All Existence Strives Toward the Good

The thesis that all existence strives toward the Good formed the foundation of the ancient schools of wisdom that later gave rise to Occult Philosophy. Sages identified this supreme Good with God, and it was through the allure of the Good for all living beings that they understood the emergence of order within the cosmos.

Among the earliest philosophers, Plato is one of the first whose words on this subject have reached us. In the dialogue Timaeus, he writes:

Let us consider the reason why the Architect of this Universe brought it and all creation into being. He was good, and one who is good is never subject to envy in any matter. Being free from envy, He desired that all things should become as like Himself as possible. Following the lead of wise men, it is perhaps most accurate to identify this as the true and primary principle of the birth of the cosmos. Wishing, therefore, that all things should be good and that nothing should be evil, so far as possible, God took charge of all visible things that were not at rest, but in discordant and disorderly motion; He brought them from disorder into order, judging that the latter is, in every way, better than the former. It is impossible now, as it was in ancient times, for the Highest Good to produce anything that is not most beautiful. Reflection revealed to Him that among all things visible by nature, no creation devoid of intelligence could be more beautiful than one endowed with it, when comparing the two as wholes; and intelligence cannot dwell in anything apart from soul. Guided by this reasoning, He placed intelligence within soul, and soul within body, and thus constructed the Universe, intending to create a work that would be, by its very nature, the most beautiful and the best.

Plato identifies the Good with the concept of the "One," which by its very nature cannot be evil, as all evil arises from conflict and division. His dialogue Parmenides—one of the most abstract and complex works in his philosophical system—is almost entirely dedicated to understanding the nature of the One in its relation to the many.

Plato’s philosophy of the Good inevitably presupposes the existence of one who experiences that Good. A Good that remains unappreciated and unfelt is no Good at all. We can confidently assert that the Good is that which is sought, and that the seeker reveals the Good precisely because it answers their aspirations. It appears that God, as the supreme Good, brings order out of chaos—as the aforementioned quote suggests—by awakening desire within living beings. Since all beings strive toward Him, He remains the singular center of reality, binding together its diverse and disparate parts.

The second key insight from the cited passage resonates with this: the concept of becoming like God. In Plato's Timaeus, this is linked to the absence of envy in the Divine. Indeed, envy arises from a sense of lack or deprivation, which intensifies when one perceives a good in another that one lacks oneself. Since God is the absolute Good, He lacks nothing, and there is no one in all of reality who possesses more. Consequently, envy is entirely absent from God.

Clearly, Plato—and the participants in his dialogues—view envy as the primary cause of ill will. This should be understood in the broadest possible sense: even if one person does not currently envy another because the latter lacks anything, they may still wish them harm, fearing that the other might covet their share or eventually surpass them in strength. Ill will, like envy, is an inherent attribute of the scarcity of good and the resulting struggle for resources. Since God never loses His Good, He inevitably wishes well for all beings, without fearing that they might "take" anything from Him or "outstrip" Him in any degree of perfection.

It is also evident that when you yourself are the supreme Good, to desire good for others means to desire that they become like you. This is perhaps the simplest and, at the same time, the most profound thought in the quoted passage. Being the Good, God desires good for others, and in desiring good for them, He desires that they become as He is.

This same concept of becoming like God resonates throughout other Platonic dialogues, shifting from the realm of abstraction and pure theory into the sphere of practical life through the notion of justice. In the Theaetetus, Socrates addresses his interlocutor regarding evil and virtue:

"Evil cannot be eradicated, Theodorus, for there must always be something opposed to the good. Evil has no place among the gods, yet it haunts mortal nature and this world by necessity. Therefore, we must strive to flee from here to there as quickly as possible. This flight consists of becoming like God to the best of our ability, and to become like God is to become righteous and holy through wisdom. However, my dear friend, it is not easy to convince the majority that one should pursue virtue and avoid vice not for the reasons they commonly believe—merely to appear good rather than bad. That, as they say, is an old wives' tale. The truth is this: God is never unjust; on the contrary, He is perfectly just, and there is no other way for us to become like Him than by becoming as just as possible."

