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Systems of Religious and Spiritual
Belief
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Dualism
is the doctrine that the world (or reality) consists of two basic, opposed, and
irreducible principles that account for all that exists. It has played an
important role in the history of thought and of religion. |
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In religion, dualism means the belief in
two supreme opposed powers or gods, or sets of divine or demonic beings, that
caused the world to exist. It may conveniently be contrasted with monism, which
sees the world as consisting of one principle such as mind (spirit) or matter;
with monotheism; or with various pluralisms and polytheisms, which see a
multiplicity of principles or powers at work. As is indicated below, however,
the situation is not always clear and simple, a matter of one or two or many,
for there are monotheistic, monistic, or polytheistic religions with dualistic
aspects. |
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Various distinctions may be discerned in
the types of dualism in general. In the first place, dualism may be either
absolute or relative. In a radical or absolute dualism, the two principles are
held to exist from eternity; for example, in the Iranian dualisms,
Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism, both the bright and beneficent and the sinister
and destructive principles are from eternity. |
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In a mitigated or relative dualism, one
of the two principles may be derived from, or presuppose, the other as a basis;
for example, the Bogomils, a
medieval heretical Christian group, held that the devil
is a fallen angel who came from God and was the creator of the human body, into
which he managed by trickery to have God infuse a soul. Here the devil is a
subordinate being and not coeternal with God, the absolute eternal being. This,
then, is clearly a qualified, not a radical, dualism. Both radical and mitigated
types of dualism are found among different groups of the late medieval Cathars,
a Christian heretical movement closely related to the Bogomils. |
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Another and perhaps more important
distinction is that between dialectical and eschatological dualism. Dialectical
dualism involves an eternal dialectic, or tension, of two opposed principles,
such as, in Western culture, the One and the many, or Idea and matter (or space,
called by Plato "the receptacle"), and, in Indian culture, maya
(the illusory world of sense experience and multiplicity) and atman-brahman
(the essential identity of mind and ultimate reality). Dialectical dualism
ordinarily implies a cyclical, or eternally repetitive, view of history.
Eschatological dualism--i.e., a
dualism concerned with the ultimate destiny of man and the world, how things
will be in the "last" times--on the other hand, conceives of a final
resolution of the present dualistic state of things, in which evil will be
eliminated at the end of a "linear" history constituted of a series of
unrepeatable events, instead of a "cyclical," repetitive one. The
ancient Iranian religions, Zoroastrianism
and Manichaeism, and Gnosticism--a
religiophilosophical movement influential in the Hellenistic world--provide
examples of eschatological dualism. A type of thought, such as Platonism, that
insists on a profound harmony in the cosmos, is thus more radically dualistic,
because of its irreducibly dialectical character (see below) than Zoroastrianism
and Manichaeism, with their emphasis on the cosmic struggle between two
antithetical principles (good and evil). Midway between these extremes is
Gnostic dualism, which has an ontology (or theory of being) of an
Orphic-Platonic type (for Orphism, see below Among
ancient civilizations and peoples )
but which also affirms the final disappearance and annihilation of evil with the
eventual destruction of the material world--and thus comprises both dialectical
and eschatological dualism. (see also pluralism, monism,
cyclicism) |
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In philosophy, dualism is often
identified with the doctrine of transcendence--that there is a separate realm or
being "above" and "beyond" the world, as opposed to monism,
which holds that the ultimate principle is inside the world (immanent). In the
disciplines concerned with the study of religions, however, religious dualism
refers not to the distinction or separation of God and the world but to the
doctrine of two basic principles; a doctrine that, moreover, may easily be
compatible with a form of monism (e.g., Orphism
or Vedanta) that makes the opposition between the One and the many
absolute and sees in multiplicity merely a fragmentation (or illusory
obliteration) of the One. (see also transcendentalism) |
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Dualism is a phenomenon of major
importance in the religions of the ancient world. Those of the Middle East will
be considered here. |
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While there was generally no explicit
dualism in ancient Egyptian religion,
there was an implicit dualism in the contrast between the god Seth
and the god Osiris. Seth, a
violent, aggressive, "foreign," sterile god, connected with disorder,
the desert, and loneliness, was opposed to Osiris, the god of fertility and
