monotheistic terms.

Eutheism arises from a belief that the universe is inherently good, and that its creator must also be inherently good. Dystheism arises from a contrary belief, that neither the universe is not necessarily good, nor is its creator. While they might see good in the world, they contend that the preponderance of evil in the world makes any belief that God is inherently good presumptuous and contrary to the way things are.

They say that an omnipotent creator whose creation includes things that are evil is responsible for the existence of that evil, and is thus evil himself, since an omnipotent could have chosen otherwise. The assumption is that omnipotence would allow this creator to create a world without evil, thus it must have been a free choice the creator made to include evil in the creation. In other words, the presence of evil in the world indicates to dystheists that inherent goodness is not necessarily an innate quality of the universe or its creator, and in fact it indicts the creator as having made a deliberately evil choice.

How does this relate to the problem of evil?

Eutheists counter this argument by saying that God had his reasons for including the possibility of evil in his creation, which absolve him of accusations that he is evil in nature. The theological question of why an omnipotent benevolent God would include evil in his creation is called the problem of evil.

The problem of evil raises questions about God's nature, asking why a benevolent omnipotent God would create a world with evil in it when he could have chosen not to do so. Responses to the problem of evil are known as theodicies. Some consider the whole discipline of theodicy problematic, since it involves working backwards from a desired conclusion (that God is good) in order to prove that this is so.

Many atheists cite the problem of evil's insolubility as a disproof of the existence of God and of theism in general. It only serves as a possible disproof of eutheism: the problem of evil does not eliminate the possibility of the existence of a malevolent God as postulated by dystheism.

If the problem of evil poses a legitimate contradiction, with both elements of the contradiction incapable of simultaneously coexisting (based on the assumption that God is benevolent and omnipotent), then one (or both) of those assumptions must be invalid. Some eutheists respond to the problem of evil by denying God's omnipotence: if God cannot be both omnipotent and benevolent, then we must concede that either God is not benevolent (as claimed by advocates of dystheism), or God is not omnipotent (as claimed by advocates of process theology and Open Theism). This may be perceived as the "better" alternative, in that contradictions are eliminated and we still get a God that is benevolent, but to some eutheists this radically changes what they believe to be the nature of God, to the point that we aren't really talking about God as God anymore. (Dystheists also say that a God who claims to be omnipotent but isn't is a liar, which also makes him evil.)

On the other hand, dystheists are presented with the same logical problem. If God is inherently evil and is also omnipotent, then how can there simultaneously coexist an evil God and goodness? In this way goodness becomes insoluble and can potentailly serve as a possible disproof of dystheism. Dystheism is also presented with the additonal problem of the logical contradition of an omipotent, yet evil God. Evil brings the implications of being wrong and to be omnipotent (or perfect) and evil (or wrong) would lead to a contradiction in itself.

Is there a corresponding \"problem of good\" for dystheists?

Some eutheists have suggested that there must be a corresponding "problem of good" associated with dystheism: "If God is evil, why is there good in the world?" Dystheists say this isn't really a problem (see [The Myth of "Necessary" Evil]) for the following reasons:

While it is often said that good cannot exist without evil (frequently as an explanation for the existence of evil), there doesn't seem to be any logical basis for saying this. Things we think of as good could exist in a world without evil, but they would not "stand out" as things that ought to be given a special label such as "good". There is no logical reason to assert that a world that is totally good without any evil could not exist—in fact (dystheists ask), isn't Heaven supposed to be that very world?
But the converse is not true: while good can exist without evil, evil cannot exist without good. According to dystheists, a world that is totally evil, without any good in it, could not sustain itself for any extended period of time; it would wither and die. It is part of the very definition of evil, that evil parasitically feeds off of good and takes advantage of it in order to thrive. This is in fact what defines evil as evil—its parasitic feeding off of good.
Therefore, they conclude, it is not a "problem" for an evil deity to have created a world that has good in it. He would in fact need to do so.

