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This was my entry for the Good vs. Evil contest by DeviantArt and Wacom.
Painter X, Photoshop CS3
Wacom Intuos 3
"And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." Revelation 12:7-9
This subject was a challenge from the very beginning. I knew that I would be fighting against one of the biggest clichés in the history of art- angels at war with demons. But with that in mind, I chose the subject matter for a specific reason. The prevalent worldview likes to blur the lines between good and evil, or even make them one in the same. Another view suggests that the universe requires both good and evil to maintain balance. But the war in heaven described in Revelation illustrates an important truth: good and evil are absolutes, and have been constantly at war from that point. But evil did not always exist. They are not co-dependent or symbiotic, and they are certainly not balanced. Good triumphed in the beginning, and will triumph again in the end.
C.S. Lewis spoke at length on the subject in several of his books. For proof that good and evil are not equal yet independent forces in a dualist universe, he cites the following conundrum, which I will paraphrase. In order for a dualist view of the universe to be correct, both good and evil must exist solely for the purpose of opposing one another; Good is good for its own sake, and evil is evil for its own sake. It is certainly possible for something to be good for the sake of being good. A mother's love for her child is good in a perfectly selfless way, and is dependent on nothing. But can something bad exist only for the sake of being bad? When we look at the motive for any crime, there is something good which is the goal of the evil action; money, power, safety, pleasure- these are all things which are inherently good, in themselves. The evil lies in pursuing them in the wrong methods or for the wrong reasons. In addition, the skills which allow a bad person to accomplish something evil are, in themselves, good; cunning, wit, strength, charisma. |
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