life, active in the waters of the Nile. Seth also possessed some typically
dualistic marks of a mythological
character; his action, as well as his personality itself, was ambivalent; and,
as a typical trickster, he was also capable, at times, of constructive action in
the cosmos. The myths of Osiris and Seth may be compared in various ways with
those recently discovered among the Dogon
people of the western Sudan, which contrast Nommo, a fertile and happily mated
primordial being pictured in fish form, with Yurugu ("Pale Fox"), an
unhappy, sterile character who lives in the wilderness without a mate. Yurugu is
considered to be the element that makes the universe complete (the same role
assigned to Seth in the Egyptian myth). |
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Dualism, broadly speaking, was also
present in ancient Mesopotamian
religion. In myths pertaining to the origin of the gods and of the
cosmos, the opposition between the primordial deities (Apsu, the Abyss; and
Tiamat, the Sea) and the new ones (particularly Marduk, the demiurge, or
creator) displayed some dualistic aspects. Though the earlier deities had
established the basic reality of the universe--its ontological core--because of
their chaotic and selfish nature they resisted their own offspring, who were
later to create the now existing, definite order of the cosmos. A dualism of the
ontological--basic reality or being--versus the cosmological--the form or order
of the material universe--is thus implicitly affirmed. (see also creation myth) |
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Analogous dualistic concepts may be
found in the early Greek Theogonyof Hesiod (fl. c. 700 BC)
in his myths of the gods Uranus, Cronus, and Zeus, and the conflict between
primordial and later gods. It was in the later, classical Greek world, however,
that dualism was most evident. Many of the pre-Socratic philosophers (6th and
5th centuries BC) were dualistic in various ways. In the teachings of Parmenides,
for example, noted for reducing the world to a static One--a classical instance
of monism--there is still a radical opposition between the realms of Being and
Opinion--between ultimate reality and the world of human sense experience. On
the other hand, in the doctrines of Heracleitus,
noted for reducing the world to fiery Change, the conflict of opposites
(hot-cold, day-night, beginning-end, the-way-up-the-way-down), called by
Heracleitus polemos ("war"), was exalted to become a metaphysical
principle. Though these opposites are piecemeal dyads ("pairs"), their
effect, taken together, is, as a whole, dualistic. The dualism of Empedocles,
simultaneously a religious teacher and a natural philosopher, is especially
striking, for he viewed the primordial sphere of the universe as undergoing
cycles alternately under the dominance of the antithetical principles of Love
and Discord, which periodically break and then reconstruct it. In this context
there exist daimones("souls"), divine beings that have fallen from a superior
world into this world and exist clothed in the "foreign robe of the
flesh." These souls are therefore subject to transmigration through a
series of vegetable, animal, and human bodies, owing to a primitive accident
(for which credit was given "to the furious Discord"). (see also Greek religion) |
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The same antithetical principles are to
be found in Orphism, a Greek mystical school, which constituted an independent
development within Greek religion and philosophy; beginning in the 6th century
BC, it was part of a " mysteriosophic" trend that sought to attain the
wisdom of secret mystic and cultic doctrines. Orphism
is characterized by its soma-sema, or
body-tomb concept, which saw the body as a prison or tomb in which the soul--a
divine element, akin to the gods--is incarcerated. In addition to this
psychophysical dualism of soul and body, the Orphic idea that "everything
comes from the One and returns to the One" demonstrates a typical
dialectical dualism, in which an implicit monism is involved. Developing on an
analogous level, Pythagorean numerical and mystical speculation, arising from
the 6th-century-BC Greek philosopher and religious teacher Pythagoras, also
stressed the dualistic opposition of Monad-Dyad (One-Two) and of other
dialectical pairs of opposites. (see also mystery religion, mysticism,
mind-body dualism, Pythagoreanism,
monad) |
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Many of these dualistic ideas,
especially the Orphic and Pythagorean ones, are also found in writings of the
Greek philosopher Plato
(428-348/347 BC), such as the Timaeus,
Phaedo, Gorgias, and Cratylus. In
these writings a divine part of the human soul that is directly infused by the
divinity and a mortal part (passionate and vegetative) are defined and
considered. The mortal part is assigned to man by inferior divinities, charged
to do so by the supreme divinity; and the appetitive passions involved, if
followed, are held to be responsible for the punishments that the soul will
suffer during various periods of habitation in the other world and
reincarnations in this one. Thus God remains free of blame for the destiny of
man. The mortal or spoiled part of man is further attributed, in Plato's Lawsto the "titanic nature" within his makeup--an element of violence
and impiety inherited from the primordial rebellious Titans, sons of the Earth.