Since it is thus necessary for an evil deity to promote and foster good, it can be argued by eutheists that this "proves" he isn't really evil. But dystheists would counter that evildoers frequently "do good" (to bolster their reputation, to create an environment in which they can engage in evil for the long term). It would not be a contradiction to the nature of any evil entity for it to do good, especially since it would serve as an image-enhancing promotional facade for it to do so.

The argument is also made that an evil God could not be perfect or omnipotent, because a perfect being would not need or lack anything, yet an evil God would need goodness to survive. But this is an argument whose contradictions work against the existence of any sort of God that is perfect and/or omnipotent, be it benevolent or malevolent. Since dystheists assert that God is not benevolent or honest, they believe it's entirely possible that any claims made about his attributes and nature could be false, not just benevolence but perfection and omnipotence as well.

How do we define \"good?\"

Clearly one of the first orders of business in analyzing the dialectic between eutheism and dystheism is to define what is meant by "good." Since eutheism asserts that God is good, one of the fundamental elements of any eutheistic belief system is the way its adherents define what "good" means and how God manifests himself as good.

Some eutheists would define good in and of itself, in a hopefully objective sense independent of God, asserting that God is good because he fits this definition in his nature and behavior. Such people use a descriptive definition of good.

Other eutheists would say that good is defined as whatever God says is good. Such people are using a proscriptive definition of good.

These two viewpoints may seem to come into conflict with contemporary standards when examining some of God's characteristics. God is often described as exhibiting characteristics that are usually considered negative, such as jealousy, cruelty, vindictiveness, and destructiveness.

The former group of eutheists defines good in a descriptive way that excludes such behaviors, yet most of them still believe God is good, and try to find a way (often through faith) to resolve that apparent contradiction.

The latter group, which uses a proscriptive definition of good, sees no problem with this. In their view, God has the authority to say what is good and what is not—even to make such definitions in a seemingly unbalanced way so that what is wrong for us is acceptable for him. They see no contradiction in this, this is simply the way it is—God gets to define good, we don't.

The problem with a descriptive method of defining good is that a specified laundry list of things considered to be "good" (or at least not "bad" or "evil") cannot be exhaustive. The world is extremely complex and it is very difficult to define a standard of "good" that can conform to all situations. However, basing definitions of good on principle, citing hierarchies of provisos and exceptions, can achieve the desired goal. An example of this is the Wiccan Rede, "An it harm none, do what thou wilt." As long as you don't harm anyone, your actions are by definition good. If your actions do cause harm, in a demonstrable way, then those actions are not good. There are naturally exceptions for actions that harm those who are causing harm, but the core principle that actions that cause no harm are good is a sound basis for a definition of good founded on principles and not laundry list citations.

The problem with a proscriptive method of defining good is that it is the most glaring example of moral relativism imaginable—a single entity gets to decide what is good and what is not. Whether this entity is qualified to make such pronouncements is the point of contention. Saying God can do this "because he's God" is a textbook example of a circular reasoning fallacy. Citing vindictive and destructive actions performed by God, as well as his violation of the basic principle that an action that does not harm others could be considered "evil", a dystheist would conclude that it is reasonable to judge God as evil, since his decisions about what is good and what is not are based not on principle but on God's tainted agenda (fostering his own glory).

Eutheists with a fundamentalist bent would retort that God cannot be judged as evil, because he's God—invoking yet again that same circular reasoning fallacy. (Note that not all eutheists take this extreme position.) These people would say there's no contradiction or hypocrisy in this act of special pleading on God's behalf, claiming that different rules apply to God and humanity. They make assertions that "God is greater than man in all respects and has the authority to rule over man". Dystheists of course would see this reasoning as circular, and would say that God's greater power would hold him to a more stringent set of rules and standards of not causing harm, not just to an arbitrarily "different" set.

Since dystheists see these assertions about God's greatness as circular, and since they see the declaration that God's own rules do not apply to him as arbitrary, they conclude that there is reasonable doubt that God is what he and his followers say he is.

Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro Dilemma

The proscriptive approach to defining what is good is also known as the divine command theory. The Euthyphro Dilemma is a rebuttal to that theory. Originally offered by Plato, it showcases the dichotomy between descriptive and proscriptive definitions of "good". Essentially, it poses the question "Is an action good because God approves of it, or does God approve of it because it is good?"

Eutheists who employ a proscriptive definition of "good" would concur with the first part of the question, saying that things are good (or not) because God says they are (or aren't), period.

Those who pose this dilemma consider this an arbitrary, circular definition, and in fact an example of moral relativism, since good is whatever one particular entity—in this case, God—says it is. The rebuttal to this is that God is the summum bonum—the center and source of all good—by definition, and thus has the right to do this. They say that since goodness is defined by God and not by us, God cannot be judged, we are in no position to even attempt to judge him. Obviously this argument is not convincing to dystheists, or even to many "descriptive eutheists." (It's not clear whether all those who believe God to be the summum bonum are using a descriptive or proscriptive definition of good in asserting their claim, e.g., eutheists who believe God is the greatest possible example of goodness but not necessarily its source.)

On the other hand, eutheists who use a descriptive definition of good would concur with the second part of the question. They agree that goodness is an independent quantifiable concept that can be measured without reference to God, but they also believe that God does fulfill that definition of goodness.

Those posing this dilemma note that if goodness can be defined and measured independent of God, it becomes reasonable to judge God (and his actions) as good or evil, based on the degree to which they comply with the definition. Naturally, dystheists also concur with the second part of the question, but they would say that God fails to meet the test of objective goodness based on his exhibiting of negative characteristics.

How do we define \"evil?\"

Conversely, these same issues arise with respect to dystheistic belief systems and how their adherents define what "evil" means. Eutheists arguing against dystheism often claim that the dystheist's definition of evil is flawed, because it is based on a limited human perspective instead of God's omniscient perspective. Dystheists respond by noting this is an example of the logical fallacy known as "argument from authority." They also note that any harm God causes us, individually or collectively, even if in the service of some greater good, is still an act of evil that a truly omnipotent benevolent God could and would not have to perform. If God were truly benevolent and omnipotent, they say, he could and would reach his goal of greater good without having to go through evil to get to it. To the dystheist, eutheistic explanations for the presence of evil in the world (theodicies) are just rationalizations.

At a fundamental level, dystheists define evil as simply as eutheists define good—anything that causes unnecessary harm is evil. (e.g., deterring those who are causing harm is necessary, so thwarting their actions is not evil) Eutheists counter this by noting that the world is a complex place where it is impossible not to harm other beings in the course of living. In response, dystheists ask why God designed the world to be like that, where the very act of living necessitates the infliction of harm onto others. They cite God's choice to design the world in this fashion as evidence that he is evil, since an omnipotent God could have chosen another design that omitted the possibility of evil, and they cite the Heaven God promises as proof that God could and did create such a world, but that he explicitly chose not to do so in the case of the world we live in, also marking him as evil. (God, being omnipotent, does not have the excuse of claiming that his harmful actions are necessary in order to deter greater harm, because his power would of course allow him to prevent harm without causing any in the process.)

Historical perspective

Since the majority of theistic religious beliefs tend to be eutheistic, the history of eutheism is pretty well covered within the study of the history of religion. Dystheism, on the other hand, is another story: its history tends to be obscured by the overwhelming predominance of eutheism in religious thought. Still, there are significant examples of historical dystheism:

The early Gnostics believed that the God worshipped by Jews and Christians was really a demiurge that stood between us and some greater, more truly benevolent real God. The Gnostic Gospels were suppressed for many years by the established church.

John Milton's Paradise Lost is often cited as an apology of Satan's rebellion against a despotic God.

The trickster gods that play a part in many polytheistic belief systems certainly have a dystheistic nature. One example is Eshu, a trickster God from Yoruba mythology who deliberately fostered violence between groups of people for his own amusement, saying that "causing strife is my greatest joy."

