ABSTRACT
Psychological experience shows that whatever we call 'good' is balanced by an equally substantial 'bad' or 'evil'. If 'evil' is non-existent, then whatever there is must needs be 'good'. Dogmatically, neither 'good' nor 'evil' can be derived from Man, since the 'Evil One' existed before Man as one of the 'Sons of God'. The idea of the privatio boni began to play a role in the Church only after Mani. Later Christianity, however, is dualistic, in as much as it splits off one half of the opposites, personified in Satan, and he is eternal in his state of damnation. If Christianity claims to be a monotheism, it becomes unavoidable to assume the opposites as being contained in God. But then we are confronted with a major religious problem: the problem of Job. Job who expected help from God against God. This most peculiar fact presupposes a similar conception of the opposites in God.
