Nothing can be prior to or outside of God.
The above is a fundamental assumption in Christianity and in virtually all Christian doctrines, dogma, philosophy, theology, and teaching; however, the assumption faces heavy headwinds when another core assumption of Christianity comes into play—namely, freedom. Or at least they do for me.
Traditional/conventional Christian theology and philosophy offer many apparently logical and coherent arguments that explain how freedom can still be authentic and real even though nothing is prior to or outside of God, yet the explanations they provide and the abstract qualifications they utilize tend to diminish or subtly deny the reality of authentic freedom. Or at least they do for me.
The dilemma is a simple one. If nothing can be prior to or outside of God, then freedom cannot be prior to or outside of God. If freedom cannot be prior to or outside of God, then freedom is something God created for humans. If freedom is not something God created, then it is an eternal aspect or idea of God that He shares or allows human beings and other creatures to access or partake in. Either way, God is the ultimate source of freedom, in the same way, he is the ultimate source of everything.
In general, most Christians see no dilemma in any of that, not even when evil enters the equation, which is strange because if nothing can be prior to or outside of God, then it only follows that evil cannot be prior to or outside of God.
Yet this is unacceptable because God is omni-everything, including omnibenevolent. So, if God is not and cannot be the source of evil, what is it, and where does it come from? How does it manifest in the world?
Most Christians will quickly point to free will and confidently claim that evil is a “product” of free will—that it arises or manifests when free will choosing goes against God’s will and divine purposes. They will also insist that such a choice for evil is necessary because if God had denied such decisions, we would be little more than push-button automatons, not actual, free creatures.
Okay, granted, but such explanations do little to shed light on where the evil from free will choosing comes from, especially when you factor in the assumption that God is perfect, all-powerful over Creation and that nothing can be prior to or outside of Him.
The basic solution to this problem—one many theologians have relied on over the centuries—is in the literal understanding of the assumption that nothing can be prior to or outside of God. So being is God. Whatever is not of God is not being. Thus, evil is nothing. Non-existent.
Theologians like Augustine and Boethius define evil as the absence of good or privatio boni. Within such conceptualizations, evil is not a substance, thing, or entity but a lack or absence of good. In other words, evil itself has no real existence. It is non-existent. More precisely, evil can have no real existence because everything in existence, insofar as it exists, *must* be good. To suggest otherwise would not only contradict God’s omnibenevolence, but it would also reflect poorly on the Creator, to the point of making him look “bad.”
Within the privation boni framework, being is equated with goodness, and non-being is equated with evil. All that “is” is good; all that “is not” is evil, which immediately raises the question of why God allows privation evil at all. It also raises questions of how and why God would create beings with the freedom (and power, apparently) to choose to manifest non-existence or non-being in Creation.
Well, since God is omni-everything, the manifestation of such non-existence or non-being must serve some divine purpose, so the world is inherently good, despite all the non-being flaring up all around us—cue Leibniz and his best of all possible worlds conceptualization.
As satisfying as these explanations are to the traditional/orthodox-minded, I have never found them convincing. Thankfully, I am not alone. Some Christian thinkers also struggled to accept such proposed theodicies and definitions of freedom.
Chief among these were Böhme and Berdyaev, each of whom aimed for more penetrating insights into freedom and evil. Starting from the initial assumption that nothing can be prior to or outside of God, the above-mentioned thinkers nevertheless pushed the envelope as far as they could take it in terms of qualifying or re-interpreting just what “not prior to or outside of God” meant or might encompass.
The following are extremely brief encapsulations of those qualifications and reinterpretations that do little justice to the content and depth of each writer’s arguments. Still, for the sake of this post, I’ll touch on a few main points.
Böhme’s vision of the ‘Ungrund’ is essentially a reinterpretation of the Trinity. Böhme begins with God the Father as the Ungrund, a fiery abyss containing all the indefinite matter of the universe and the Divine Will. As such, God the Father, considered on his own, is neither good nor evil but contains both, unconsciously and impenetrably.
The Ungrund (Father) knows itself through its relationship with the Son, who Böhme defined as light and wisdom. The Father then expands and expresses itself through the Holy Ghost. The Ungrund of the Böhmian Trinity possesses two innate wills, one good and one evil, love and wrath, which drive Him to create nature, including humanity. The Ungrund itself is purified of evil through the light of the Son and thus expands and expresses Himself in perfect goodness through the Holy Ghost.