In Jewish author Elie Wiesel's play, The Trial of God, the survivors of a pogrom in which most of the inhabitants of a 17th-century Jewish village were massacred, put God on trial for his cruelty and indifference to their misery. The play is based on an actual trial Wiesel participated in that was conducted by inmates of the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Nazi holocaust, but it also references a number of other incidents in Jewish history including a similar trial conducted by the Hasidic Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev.

Biblical support for dystheistic viewpoint

The Bible and the Koran are the primary religious texts of those often called Abrahamics (those who believe in the God of Abraham from the Old Testament). Although the so-called Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) all appear to have a eutheistic nature, those holding dystheistic beliefs cite the words of the Bible (and similar religious texts) as evidence of God's duplicitous nature.

They note that God tells people that it's wrong to kill, but then exhorts them to kill in his name at his behest (e.g., the slaughter of the native inhabitants of Canaan by the returning Hebrews, the Christian Crusades, the Inquisition, the missionary practices of colonial Europeans, and today's Islamic Jihad). Some argue that these are all examples of free will.

They also note that God says we have free will, but punishes us when we exercise it. This is assuming of course that you believe in a classical Christian Hell of fire, brimstone, and eternal torment and that it is a place of punishment. If hell is not seen as pain and suffering and torture incarnate, but rather perceived as a more neutral place apart from God where you live by said free will, then this poses no problem.

They also note that God says we were created in his image, but at the same time he tells us we are low and vile creatures based on the original sin of Adam and Eve. To dystheists this is nothing more than justifiable rebellion against arbitrary authority.

These apparent contradictions regarding God's actual behavior (and even what is supposed to be his own recounting of that behavior) are viewed by dystheists as glaring inconsistencies at best or blatant hypocrisies at worst. Many examples of such apparent contradictions, inconsistencies, and hypocrisies appear in the Bible, posing challenges to eutheism:

The Garden of Eden and The Tree of Knowledge

In Genesis 2:16, God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, warning them that on the day they eat from this tree they will surely die. The serpent tempted them to eat the fruit anyway, telling them that what God said was not true. God was angered by the disobedience and banished Adam and Eve from paradise for their actions. Genesis 5:5 says "Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died." Although Adam and Eve did not die instantly upon eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, it did indirectly cause them to be placed in situation where they were capable of dying and did.

According to the dystheistic perspective, God sets things up to entrap Adam and Eve, using Satan (the serpent) as a patsy. God lied when he said that eating this fruit would cause Adam and Eve to die. The story indicates that they did not die from eating the fruit, meaning that the serpent's statement was correct and God's was a lie. Furthermore, God had to take explicit action to cause them suffering—not because eating from the tree was bad or wrong, but merely because it displeased him. The question arises as to whether God saying "when you eat of it you will surely die" was an overt threat (leading to that explicit action by God against Adam and Eve), or whether it was simply a lie. Eutheists claim this refers to a spiritual rather than physical death, saying that Adam and Eve's actions constituted a "fall" (from grace), before which mankind was immortal, but after which humans are now "fallible" (capable of physical death), and spiritually dead to God. To the dystheist such embellishments seem to be convoluted after-the-fact rationalizations attempt to mask God's actual nature.

While this story is often seen as metaphorical in nature, it raises questions about God's nature. Why would a God who created humans to be curious and knowledge-seeking punish them for being curious and seeking knowledge? What is the "lesson" to be learned from this parable?—that seeking knowledge is wrong?

The Tower of Babel

In the story of the Tower of Babel, the people in the city of Babel work together to build a tower that "will reach the heavens". God remarks that "the people are one, and they have all one language, and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." Apparently seeing this as a bad thing (as a threat to his authority?), God goes down to "confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech," so that these people would not be able to work together on this or any other common goal.