(see also Platonism) |
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Plato's notions of man were rooted in
both ontology and cosmology; i.e.,
in views on being and on the orderly structure of the universe. In the Timaeushe considers the cosmos as
a single harmony, which for the sake of completeness requires the existence of
inferior levels that are bound not only to matter but also to Necessity (the
realm of things that could not have been otherwise, and that are hence not
amenable to divine activity). A different view is found in his Laws,
which describes two "Souls" of the World, one of which causes good
and one evil. The Politicusis concerned with two eternally recurring, alternating cycles in
the cosmos, with successive epochs guided either by the gods or by men. |
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Plato's central inspiration, which
unifies his metaphysics, his cosmology, his theory of man, and his doctrine of
the soul, was basically dualistic (in the sense of dialectical dualism) with two
irreducible principles: the Idea and the chora
(or material "receptacle") in which the Idea impresses itself. All
of this world is conditioned by materiality and necessity; and because of this,
the descent of souls into bodies is said to be rendered necessary as well. |
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Neoplatonism,
a 3rd-century-AD development from Plato's thought, conceived the cosmos as a
harmony with a succession of levels emanating from an ultimate unit. There was
in the system, nevertheless, a rupture of the harmony of the cosmos called tolma
("the audacity"), which served as an explanation for the descent
of Soul into the material world--and thus constituted a dualistic element. |
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In Gnosticism, a Hellenistic religious
movement that entered original Christianity from earlier pagan sources, and
which viewed matter as evil and spirit as good, dualism manifested itself in a
more dramatic way. Gnostic dualism cannot be understood without reference to
both Judaism and Christianity, and perhaps even to Zoroastrianism, since Gnostic
eschatological characteristics were derived from them. Gnosticism was also
connected with certain principles of Orphism and Platonism; reflecting the
Orphic body-tomb doctrine, for example, Gnosticism adopted a firmly antisomatic
stance (against the body), and similarly adopted the concept of the divine
soul--the pneumatic, or spiritual, soul, as the Gnostic would say, of the same
substance as the divinity--that is destined to free itself from the tyranny of a
material, cosmic demiurge (or subordinate deity). Certain Gnostics, moreover,
developed a radical anticosmism, in which they registered their animosity
against the material universe by cursing the stars--which brought them bitter
reproach from Plotinus (c. AD
205-269/270), the founder of Neoplatonism. As viewed by the Gnostic Ophite
sect, which venerated the ophis (or
"snake") as a symbol of knowledge, the cosmos comprises three parts:
the superior world, the inferior world (material and chaotic), and the
intermediate world, or logos("word" or "reason")--the logos being depicted as a snake that impresses spiritual forms into
the chaotic matter. These forms--life, soul, vital masculine substance--are
later freed again, a liberation that completely empties the material world. Such
Gnostic views are of two types: Iranian and Syrian-Egyptian. Iranian Gnosticism
is characterized by an absolute, radical dualism: light and darkness, pneuma
("spirit") and chaotic formless matter, oppose each other from
eternity. Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism is characterized by a dualism that is
mitigated (as earlier defined) but also drastic: the inferior world, the chaotic
darkness, begins to exist only at a special moment owing to an accident in the
divine world; and this accident is usually also identified with an
"audacity," a defect in one of the "aeons," or divine
entities. (see also Iranian religion) |
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In the Indo-Iranian period (2nd
millennium BC) there were already tendencies toward dualistic thought,
especially in myths relating to monstrous and demonic beings who still the
movement of the waters and thus make cosmic life impossible; in later-archaic
Indian speculation there was also a tendency to oppose devas
("gods") to asuras ("demons").
Iranian dualism, however, expressed itself most characteristically in
Zoroastrianism. In the Zoroastrian religious texts, the Gathas, there is an opposition between two spirits, the Beneficent
Spirit (Spenta Mainyu) and the Destructive Spirit (Angra Mainyu, or Ahriman).