To sum up (poorly), Böhme placed the potential for evil within the Trinity but conceived the Trinity as immune to potential due to the love, wisdom, and redemptive qualities of the Son. This vision not only conforms to the assumption that nothing can be prior to or outside of God but also strives to explain how and why evil exists in Creation via the War in Heaven and the Fall yet can be overcome via Christ.
Captivated by the vision of the Ungrund, Berdyaev took Böhme’s vision a step further and placed the abyss, in the form of pure freedom, potentiality, and non-existence that is neither good nor evil, entirely outside of God.
In doing so, Berdyaev places freedom before being and breaks the not prior to or outside of God paradigm; however, he does so primarily to preserve God’s ultimacy rather than demean it. The Trinity emerges from the Ungrund in dramatic self-actualization and proceeds to create everything else from the Ungrund:
Out of the Divine Nothing, the Gottheit or the Ungrund, the Holy Trinity, God the Creator is born. The creation of the world by God the Creator is a secondary act. From this point of view, it may be said that freedom is not created by God: it is rooted in the Nothing, in the Ungrund from all eternity.
In my very humble opinion, Böhme and Berdyaev both offer far more convincing and coherent explanations for the origins of freedom and evil, yet neither abandons the traditional conceptions of evil and, subsequently, freedom as non-existence or non-being. And neither truly abandons the assumption of nothing being prior to or outside of God.
In Berdyaev’s case, the Ungrund possesses no ontological reality, thus it does not limit God as infinite or absolute. Also, God’s birth from the Ungrund happens outside of time; hence, there is no “real” before. And even if there is, that thing that is “prior to” God is not really prior to at all but happens instead in eternity and freedom, beyond any concept of time.
Although I find the “abyss” explanations for freedom and evil fascinating and, to a great extent, far more convincing than traditional explanations, I can’t help but feel that they remain hemmed in by the constraint of ensuring that nothing is prior to or outside of God.
From my perspective, freedom becomes far more comprehensible if one assumes that it is and has always been an inherent part of eternal Beings, of which the Primary Creator, who has mastered freedom through love, is supreme.
Such a framework renders any idea of non-being or non-existence absurd and offers far more meaningful explanations for the significance of freedom. More on that in a future post.
The above is a fundamental assumption in Christianity and in virtually all Christian doctrines, dogma, philosophy, theology, and teaching; however, the assumption faces heavy headwinds when another core assumption of Christianity comes into play—namely, freedom. Or at least they do for me.
Traditional/conventional Christian theology and philosophy offer many apparently logical and coherent arguments that explain how freedom can still be authentic and real even though nothing is prior to or outside of God, yet the explanations they provide and the abstract qualifications they utilize tend to diminish or subtly deny the reality of authentic freedom. Or at least they do for me.
The dilemma is a simple one. If nothing can be prior to or outside of God, then freedom cannot be prior to or outside of God. If freedom cannot be prior to or outside of God, then freedom is something God created for humans. If freedom is not something God created, then it is an eternal aspect or idea of God that He shares or allows human beings and other creatures to access or partake in. Either way, God is the ultimate source of freedom, in the same way, he is the ultimate source of everything.
In general, most Christians see no dilemma in any of that, not even when evil enters the equation, which is strange because if nothing can be prior to or outside of God, then it only follows that evil cannot be prior to or outside of God.
Yet this is unacceptable because God is omni-everything, including omnibenevolent. So, if God is not and cannot be the source of evil, what is it, and where does it come from? How does it manifest in the world?
Most Christians will quickly point to free will and confidently claim that evil is a “product” of free will—that it arises or manifests when free will choosing goes against God’s will and divine purposes. They will also insist that such a choice for evil is necessary because if God had denied such decisions, we would be little more than push-button automatons, not actual, free creatures.
Okay, granted, but such explanations do little to shed light on where the evil from free will choosing comes from, especially when you factor in the assumption that God is perfect, all-powerful over Creation and that nothing can be prior to or outside of Him.
The basic solution to this problem—one many theologians have relied on over the centuries—is in the literal understanding of the assumption that nothing can be prior to or outside of God. So being is God. Whatever is not of God is not being. Thus, evil is nothing. Non-existent.