While this story is often interpreted as another admonition about rebelling against God, it's not clear to dystheists that these people were doing anything wrong. According to the dystheistic perspective, the message of the story is that God's glory and ego are more important than humanity working together. Is it any wonder, it is noted, that religion since this time has been plagued with division and fractionalism? Dystheists see God talking about how following his way will lead to peace, but each group is told a slightly different "way", with the end result being interreligious hatred and violence. The interpretation here is that God wants us divided from each other, fighting each other, each group being told to worship God in a different way that leads them to ostracize and quarrel with others who believe differently.

The Hardening of Pharaoh's Heart

In the book of Exodus, when Moses was instructed by God to lead the effort to seek his people's freedom from slavery in Egypt, God deliberately "hardened Pharaoh's heart", making him even more unwilling to free the Hebrew slaves, making it less likely (not more likely) that they would be released from bondage.

Is this the act of a benevolent God, a dystheist would ask? Was his goal to free his chosen people from slavery, or to show them (and everyone else) how powerful he was? By deliberately making Pharaoh more obstinate about not releasing the Hebrew slaves, he got the opportunity to demonstrate to everyone how powerful he was through the series of plagues he beleaguered the Egyptians with. This interpretation of the story reinforces the notion that God performs "miracles" not as an act of benevolence, but as an act of showing off to gain praise and worship. A benevolent God would not save people from disaster after the fact, he would prevent the disaster from occurring in the first place.

Furthermore, this story would seem to invalidate the common theodicy that God allows evil in the world because he cannot or will not interfere with human free will. Aside from the other known flaws in this explanation for the presence of evil in the world, in this story it can be interpreted that God can and did indeed "tamper" with human free will.

Call for Genocide?

In Deuteronomy 7:1-6, God orders the Hebrews, his chosen people, to invade seven nations and destroy them totally, telling them to "make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy." This is no less than a call for genocide, which would seem to clash with the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21). Furthermore, God threatens the Hebrews by telling them that "(his) anger will burn against (them) and will quickly destroy (them)" if they did not comply with this explicit call for genocide.

Eutheists counter with the argument that God was exacting his judgment on those sinful nations who had rejected his ways. It is claimed that these nations were not innocent, and deserving of this kind of treatment, but we only have God's and the Hebrews' side of the story to support this. Dystheists see this as a case of propaganda where history is "written by the victors" (or by those who own the printing presses, metaphorically speaking).

The Book of Job

The Book of Job has probably sparked more controversy and debate than any other story in the Bible. In it, God allows Satan to test Job to see if he would continue to worship him even after he is plagued with devastating tragedies. The Book of Job contains accusations against God, suggesting that he cannot be criticized because he is all-powerful, and not because he is all-benevolent. The accusations are retracted once Job is reinstalled into his former state, but the controversy regarding the text still exists in modern times.

Dystheists think that a deity who allows Job to be deliberately hurt to see if he would remain faithful and devoted despite this, does not qualify by any objective standards as good. Even many Judeo-Christian eutheists see the Book of Job as bringing into question the fundamental assumption of God's goodness, since God is shown not to have our interests and well-being at heart, and we learn that neither we nor any idea we have about what is good really matter to him.

Those who agree with this conclusion seem to approach it with resignation, saying that it doesn't matter how we might define good, God has the power to do whatever he wants, so we'd best just give in to his will. Dystheists see this as an accession to a might makes right moral code, and as a fundamental reason not to worship God.

Some believe that the authors of the Bible knew God's nature all along and sought to placate him through their praises, but that the Book of Job has a not-so-hidden subtextual message for those who read it carefully—that the God whose praises were being sung throughout the Bible isn't really as good as he is made out to be.

Eutheists counter this by saying that God expects people to endure trials in order to strengthen their character through adversity and increase their faith in him. The claim is that God is not acting out of cruelty, but rather, out of a paternalistic desire for spiritual and moral growth. Dystheists see this as a rationalization—would a good parent deliberately put obstacles in their children's way so they would be hurt, not because they did anything wrong, but merely to drum into them that they must obey? They see God as at the very least encouraging evil to flourish, using people like Job to promote his own "providential glory", at our expense.

