from divine axioms to rational ethics

Good and Evil Reconsidered

By Carmela Lilienfeld

The concepts of good and evil function not merely as moral signposts in Christian intellectual tradition, but as axioms. They shape an understanding of human nature, the created world, and the unfolding of history. Rooted in divine revelation and ontologically anchored in the nature of God and creation, good and evil possess a weight that exceeds the merely ethical and reaches into metaphysics. With the emergence of ratiocentric consciousness—marked by confidence in autonomous reason, universal method, and critical self-grounding—these traditional meanings undergo a profound transformation.
Against this background, the present article investigates which elements of the Christian axiomatic framework remain influential in modern conceptions of good and evil and which have been reconfigured into new, secular conceptual forms.

In the Christian tradition, good and evil are understood as fundamentally asymmetrical. Good is primary, ontological, and grounded in the being of God, who is the perfect source of all existence. Because God is without defect, only what is intrinsically right can proceed from Him. The Johannine insight that “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” articulates this deep conceptual link between goodness and divine being, establishing the divine will as the central moral compass for Christian life.

„For what is a rational being if not a choice? And there can be no evil, nor any good, without intent.”

R.A. Salvatore

Evil, by contrast, cannot exist by itself. It is neither a rival principle nor an autonomous force, but a distortion or privation of good. Christian theology therefore interprets evil as the absence of God—an absence of goodness, light and love. Thus Augustine in his book De civitate Dei, published in 426 AD, defines evil as “privatio boni” and Dionysius the Areopagite similarly characterizes evil as “deficiency,” a lack of qualities that participate in divine goodness. Within this paradigm, evil does not create; it only corrupts.

The narrative of the Fall illustrates this dynamic with particular clarity. Through the misuse of freedom in Eden, humanity distances itself from God, and human nature becomes wounded. From this moment onward, mankind becomes the arena where good and evil contend. Good requires cooperation with grace, discipline, and repentance, whereas evil often arises from passivity or surrender to lower passions—the very tendencies early monastic writers warn against.

In summary, the Christian axiomatic framework rests on three core propositions:

1. Moral truth has an absolute, transcendent source.
2. Human freedom enables the possibility of wrongdoing, while evil itself remains non-substantial.
3. Good and evil are inherently asymmetrical, with good possessing ontological priority

With the rise of early modern rationalism, however, a decisive shift occurs. The elevation of reason as the chief instrument of knowledge encourages a reinterpretation of moral categories. Good and evil are understood less as metaphysical poles and more as psychological tendencies, rational choices, or social constructs. Scientific progress further reinforces the conviction that human conduct can be explained without recourse to transcendence. As a result, the ethical discourse of modernity gravitates toward questions of utility, autonomy, and social order.

Thinkers such as Descartes and Spinoza attempted to formulate ethics from universal principles of reason, while Kant represents the clearest break: good is no longer grounded in divine being but in the autonomous rational will. To act morally is to follow a law that reason itself legislates. Consequently, evil appears not as privation of divine light, but as refusal to act according to rational universality.

Nevertheless, the rationalist turn does not erase the Christian matrix. Many secular ethical theories retain structural elements inherited from Christian thought: the primacy of the good, the distinction between constructive and destructive action, and the emphasis on human freedom as the locus of responsibility. What Christian theology expressed through the imagery of light and darkness persists today in discourses on human dignity, rights, and agency.

Moreover, both Christian and secular frameworks share important points of convergence. Despite differing metaphysical foundations, each approach treats good and evil primarily as evaluative distinctions grounded in some normative standard. This standard may be personal, rational, cultural, or theological. The difference lies not in the act of judgment, but in the source of authority: Scripture or ecclesial tradition on the one hand, and philosophical or psychological models (Kant, Jung, Spinoza, Descartes) on the other.

“Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil – not the strength to choose between the two.”

John Cheever

Another point of continuity is the shared affirmation of human freedom as the precondition for moral choice. Both Christian axiology and secular rational ethics begin with the assumption that the human being is a rational agent capable of examining actions and acting beyond instinct. Christian thought understands free will as a divine gift, while rationalism sees it as a function of autonomous reason; but both regard choice as central to the human condition. The divergence between the two frameworks lies in how the ultimate criterion of choice is justified—through divine order or through reason’s self-grounding.

In conclusion, Christian axiomatic thought operates through the terms good and evil by grounding them in the being of God, understanding good as ontologically primary and evil as a privation of that good, while modern ratiocentric thought translates these categories into secular forms: good becomes rational autonomy, psychological flourishing, or social utility, while evil becomes irrationality, dysfunction, or harm. Yet beneath these transformations, a structural continuity persists. Modern ethics continues to depend on normative distinctions and human freedom — echoes of the Christian axiomatic framework that, though reinterpreted, remain embedded in contemporary moral discourse.