These two spirits are different, irreducible principles; at the beginning they
have chosen life and nonlife, respectively. Though the Beneficent Spirit is
almost an hypostasis (the substance) of the divinity (Ahura Mazda),
nothing is said in the Gathas about
the origin of the Destructive Spirit. In any case, the very fact that the
Destructive Spirit is said to be "twin brother" of the Beneficent One
does not imply that he is a son of Ahura Mazda but only that the two
spirits are "symmetrical"; i.e.,
equal and contrary as to their respective efficacity and orientation. (see
also Avesta) |
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Medieval Zoroastrian treatises present
radical and eschatological dualisms in their extreme forms. According to the Bundahishn
("Primordial Creation") text, Ormazd (Ahura Mazda) and
Ahriman have always existed. Ormazd is represented as lofty, in the light, full
of omniscience and goodness, while Ahriman is represented as debased, in
darkness, full of aggressiveness and ignorance. Ormazd's omniscience allows him
to conceive and to actualize the Creation and Time, because only these can offer
him an arena in which to accost Ahriman and eliminate him. |
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The medieval Zoroastrian treatises also
describe another "dual" formulation, the two realms of creation and of
reality: the menok ("potential,
embryonic, initial, heavenly, and invisible") and the getik ("realized, final, worldly, concrete, and visible").
But this opposition does not imply a devaluation of the getik,
of this world. |
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Zurvanism,
a Zoroastrian heretical movement (c. 3rd/4th century BC-7th century AD), was also dualistic. The very
names of Zurvan ( Time-Destiny) and the partially synonymous zaman
("time") already
appear in the later Avesta and in medieval treatises, in which Time is the
milieu in which Ormazd and Ahriman fight. Also, a myth attributed to Zoroastrian
priests by later, non-Iranian sources speaks of Zurvan as the father of
Ormazd and Ahriman. At times "Zurvanite" mythology tends toward
formulations of a Gnostic and Manichaean type (women paid allegiance, for
example, to Ahriman, who has partial authority in the world). Zurvanism also
developed theosophic characteristics (involving mystical insights), such as that
which discerned the ambivalence of Zurvan--viz., that although an evil
element (an evil thought or spiritual corruption) has always existed within him,
he nonetheless, so it seems, eliminates the evil by expressing it and is thus
worthy to be identified with the supreme divinity (Yazdan). |
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Dualisms have also appeared in various
forms in the religions of India and China. |
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Indian dualism has involved the
opposition of the One and the many: of reality and appearance. In an ancient
Hindu hymn (Rigveda, 10.90), Purusa, "the Immortal that is in
heaven," is opposed to this world; the three quarters of the Purusa
that comprise the transcendent world are opposed to the other quarter of him
(his limbs) that is this world; i.e., the
divine foundation, the divine substance of this world, is made out of his limbs.
Early speculation on the identity of the atman
("Self") and Brahman (the very core of reality), as opposed to the
material and visible world that is subject to maya
(or "mundane illusion"), has been mentioned above. (see also Hinduism, Purusasukta) |
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The Samkhya
school of Indian philosophy
presents another, probably later, formulation of dualism based on two eternal
and opposed cosmic principles: prakrti("original matter") and purusa("spirit"), the name of the ancient primordial Man, substance of
the universe. Matter is differentiated into three different gunas
(or "qualities") that articulate the three levels of the being and
essential nature of man in hierarchical connection with each other. Spirit, in
itself free, eternal, and infinite, becomes involved in matter by the
development of the latter. Salvation coincides with the knowledge of the state
of things: "I (spirit) am one thing and It (matter) is another." |
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The first words of the Taoist
text, the Tao-te
Chingexpress a
doctrine that is typical of a pervasive Chinese dualism; i.e., that of the two opposed and complementary principles, the Yin
and the Yang (respectively,
feminine and masculine, lunar and solar, terrestrial and celestial, passive and
active, dark and bright; in short, the entire series of opposites). The
dialectics of Yin and Yang are the double manifestation of the one and only
eternal, undividable, and transcendent principle: Tao ("the Way").
(see also Chinese
religion) |
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Dualisms have appeared in Western
religions chiefly under the impact of Gnostic influences. |
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No real dualism is found in Judaism,
except in the Gnostic and theosophic forms of Jewish mysticism known as Kabbala.
