Page:History of Zoroastrianism.djvu/418

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385
EVIL

godhead;[1] but the author of this treatise retorts by arguing at length that the indispensable attributes of God such as his goodness, omniscience, omnipotence, and the rest, demand that he could not simultaneously be the producer of good and of evil. If evil is also his creation, God is either not wholly good or he is not wholly powerful; both good and evil cannot be dependent on his will. The controversialist continues by addressing arguments to prove that Ormazd cannot be held accountable for evil without impairing some one or more of his attributes that are essential to his divinity; and whatever reflects upon even a single of his divine attributes degrades his position. We shall now see the main arguments advanced by the learned controversialist against the theory of tracing both good and evil to one and the same source.

The goodness of Ormazd demands that he could on no account be the author of evil. One of the essential requisites of the godhead is goodness. If evil arises from him as the deity, he is imperfect in goodness, and consequently could not be deserving of praise and sacrifice from men.[2] Men cannot pray to one who is partly good and partly evil. If the divine being could have averted evil from mankind, and did not so will it, he is not perfect in goodness; and a being that is imperfect in goodness is not to be glorified by men.[3] If he is perfect in goodness, he could not wish for the presence of evil, but only for its extinction;[4] for a being whose will is evil is unworthy of his divinity.[5] Such a view destroys his attribute of goodness. But Ormazd is perfect in goodness;[6] and consequently, his will being eternally good, only goodness should prevail in the world from its beginning up to its end.[7] But, the author maintains, the world shows more of evil than goodness,[8] hence evil is outside of and independent of Ormazd. Beside all that, everything in the world either happens through his will, or it does not, or there may be some things that happen through his will, and others through the will of some other.[9] If both the good and evil come to pass through his will, then his will is not perfect,[10] and the being whose will is imperfect is himself im-

  1. ↑ Sg. 12. 33, 34.
  2. ↑ Ib., 11. 103–111.
  3. ↑ Ib., 280–284, 315.
  4. ↑ Ib., 11. 311.
  5. ↑ Ib., 35.
  6. ↑ Zsp. 1. 17.
  7. ↑ Sg. 11. 339–342.
  8. ↑ Ib., 36, 343.
  9. ↑ Ib., 155–157.
  10. ↑ Ib., 125–132, 159–162, 344–351.
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