Abraham and Thanos: Permissible Evil
In the book of Genesis, Abraham
(originally named Abram) is called by God to “Go from your country and your
kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”[i] Abraham is depicted as a devotee of God who
will argue with God on behalf of Sodom,[ii]
become the promised father of multitudes,[iii]
and have children in his advanced age.
In particular, Abraham will father his second son, Isaac who, it
appears, is the fulfillment of the promise of God.
However, in Genesis 22, God
tests Abraham by asking him to take Isaac to a mountain and “offer him there as
a burnt offering.”[iv] It is a striking and troubling passage. It is troubling from the standpoint of it
being a demand – even if not intended to be followed through on – by God. Perhaps as troubling, if not more so, is
Abraham’s compliance with the demand.
All who have read the story have found it problematic on a variety of
levels, leading to allegorical readings, metaphorical interpretations, sermons
on how faith has to trust beyond the immediate, and how one has to be ready to
sacrifices all for the work of God and how Abraham is an example of complete
faith. As Lawrence Boadt writes,
“nothing is more important than trusting and holding faith with the God we have
come to know through revelation and experience, just as Abraham had in the
preceding stories.”[v]
One could argue, however, that
the limited revelation and experience Abraham had pales in comparison to Moses
or Paul. There is little to base faith
on for Abraham except what he has experienced thus far. There are no traditions to consider, no laws
to scour, or parables to comprehend. As
such, Abraham is one who was willing to quarrel with God over the destruction
of Sodom, sought the assistance of his concubine, with his wife’s
encouragement, to fulfill God’s promise of progeny which, at that point, was
apparently not forthcoming.
The question that surfaces is
with regard to Abraham. Willing to
confront God over strangers in Sodom, Abraham says nothing in defense of his own son, the obvious fulfilment of God’s
promise. God, it seems, wishes for
Abraham to be willing to give up his son just as easily as he received
him. Perhaps this is in some
anticipatory fashion a nod to the words of Job: “Naked I came from my mother’s
womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord
gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”[vi] God has already taken Abraham from his
ancestral family and native land and now seems to be requiring that Abraham
sacrifice his future as well. “Tradition
has rightly seen in Abraham the exemplar of steadfast, disinterested loyalty to
God.”[vii] Is this a positive description?
With regard to the sacrifice of
Isaac, what we witness is blind obedience.
“There is neither an expression of anger against God, nor a pious speech
of acquiescence [as we see from Jepthah in Judges 12:35]: just silent
obedience.”[viii] It is this extraordinary obedience that is so
troublesome, both in its compliance in a particularly awful act as well as
being extolled as an act of absolute faith in God.
One should not minimize the
fact that Abraham’s actions come as a test of obedience from God. It is here that I would draw a first parallel
between Abraham and Thanos: both have been called upon to sacrifice a child for
the cause of what Onkar Ghate calls “religious morality.”[ix]
Abraham has, it seems, submitted himself completely to the will of God and, as
such, offers no objection to any demand made by God – a characteristic that is
surprising given the previous interactions between himself and God. While this might seem virtuous, is it truly virtue or is it the example of an
abdication of reason? As Boadt asked,
“Is there any difference between ‘sacrificing’ your son and ‘murdering’
him? Are we asked to do evil to please
God?”[x]
It would seem that the answer
is yes if we attribute absolute authority to any external source be it God or,
in the case of Thanos, a quest of universal proportions. Thanos’ belief in the righteousness of his
cause allows him to make any and all decisions based on the ultimacy of his
quest. While it might bring him grief
(as suggested in the movie), it is also a freeing idea: he knows what needs to be done.
There is nothing else to consider.
His goal, like the will of God, is an external: he views his quest as
something greater than himself and, additionally, greater than anyone else no
matter how rationally or forcefully they might argue. Logic is suspended for the sake of an
external truth.
This would remove the question
of morality if Paul Tillich is to be believed: “a moral act is not an act of
obedience to an external law, human or divine.
It is the inner law of our true being, of our essential or created
nature, which demands that we actualize what follows from it.”[xi]
Yet wouldn’t Tillich argue that
God’s will is a moral command? No. He
argues instead that potentialities, our created nature described as “very good”
by God is that which pushes us into the realm of morality. Not an external command. “For us the ‘Will of God’ is manifest in our
essential being; and only because of this can we accept the moral imperative as
valid. It is not a strange law that
demands our obedience, but the ‘silent voice’ of our own nature as man, and as
a man with an individual character.”[xii] The source of morality is an existential
question, not something predicated on or an outside source. We intrinsically know right from wrong. Morality is innate but acting on that morality is our choice.
This is not the case, however,
for Abraham or Thanos. There choice, it
would seem, has been to abdicate further thinking and consideration of actions
in the pursuit of an external, perhaps divine truth that they will not call
into question. This second point of
contact between these two characters is perhaps the more disturbing because it
is the abdication of reason and an example of absolute devotion at the cost of
morality. Regardless of what will take
place to those around Thanos or Abraham, both will do as required. Abraham will prepare to sacrifice Isaac and
Thanos will sacrifice his
daughter. In many ways this is a
demonstration of what Eric Hoffer would call the “true believer.”