The presence of a vigorous and universal monotheism
implies not only faith in a single creative god but also faith in a god who is
the uncontested master of history; and neither Satan nor Belial detract from
this absolute monotheism. Within these limitations, however, a tendency towards
dualistic thought could be seen in such late noncanonical texts as the First
Book of Enoch(c.
1st century BC), in which certain angels are said to have fallen as a
consequence of their wedding with the daughters of men. These angels,
it is held, taught mankind the malevolent arts of magic, seduction, and
violence, together with such elements of culture as the use of metals and
writing. Though there is no dualism in the proper sense in the Manual
of Disciplineone
of the Qumran texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a certain polarity is
nonetheless displayed in a passage that asserts of God that (see also Qumran community) |
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he created man to have dominion over
the world and made for him two spirits, so that he may walk by them until the
time of his visitation: they are the spirits of truth and error. In the dwelling
of light are the origins of the truth, and from a spring of darkness are the
origins of error. In the hand of the Prince of Lights is dominion over all the
children of righteousness, in the ways of light they walk. And in the hand of
the angel of darkness is all dominion over the children of error; and in the
ways of darkness they walk. |
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The context of this passage, however, is
completely monotheistic. It expresses a doctrine also found in the Didachea Jewish-Christian work of the early 2nd century AD (better known as the Teachings
of the Twelve Apostles), that of the two roads on which a man may walk, the
good road and the bad, the road of life and that of death, with God leaving the
choice of the road to man's free will; and also the later rabbinic doctrine of
the struggle between the good and evil inclinations (yetzer) within man. There is also no hint of dualism in the two
"sources" mentioned in the Qumran texts, the bright source and
the dark. These are hardly dualistic principles (in the ontological sense of the
term) but are simply radical (i.e., original)
polarities in spiritual orientation. (Not even the "Angel of
Darkness," mentioned in the same context is a principle, though he is a
person and a power.) |
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There is thus no true parallelism with
the two principles that appear in Iranian Zurvanism. Elements of dualistic
thought (in a Platonic sense) are also found in the works of the Jewish
Hellenistic philosopher Philo of
Alexandria (1st century AD), whose philosophy was dualistic in its
doctrines about the universe and man, but without shaking his basic adherence to
biblical monotheism. |
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In Christianity
dualistic concepts appeared principally in its Gnostic developments. But even in
the 2nd-century Judaizing sect of the Encratites,
which was not really Gnostic, there were dualistic aspects that had modified
some tendencies in later Judaism. These teachings were also particularly
prominent in the writings of the supporters of Docetism
(the doctrine that Christ,
being divine, did not suffer and die; 2nd century), who held that matter is
essentially evil and that the soul is a pre-existent substance. According to the
Encratites, the pre-existent soul, once it "gets effeminated by
concupiscence," drops into the carnal world. Since generation perpetuates
the soul's state of decay in this bodily world, they condemned all sexual
relations. The dualism of Marcion
(a 2nd-century semi-Gnostic Christian heretic) was really a ditheism (a system
positing two gods), though the common Gnostic presuppositions--such as
antisomatism and anticosmism, the condemnation of the body and the material
universe--were also present in his thought. For Marcion, the God of the Old
Testament is an inferior and harsh creator demiurge,
author of the world and man, who is nonetheless completely distinct from the
supreme divinity, who manifested himself in Jesus and is a stranger to this
world. For Saturninus (or
Satornil) of Antioch, the founder of a 2nd-century Syrian Gnostic group that was
commonly connected with the tradition of Simon
Magus (reputed leader of an earlier Gnostic sect), the God of the Old
Testament is only one of the angels, the martial angel of the Judaic nation,
although (as with Marcion) he is distinct from the devil, who is in fact his
opponent. According to Saturninus a primordial accident caused a wave of pneuma
("spirit") to land in the inferior darkness, where it is said to
have remained prisoner and now continues its existence in those who,
characterized by the presence in them of this superior element, will later be
conducted back to their heavenly origin by Jesus, a messenger coming from above.
Conceptions of a similar type are also found in the "Psalm (or Hymn) of the
Naassenes" (Naassene is the Hebrew term for Ophite, mentioned above) and in
the "Song of the Pearl" in the Gnostic Acts
of Thomas; here also occurs the concept of a "saviour to be
saved," who has been sent from above and was made a prisoner by darkness.
This basic concept was developed fully only in Manichaeism.