However, if God is the supreme Good, and He willed that "all things become as similar to Him as possible," it seems that no living thing is simply capable of striving for anything else. Why, then, does evil "visit this world by necessity" if all beings strive only for the Good? Or must we say that God, having willed that all things be made in His likeness, was for some reason unable to fulfill His desire, and as a result, His creations turned toward something else?

Unity and Division. The Conflict of Desires

The answers lie in how unity transforms into division through the conflict of aspirations. As previously noted, the theme of unity and multiplicity occupied a significant place in Platonic philosophy. It became perhaps the central concern for the later Platonists (the Neoplatonists). In fact, behind these discussions—even when they appear highly abstract—shines the perennial question: if God is good, and all living things strive toward the good, why is there so much evil in the world?

God is the supreme Good by virtue of His unity. This means that within Him, there are no contradictions or conflicts; all His attributes support and condition one another. In the relative world, however, where all beings are limited, conflicts arise when the attainment of one form of good appears incompatible with another. For instance, power and love may clash when the pursuit or demonstration of power necessitates cruelty, and love is dismissed as weakness. Freedom and unity may conflict if one must sacrifice individual liberty to maintain consensus with others. Knowledge and security conflict when new knowledge becomes dangerous, creating risk for its possessor. We observe these and other conflicts of values constantly in human experience; they are by no means limited to these examples. As for God, being absolute and boundless, He can be simultaneously strong and loving, unified and free, omniscient and invulnerable. His love does not become weakness but is instead a manifestation of His power; His freedom does not destroy His unity, but rather affirms and secures it.

Behind every evil we observe in the manifest world lies a conflict between certain values, each of which finds its correspondence in God as the supreme and absolute Good. It follows that all beings strive toward particular forms of Good, and no one desires evil as such; evil emerges merely as the consequence of unresolved conflicts.

It is precisely the analysis of these conflicts, and the desire to better understand them, that apparently led subsequent sages and philosophers to distinguish between the various attributes of God (the Good) and, subsequently, to create systems and structures based on their interrelations.

Hermeticism and Neoplatonism

Plato’s dialogues have always drawn readers with their dynamism, vitality, accessible style, emotional resonance, and occasional dramatic flair. Yet, Plato is not always consistent. Perhaps recognizing that philosophy is a perpetual search and an eternal dialogue—one where no assertion serves as a final conclusion—he chose to voice his thoughts through the characters in his books. Even Socrates, as a constant participant in these dialogues, does not always speak with a single voice and at times contradicts himself. Later tradition systematized many of these ideas, weaving them more tightly into the doctrines of Hermeticism and Neoplatonism.

The Corpus Hermeticum is a collection of treatises, mostly written in the form of dialogues. Their origin is attributed to the legendary Hermes Trismegistus, though modern scholarship cannot confirm this. These texts emerged and began to circulate in late antiquity (2nd–3rd centuries CE) and resonate deeply with the ideas of the Platonic school. If an older source existed—whether it was Hermes himself or someone else—it is clear that in seeking wisdom, they uncovered a system similar to the teachings Socrates presented in Plato's dialogues. The following passage clearly demonstrates the identification of God with the Good:

The Good is inseparable from God, for it is God Himself. While all other immortal gods bear the name of 'god' as an honorary title, for God, the Good is not a title but His very nature. God and the Good are one and the same; together, they form the singular archetype from which all other things proceed. It is the nature of the Good to give everything and receive nothing. Thus, God gives all and receives nothing. God is the Good, and the Good is God.

(Corpus Hermeticum, The Universal Speech, 15)

Furthermore, we must emphasize that this identifies a crucial attribute of the Good: to give everything while receiving nothing. This places Hermetic thought in close proximity to Kabbalah, where giving and receiving serve as the primary indicators of various spiritual levels. Consequently, we may draw the inverse conclusion: as something becomes increasingly devoid of the Good, it loses the capacity to give and grows ever more driven to receive. This further explains why all beings strive for godlikeness—experiencing a deficiency of the Good, they seek to draw it from the Source, which requires them to approach and assimilate themselves to It.