Interestingly, Eric Hoffer
states that a true believer is one who bases their beliefs and the truth of their belief not on experience or observation, but on
“holy writ” or some outside authority.[xiii] This stands in direct opposition to Boadt’s
point that it is Abraham’s experience of God that allows him to trust God so
completely.[xiv] The true believer cannot
question the divine will, cosmic plan, or ontological orientation because it
has become penultimate. All else, including experience, has to be either
sequestered or jettisoned for the sake of that one idea. Therefore, if God asks Abraham to kill Isaac
and Abraham has subjected his will to the divine, whatever it may ask, then
there can be no question. “There are no
surprises and no unknowns. All questions
have already been answered, all decisions made, all eventualities forseen.”[xv] As the hymn says, “Trials dark on every hand,
and we cannot understand/ all the ways that God would lead us to that blessed
promised land/ but he guides us with his eye, and we’ll follow till we die/ for
we’ll understand it better by and by.”[xvi]
Faith, for Abraham, and the
quest for Thanos, becomes the “process by which the individual ceases to be
himself and becomes a part of something eternal.”[xvii] In and of itself, this designation is
neutral. It is the ramifications of that
surrender that may provide for the answer of the “good” or “evil” of that
surrender. The total surrender of a
distinct self is a prerequisite for the attainment of both unity and
self-sacrifice; and there is probably no more direct way of realizing this
surrender than by inculcating and extoling the habit of blind obedience.”[xviii]
However, a third point of
contact in the cases of Thanos and Abraham, is that self-sacrifice is not called for, nor would it have been an
acceptable alternative. What is called
for is the sacrifice of others. This, in the case of Abraham, becomes the
essence of faithfulness. Abraham,
revered as faithful, religious, and moral is called upon to kill his own
son. The absence of objection on his
part is demonstrative of his blind obedience and absolute devotion to the
imperative of an external design upon his decision-making abilities.
This is, again, often given as
the exemplary story of religious morality.
“In place of personal or social subjectivism, the religious approach
substitutes supernatural subjectivism.
An action is not right because of some individual’s or group’s opinion,
[…] It is right because of (an alleged) God’s opinion. Whatever God says, goes.”[xix]
Thanos is not compelled by a
divine word, at least not in the movie version of the story. But, like Abraham, no request is too great in
pursuit of the cause. However, this line
of thinking, while an example of faithfulness, especially in Abraham’s case, is
also the sanctioning of what Lance Morrow calls “permissible evil.”[xx]
Permissible evil is evil that,
while repugnant, is a tolerated compromise for ordinary society or
individuals. It could also be understood
as an exception to morality. This
permissibility “generally means that you permit yourself to do something that
you have grave moral doubts about – doubts that, in the course of calculating
advantage and disadvantage, you have overcome.”[xxi]
This, of course, means that, in
the cases of Abraham and Thanos, permissibility is given by fiat. Whatever must be done will be done. Only the hand of the divine can dissuade the
true believer. Even that, though, may be
called into question by the true believer: “even if we, or an angel from heaven
should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let
him be accursed.”[xxii] There is, then, no failsafe. Once committed, only a truly divine action
can stay the course of the action.
Morality or at least orthodox behavior rests not in thought or reason in
this instance, but in belief. As such,
good and evil are ambiguous because they depend on the divine whim or the end
goal of a quest. Who, therefore, allows
permissible evil in this case? For
Thanos, it is the cause. His daughter
has to die for his cause to succeed. For
Abraham, it is not so much the quest that sanctions permissible evil: it is
God.
Of course, God recants and
prevents Isaac’s death. Yet was the test
itself moral? Or has it merely
demonstrated Abraham’s morality is flexible or even nonexistent depending entirely
on the current command of God? Religious
or, as for Thanos, quest or goal-based morality cannot depend upon reason. Facts are not sought. There is no debate. The path is simply followed until it is
altered.
Paul Tillich would argue that
morality is finding our inner “good” self and acting accordingly. It would seem that a true-believer then cannot be moral in an objective
sense. They are, however, examples of
unwavering devotion. There is, it should
be said, some nobility to the idea.
Perhaps this is best exemplified in a section of dialogue from the movie
“Serenity” in which the “true believer” known simply as “The Operative” engages
with the captain of the ship “Serenity”, Malcolm Reynolds:
Mal: Do you even know why they sent you?
The Operative: It’s not my place to ask. I believe in something greater than
myself. A better world. A world without sin.
Mal: So me and mine gotta lay down and die so you can live in your
better world?
The Operative: I’m not going to live there. There’s no place for me there, any more than
there is for you Malcom. I’m a
monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be
done.[xxiii]
Thanos and Abraham, one can
speculate, realize that what they do is abhorrent. Even evil.
But they both do what they believe must be done. What becomes of Thanos has yet to be revealed
on film.
Abraham, however, has no
further conversation with God, nor with his wife Sarah, nor with his son
Isaac. God does not speak to Abraham
again after finding him to be utterly faithful. Perhaps in so blindly agreeing
with the terms of the test, Abraham had actually failed.
[v] Lawrence Boadt “Sacrifice” in Talking About Genesis: A Resource Guide
(New York: Doubleday, 1996), p. 109.
[ix] Onkar Ghate “Finding Morality and Happiness
Without God” New Ideal May 4, 2018.
At newideal.aynrand.org.
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