The Gnostic-dualist view survived in late antiquity and into the Middle Ages,
both in the East, among the Mandaeans, Yazidis, and some extreme
sects within the Shi'ah branch of Islam and in the West among the
Bogomils and Cathars. It is still present today in modern theosophy. |
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Religious dualism also manifests itself
among nonliterate peoples, especially in the concept of a "second"
figure, an ambivalent demiurge- trickster who can be both a collaborator and
rival of the supreme being and independent of the latter in origin. Such
tricksters include the Coyote (in North American Indian mythology), the Raven
(among Paleosiberians), or the Crow (among the Southeast Australian tribes). To
these animal figures are
attributed the origin of such negative aspects of life as death and illness. But
they are also credited as benefactors; e.g., in creating utilities in the cosmos and in the invention of
fire. The demiurge-trickster is typically ambivalent, tremendously frightful and
efficacious, but also frequently limited in power. For example, such tricksters
are often incapable of animating the beings that they have molded and must
therefore request the help of the supreme being in bringing them to life. They
are said to be selfish, lonely, and unhappy, and because of these qualities,
they are moved, despite their arrogance, to attempt to relate themselves to or
unite with the supreme being. (see also dualism, trickster
tale) |
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A typically dual composition (involving
the coexistence and cooperation of two elements), or even a dualistic opposition
(as two opposed elements that function as principles in respect to the actual
creation), is found in the Dogon (western Sudanese) notions about Nommo
and Yurugu, already mentioned. A series of "words" refers to both
principles; i.e., a series of
realities and categories can be named that constitute the world in its
functional variety, which transcend the simple good-evil opposition, and
according to which both Nommo and Yurugu are dualistic "principles"
essential to the actual dynamics of the world. |
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Other dualistic concepts among primitive
peoples posit opposite the supreme being a violent and death-bearing
"second" figure of a demiurgical type. The character of Erlik
in the mythologies of the Central Asiatic Turks (e.g.,
among the Altaics) is
typical. |
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Erlik is a king of the dead and master
of death who assumes the role of a fraudulent and unfortunate collaborator with
the supreme being. In stories about the origin of the universe, he appears as an
aquatic bird in charge (under the supreme being) of fishing a little earth from
the bottom of the primordial sea--a theme also well-known in East European folklore.
In other myths, a similar being spits on human beings at the time they are
created by God or breathes his bad spirit into man or woman. Elsewhere there is
depicted an opposition of two twin brothers, of whom one is the demiurge-creator
of good things and the other of death; both, however, are the sons of a mother
goddess of heavenly origin. This pattern is exemplified in the Iroquoian myth of
Yoskeha and Tawiskaron--a myth curiously reminiscent of certain aspects of the
Iranian Zurvanite mythology. (see also Iroquois) |
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Other ethnological polarities, or pairs
of opposites (eastern-western, celestial-terrestrial, solar-lunar divinities,
right-left, full moon-dark moon, etc.) are dualistic in the sense of contrasting
principles or creating agencies. |
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Among the various themes of religious
dualism the opposition between sacred
and profane is also important. This distinction, appearing in some sense
in nearly every religion, must be particularly acute, however, to qualify a
religion as dualistic. Such an intensification of the sacred-profane opposition
to the point at which it becomes a dualism is evident in the mid-20th century
historian of religions Mircea
Eliade's conception of religion. This contrasts time (the illud
tempus, "those times," of the intact, sacred, primordial creation
that are periodically restored by ritual) and the historical time (marked by
decay, profaneness, and loss of plentitude and significance). |
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More pertinent (even if not always
dualistic) is the opposition between good and evil, in the various meanings of
these words. Whenever the problem of the origin of evil is solved by conceiving
the real existence of another principle separate from the prime principle of the
world, or by affirming an inner ambivalence, limited sovereignty, or inadequacy
of the prime principle, or of divine beings, a dualism then emerges; and through
this good-evil opposition, the problems of theodicy
(i.e., of the doctrine of the
justification of divine action in a world in which evil is present) are posed.