Belief systems with dystheistic aspects

Satanism

Satanists advocate rebellion against God because they also consider him evil, and (depending on the particular flavor of Satanism) may or may not believe in the existence of an actual Satan as a real entity, as described in various parts of the Bible and in Milton's Paradise Lost. If God is determined to be at least partly evil, and if Satan does exist, then God's supremacy is only justified by brute force, and thus Satan was justified in rebelling against God's tyranny.

If Satan exists, he can be viewed as God's agent, unfairly blamed for things God himself does not want to be associated with, as in the Book of Job or in the story of the Tree of Knowledge. Some dystheists (e.g., Maltheists) believe that Satan is just an alias God uses to veil his evil aspects and maintain a façade of "goodness", accusing a mythical Satan of being the instigator of evil that God himself is responsible for. This is similar to the way Big Brother in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four would blame all the evil in the world on imaginary insurgent Emmanuel Goldstein, who was really just a fiction invented by the Party as a scapegoat.

Gnosticism

The Gnostics believed that the God many worship is not the "real" God but a demiurge standing between humanity and the true benevolent God. According to Gnostics, an agent of the true benevolent God (i.e., Jesus Christ) was sent to our world to redeem true believers. Dystheists would ask, if this true God is really more powerful than the demiurge and is benevolent, why he doesn't step in and crush the demiurge directly?

Some Gnostics might argue that the True God isn't omnipotent, that he may be in unison with the universe but did not create the natural order. This would lead to the question (out of the Epicurean paradox)—"if he is neither able nor willing (to prevent or destroy evil), then why call him (the Creator) God?"

Atheism

Atheism obviously cannot be labeled either eutheistic or dystheistic since it is the state of being without theistic beliefs. Atheists cite Occam's Razor as a reason for not believing in gods, but like dystheists they also tend to see eutheists' theodicies (intended to serve as responses to the problem of evil) as unconvincing, and consider the contradictions and hypocrisies they see in religious texts like the Bible to be evidence that the problem of evil has only been resolved if one doesn't assume the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent god. While atheists solve the issue by simply not assuming any gods, dystheists believe the biblical God exists, but that he is a capricious and sadistic liar and bully.

Dystheism has been described as the position an atheist would hold if it were proven to him logically that the God of the Bible really did exist (assuming that such an assertion could be proven logically without contradictions), as described in Tim Maroney's essay [Even If I Did Believe].

Maltheism

Maltheism is a modern manifestation of dystheistic belief, aspects of which have been published online in the Maltheism blog [link] and in an online introduction [link] on the Beliefnet [link] website. Maltheism does not appear to be an organized religion, in that it has no established church or other organization, no doctrine, no rules, and no prescribed requirements for membership, but it is apparently a concrete manifestation of dystheistic belief in the modern world.

Antitheism

Antitheism is direct opposition to theism. As such, it is generally manifested more as an opposition to belief in a God (to theism per se) than as opposition to God himself, making it more associated with antireligion. Still, some (particularly religious extremists) would equate both antitheism and atheism to overt opposition to God.

Writer and philosopher Christopher New employed his own definition of antitheism, suggesting that "antitheists, like theists, would have believed in an omnipotent, omniscient, eternal creator; but whereas theists in fact believe that the supreme being is also perfectly good, antitheists would have believed that he was perfectly evil." Antitheists as described by this definition would be more like the Maltheists in directly opposing God rather than just opposing religion.

Misotheism

Misotheism is properly defined as "hatred of God". In and of itself it doesn't really represent a belief system or a doctrine holding a particular point of view—an evil person, for example, could be deemed a misotheist if he hates God and God is good. Likewise, if God is not good, a good person could be a misotheist. Strictly speaking, the term refers simply to an attitude towards God, warranted or unwarranted, and not towards evaluation of God's characteristic nature.