Theologians like Augustine and Boethius define evil as the absence of good or privatio boni. Within such conceptualizations, evil is not a substance, thing, or entity but a lack or absence of good. In other words, evil itself has no real existence. It is non-existent. More precisely, evil can have no real existence because everything in existence, insofar as it exists, *must* be good. To suggest otherwise would not only contradict God’s omnibenevolence, but it would also reflect poorly on the Creator, to the point of making him look “bad.”
Within the privation boni framework, being is equated with goodness, and non-being is equated with evil. All that “is” is good; all that “is not” is evil, which immediately raises the question of why God allows privation evil at all. It also raises questions of how and why God would create beings with the freedom (and power, apparently) to choose to manifest non-existence or non-being in Creation.
Well, since God is omni-everything, the manifestation of such non-existence or non-being must serve some divine purpose, so the world is inherently good, despite all the non-being flaring up all around us—cue Leibniz and his best of all possible worlds conceptualization.
As satisfying as these explanations are to the traditional/orthodox-minded, I have never found them convincing. Thankfully, I am not alone. Some Christian thinkers also struggled to accept such proposed theodicies and definitions of freedom.
Chief among these were Böhme and Berdyaev, each of whom aimed for more penetrating insights into freedom and evil. Starting from the initial assumption that nothing can be prior to or outside of God, the above-mentioned thinkers nevertheless pushed the envelope as far as they could take it in terms of qualifying or re-interpreting just what “not prior to or outside of God” meant or might encompass.
The following are extremely brief encapsulations of those qualifications and reinterpretations that do little justice to the content and depth of each writer’s arguments. Still, for the sake of this post, I’ll touch on a few main points.
Böhme’s vision of the ‘Ungrund’ is essentially a reinterpretation of the Trinity. Böhme begins with God the Father as the Ungrund, a fiery abyss containing all the indefinite matter of the universe and the Divine Will. As such, God the Father, considered on his own, is neither good nor evil but contains both, unconsciously and impenetrably.
The Ungrund (Father) knows itself through its relationship with the Son, who Böhme defined as light and wisdom. The Father then expands and expresses itself through the Holy Ghost. The Ungrund of the Böhmian Trinity possesses two innate wills, one good and one evil, love and wrath, which drive Him to create nature, including humanity. The Ungrund itself is purified of evil through the light of the Son and thus expands and expresses Himself in perfect goodness through the Holy Ghost.
To sum up (poorly), Böhme placed the potential for evil within the Trinity but conceived the Trinity as immune to potential due to the love, wisdom, and redemptive qualities of the Son. This vision not only conforms to the assumption that nothing can be prior to or outside of God but also strives to explain how and why evil exists in Creation via the War in Heaven and the Fall yet can be overcome via Christ.
Captivated by the vision of the Ungrund, Berdyaev took Böhme’s vision a step further and placed the abyss, in the form of pure freedom, potentiality, and non-existence that is neither good nor evil, entirely outside of God.
In doing so, Berdyaev places freedom before being and breaks the not prior to or outside of God paradigm; however, he does so primarily to preserve God’s ultimacy rather than demean it. The Trinity emerges from the Ungrund in dramatic self-actualization and proceeds to create everything else from the Ungrund:
Out of the Divine Nothing, the Gottheit or the Ungrund, the Holy Trinity, God the Creator is born. The creation of the world by God the Creator is a secondary act. From this point of view, it may be said that freedom is not created by God: it is rooted in the Nothing, in the Ungrund from all eternity.
In my very humble opinion, Böhme and Berdyaev both offer far more convincing and coherent explanations for the origins of freedom and evil, yet neither abandons the traditional conceptions of evil and, subsequently, freedom as non-existence or non-being. And neither truly abandons the assumption of nothing being prior to or outside of God.
In Berdyaev’s case, the Ungrund possesses no ontological reality, thus it does not limit God as infinite or absolute. Also, God’s birth from the Ungrund happens outside of time; hence, there is no “real” before. And even if there is, that thing that is “prior to” God is not really prior to at all but happens instead in eternity and freedom, beyond any concept of time.
Although I find the “abyss” explanations for freedom and evil fascinating and, to a great extent, far more convincing than traditional explanations, I can’t help but feel that they remain hemmed in by the constraint of ensuring that nothing is prior to or outside of God.
From my perspective, freedom becomes far more comprehensible if one assumes that it is and has always been an inherent part of eternal Beings, of which the Primary Creator, who has mastered freedom through love, is supreme.
Such a framework renders any idea of non-being or non-existence absurd and offers far more meaningful explanations for the significance of freedom. More on that in a future post.
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