If evil either is, or comes from, a self-existent principle antithetical to the
principle of good, then this provides the divinity with a
"justification." Such views are completely different from the
justification of God in nondualistic religions, especially the monotheistic
ones. In monotheistic religions evil does not originate within the divinity nor
in general within a divine world (pleroma) as it does in Gnosticism;
it arises instead from the improper use of freedom by created beings. In
monistic religions--all of which are based on the opposition between the One and
the many, seen either as an illusion or as the decay or fragmentation of the
One--along with a strong ascetic emphasis, there is a notion of evil as being
for man a painful and fatal essence that issues from a metaphysical cause or an
ontologically negative principle. For the same reason, it is necessary to
distinguish between the nondualistic concept of " original
sin" in Christian theology and the concept of "previous
sin"--in monistic religions with a dualist aspect; whereas "original sin"
arises and spreads within the human sphere, "previous sin" is
consummated in some sort of a "prologue in heaven" and generates the
very existence of the world and of humanity itself. (see also evil, problem of, free
will) |
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Another important dualistic theme is
that which opposes life to death based on two opposing metaphysical principles.
A typical example of this dualistic opposition is found in Zoroastrianism.
Zoroastrian doctrine is strongly vitalistic: Ahriman's chief acolytes are Aeshma
(the fury), the Druj Nasu (the deadly agent of putrefaction), Jeh (the
infertile whore), and Apaosa (the demon of sterility)--death-bearing
forces. There is also a strong vitalistic formulation of these principles in
Gnostic doctrines, especially in the Ophite and Barbelo-Gnostic (worshipping
Barbelo as the Great Mother of life) varieties, which identify the pneuma and the light with the vital substance. At other times the
opposition of life and death is formulated in a dialectical manner as a
recurring alternation of the two principles. The complex Egyptian opposition
between Osiris, the "dead god," who is nonetheless the principle of fecundity
and life, and his counterpart Seth has already been mentioned (see above Egypt
and Mesopotamia ). The same
dialectic is typical of the "fecundity cults," in which a god-genius
of vegetation, a "dying
god," is featured, who undergoes a seasonal disappearance and return (not
to be interpreted as a "resurrection"). To such vegetation gods,
death- or decay-producing figures are sometimes opposed--as Mot (the Death)
opposed to Baal, and an infernal and lethal wild boar opposed to Adonis, and (in
German religion and mythology) Loki opposed to Baldr. These figures, the agents
for disastrous occurrences, were already implicit in the figure of the dying god
himself and in his relation to the seasonal cycle of vegetation. To be sure, the
growing season is limited; and the new arrival of vegetation each spring (and
the wedding of the fertility god) is terminated in the fall by the god's
departure to the netherworld (with appropriate lamentation). But the rise of
vegetation, though ephemeral, is nonetheless basically benevolent. This
complexity is also manifest in those agricultural religions that present
themselves as mystery cults (e.g., the Eleusinian mysteries), bestowing upon the initiate a hope
for life after death. (see also vitalism) |
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But the dualistic theme is far more
evident in "mysteriosophy"; i.e.,
in the "sophic," or "wise," reinterpretation of
mysteries (e.g., Orphism). In this
context, the divine soul replaces the dying god in the soul's descent from a
superior world into the corporeal world--a concept that was later bequeathed to
Gnosticism and is especially apparent in its transposed basic vitalism. |
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A dialectical formulation of the
opposition of life and death is also found in the basic theology of Hinduism:
with Visnu ( Vishnu)
cast as the principle of creation (called Narayana) and the
sustenance of life and Shiva
(Shiva) as the principle of destruction and death. The ambivalence of life-death
is also found in a series of Hindu divinities (e.g., Shiva, Kali) and cults whose
death-inflicting characteristics are justified in a paradoxical celebration of
the recurring triumph of life. |
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Among the instances of dualistic
structure in polytheistic religions are those that oppose celestial and
terrestrial, male and female, actual and mythical primordial-chaotic,
"diurnal" and "nocturnal," especially when they do so within
the context of mythologies and cosmogonies belonging to the ancient world's
polytheistic "high cultures" (see above Egypt and Mesopotamia
; Greece
and the Hellenistic World ).
