Nature and Righteousness

There are different religious and philosophical theories about the world. I am contending with two of them, claiming them both to be incomplete but not altogether useless. One is the idea that the universe reflects a rational and moral design by a just and righteous creator. The other is that the universe is fallen, and that everything that exists in it is no good.

To the first conception I posit this question: Is it morally righteous and rational that something as nasty as the hyena should eat something as beautiful as the gazelle? Is it morally righteous and rational that there be all sorts of nasty pathogens that infect all sorts of innocent people and the noble health carers who look after them? In neither case do we see any kind of a rationality or a moral perspective. Which means that this explanation is simply wrong.

The other claim is that the world is tainted by sin of Adam and Eve, and that nature - both physical and human - have been corrupted by this sin. If this was the case, then nothing good in the world could exist. And yet there are all sorts of good things in the world, from gazelles and lions to your personal computer. Which means that the fall theory is likewise inviable.

What is viable? In a word, seeing things for their true character. Nature - both physical and human - has not been created by people, which means that it will have no correlation with their moral judgments. We will see things that we like, things that we don't like, and things that are indifferent or a mix.

The only viable answer is that the world is neither good nor evil. The world wasn't created by human beings, and is unrelated to their conceptions of right and wrong. We will see all sorts of things in nature, and we will see all sorts of things in people, and we will like and dislike different manifestations of both.