Among the later Neoplatonists, this same idea attained its greatest scope and reached its most comprehensive generalization. Aristotle had seemingly paved the way for this earlier by defining the Good as "that which all things seek." In Plotinus's Enneads, we encounter this same thought, expressed repeatedly in elaborate form:

The Good is that upon which all existence depends, that which all things require and strive toward as their origin and foundation. Yet, the Good itself requires nothing, strives for nothing, and remains entirely self-sufficient above all else. It is the measure and limit of all things; from itself, it brought forth spirit, being, soul, life, and thought.

(Enneads, I.8 — On the Nature and Source of Evil)

Plotinus adopts the idea that the One and the Good are identical. He relies on the premise that the specific measure of Good present in any being or object is what allows that entity to maintain its unity and avoid disintegration. Should it lose this measure of Good, it would forfeit the integrity of its composition, as evil would intervene between its parts—a state equivalent to the emergence of conflict among them. Conflict divides a whole into parts, whereas the resolution of conflict and the reconciliation of warring elements unite those parts back into a whole.

For instance, having lost a significant measure of the Good, an object finds itself torn apart by internal conflicts. Each resulting fragment persists as an entity only by retaining a smaller measure of the Good—just enough to maintain its integrity. Should this lesser measure diminish further, it will no longer suffice to sustain these parts, causing them to disintegrate into even smaller components. Consequently, the degree of wholeness or fragmentation is always proportional to one's participation in the Good. In effect, the striving toward the Good becomes synonymous with the instinct for self-preservation, as the one is unthinkable without the other.

Kabbalah

Kabbalah represents the next stage in the development of the philosophy of the Good and the process of becoming like the Good. In this system, the Good is manifested as light, while the desire to receive it is represented as a vessel. The primordial light of the Infinite is identical to God as the supreme Good; yet, it undergoes a contraction within itself, leaving an empty space at the center of the ocean of light so that the free will of created beings may unfold therein. Kabbalah emphasizes the constant connection and mutual interdependence of light and vessel—each concept loses all meaning when divorced from the other.

Consequently, the Light reveals itself as Good all the more intensely the stronger the vessel's desire for it becomes. For this desire to intensify, the vessel must experience a lack of the Good, feeling both hunger and longing for it. Thus, darkness proves necessary for the manifestation of Light. A vessel that has known nothing but the fullness of Light cannot appreciate it; it remains like a perpetually satisfied desire—passive and devoid of expression. Conversely, a vessel that has known deprivation and emptiness gains the impetus to seek the Light, and through this, its own Will is revealed.

Thus, Kabbalah elegantly explains the necessity of darkness as the counterpoint to light. Between these two poles—absolute light and absolute darkness—lie all intermediate worlds, representing varying degrees of participation in the Good. The further a world or individual being stands from the Infinite (God), the denser the veils that obscure the absolute Unity. Consequently, the more intensely conflicts may rage within that world, arising from an inability to perceive how different forms of good harmonize with one another. This failure to reconcile and unify all particular manifestations of the Good inevitably leads beings who strive for one form to collide with and resist those striving for another.

The most famous model of Kabbalah—the Tree of Sephirot—was clearly intended from the outset to illustrate a specific order and hierarchy among the various attributes of the Good. Over time, however, it evolved into a ladder depicting the descent or ascent through the degrees of that Good. As it developed over the centuries, Kabbalah formulated detailed and complex models comprising various worlds, countenances (partzufim), and Sephirot, serving as stages and intermediate states in this infinite striving of desire toward the light.

The Philosophy of the Good

All the schools mentioned in this article historically align into a single tradition. Although Plato’s philosophy developed in Greece, the Hermetic treatises emerged from Alexandria (Egypt), and the Kabbalah was composed by Jewish sages living in various lands, they are united by a common system of ideas and a shared understanding of universal processes. This tradition helps dissolve the barrier between humanity and the Divine, on one hand by revealing God as the infinite and unconditional Good, and on the other by emphasizing the human Will as the primary component of the universal striving of all existence toward that Good.