Such pairs of opposites often provide a framework for polytheistic pantheons
that would otherwise appear anarchic or less than comprehensive (see also Polytheism
above). |
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The essential function of any religious
dualism is obviously ontological--to account for a duality of opposed principles
in being--even when the two principles are not regarded as coeternal; and this
underlies the cosmological-cosmogonic, anthropological, and sociological
functions and expressions of dualism. Both dialectical dualism (e.g.,
in the fertility cults, Orphic mysteriosophy, and Platonism) and
eschatological dualism (e.g., in the Zoroastrian and Manichaean notion of the
"mixture" between the two creations good and bad) have a basically
cosmological function--the explanation of the structure of the universe.
Whenever the concept of a distinct creator, transcendent with respect to his
work, is missing (as, for example, in monistic formulations of the Indian type
or in polytheistic milieus), dualism has a cosmogonic function--the explanation
of the origin of the universe. |
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On a cosmogonic level, dualistic
opposition may also be manifest in the celestial world; e.g., in the late Zoroastrian opposition between the beneficent
fixed stars and the planets (which are negative, because they are alleged to
proceed in the reverse sense); or else between the world of the Heptad (again
the seven planets, under the dominion of the tyrannic archons, or rulers, that
cause human passions) and the superior heaven of the Ogdoad (the group of eight
divine beings or aeons), as in Gnosticism so also in Mithraism, where the
monstrous figure of Leontocephalos (a human figure with a lion's head, belted by
a snake with astral signs) represents the power of astral Destiny-Time to be
transcended by the soul--a power that is a basic presupposition of astrology and
magic. On the other hand, the heaven-earth opposition cannot be regarded as
dualistic if the two elements are represented merely as cosmic progenitors. |
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The anthropological functions of dualism
(dealing with the nature and destiny of man) are present in all those doctrines
that consider man as a duality, or, rather, as an irreconcilable duality of
opposed elements. Of particular importance is the opposition between masculine
and feminine, in which their opposition involves a remarkable difference in
level of being. In mythologies (whether dualistic or not) with a
"second" figure, a demiurge, there is frequently a connection between
the demiurge and the origin of women
(e.g., the myths of
Prometheus-Epimetheus in ancient Greece, and of Paliyan in southeast Australia)
or between the demiurge and the origin of sexuality (e.g., the myths of the trickster Coyote and of the Gnostic
demiurge). In the Platonic theory of man the first incarnation of the soul
occurs in a masculine body, and only a subsequent incarnation, marking a later
descent of the soul into the world of bodies, is feminine. In Gnosticism (Ophite
sects) the vital substance that animates the universe is masculine (active),
while the quality of the material world is feminine (passive); and in the last logion
("saying") of the Gnostic Gospel
of Thomas, it is said that Mary will be saved by being made a male; i.e., she will become a "living spirit" (pneuma).
Gnostic and Manichaean antifeminism, as well as Encratite (and perhaps Orphic)
antifeminism, are motivated by their hatred for procreation, which they believe
implies the fall of the soul into the material world and its permanent abode
there. At other times procreation is explained in terms of a division of a
complete, originally androgynous
(both male and female) being (as in Plato's Symposium
and in the Gnostic Gospel of Philip).
There are other nondualistic doctrines in which woman is considered to be
connected in some way with the origins of evil but not as the embodiment of the
evil principle (e.g., in Genesis and
the apocryphal late-Judaic Book of Adam). |
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The sociological functions of religious
dualism are less relevant. Among some Australian peoples the "totems"
of the two classes of a tribe that intermarry are the Falcon-Eagle (Bundjil),
the supreme being, and the Crow (Waang), a demiurge-trickster. According to the Menominee
Indians, the highest region of the universe is inhabited by benevolent gods
(among whom the supreme being is Mate Hawatûk) and the
inferior region by bad ones; and these two groups are constantly fighting. The
Menominee believe that they come from an alliance of families that once belonged
to these two groups, whose respective descendants have particular places in the
assembly and clearly differentiated functions. (see also Australian
Aborigine) |
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Sociological and economic class
oppositions, however, cannot provide a general explication for dualism. All
dualities (e.g., in the social
structure) are necessarily relevant to religious dualism. On the ethnic level,
sociological functions of dualism are found in the Zoroastrian opposition (even
if not absolute) between Iran, with its so-called "good religion," and
the Turanians, northern plunderers representing the aggressive world of evil.
But this can by no means substantiate general hypotheses that explain dualistic
oppositions between divinities or groups of divinities as a
"projection" of a previously existing opposition between ethnic layers
of conquerors and of conquered populations. (U.B.) |
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