Good and Evil in Asatru

Yes, most Norse Pagans have a sense of right and wrong, but this sense isn’t thought of as a revealed truth from the divine. There are no 10 Commandments in Heathenry though some might pretend the Nine Noble Virtues fit that bill. They don’t and they fail pretty miserably as an ethical standard.

It can be hard to talk about “good and bad” within Neo-Paganism in general. 

In the general Pagan community you’ll see a resistance to these concepts of good and bad. Go to a Heathen Discord and drop a “I believe in good and evil” and you’ll get a nice dogpile going. Start that thread on reddit, I dare you.

Some of this comes from religious trauma from religions that used “good” and “evil” as tools to gain compliance from someone. For example, a kid who gets sent away to conversion therapy camp because she has feelings that are “evil.” But this presents a problem. If we throw out any attempt at a right and wrong, then we can’t call things like religious abuse “wrong” or “bad.” Because to do so would be violating our own principle that “Good and bad don’t exist.”

This has lead to less of a discussion about good and evil and more of a series of ways to side-step the conversation entirely.

This is a much bigger discussion about the history and development of Neo-Paganism in general, but briefly: because of the resistance to moral codes in general Neo-Paganism, and the seeming delight Neo-Pagans have at finding special exceptions that defy rules, Heathens attempted to have their own Ethics conversation, but we’ve done it in a very interesting way.

Heathenry found a way  to “solve” the problem of starting the ethics conversation by hiding normative claims within descriptive claims.

The “was/ought” problem in Heathenry

A normative claim is an “ought” claim. It is a claim to what “ought” to happen rather than what does or what did happen. For example, “I ought to be generous” is a normative claim.

A descriptive claim is an “is/was” claim. It is a claim as to what is happening or what did happen rather than for what ought to happen. For example, “Our ancestors were generous” is a descriptive claim.

Heathens commonly use descriptive claims as normative claims

You will see this everywhere in the Norse Pagan community. Someone comes with an ethical dilemma and the response they get isn’t “you ought to do this” but rather some variation of “pre-Christian people did this.”

The hidden proposition, of course, is that “in order to practice our religion authentically, we ought to do as pre-Christian people did.” Which is the one that we all seem to understand when it comes to these kinds of discussions.  

But imagine for a moment that you’re someone in an ethical dilemma. Say you want to get an abortion. How helpful is it if someone says “well, pre-Christian people practiced infanticide.” What does that fact tell you about what you ought to do? Nothing really. It’s just a fact about people who lived a thousand years ago. But what about you today?

Similarly, asking for a “source” on a normative claim is going to be futile.

If you’re making a normative claim and someone asks for a source, that’s not bait you should take though it might be tempting because now you’re descending back into descriptive arguments over facts rather than a normative argument over what should happen.

You have to buy into the argument that what should happen is whatever happened in the descriptive claim. If I say “I should forgive my friend for an insult without asking for anything in return” and someone shouts about how “Source? Because that’s not how King Harald did it,” then I would have to accept the unstated premise that “however King Harald did something is how I ought to do it” for that descriptive counter-argument to make any sense.

Chaos and Order: the Ethical Trapdoor

A popular framing of the ethical question is to talk about it like “chaos and order” and it’ll go something like “there is no good and evil there is only chaos and order” or in more popular Heathen phrasing “there was no good and evil in Norse Paganism there was only Order and Chaos.” And then it will proceed to start going through mythology talking about the forces of chaos and order and how to bring balance. 

Now what you could do here is start talking about linguistics. How Old Norse and other Germanic languages did have words for “good” and “evil” and did use them to call some things “good” and other things “evil” and the uses of these terms pre-date the coming of Christianity. But guess what just happened? That’s right. You fell for another trap. You’re talking about history and not having a discussion about what is good and evil. You’re right back where you started from. And once again, even if you were to prove absolutely that people in Viking Age Scandinavia absolutely believed that there was such a thing as “good and evil” you are no closer to figuring out whether that’s something you should believe–or the more important question of what exactly is a good action or an evil one?

It’s an incredibly tempting trap to fall into!

Tribalism: What is “good” is “good for me and mine”

There is a temptation within more Tribalist groups to say “well, it’s good when my tribe does it, but evil if another tribe does it.” This is, unfortunately, another ethical side-step. And another temptation to dive into descriptive arguments over whether or not Heathens in pre-Christian times were just medieval mafia bosses exacting bloody revenge through the Northlands.

By the Tribal definition, there is no “good” there is only “good for me.” “Good” is only “good” insofar as it brings benefit to yourself, your family or your community. It is “evil” if it harms those things. This model starts to break down when we consider cases where there is no clear benefit to be gained or that you might have to do something that harms someone else in order to get a benefit for yourself.

Which ends up in all kinds of ethical conundrums. Under this tribalist model, lying to someone is fine as long as they are not in the tribe and the lie would benefit the tribe. But ask yourself if you’d want to live in a society where people’s ethics were only motivated by self or tribal interest. Would you trust what someone is telling you? Would you ever give anyone the benefit of the doubt? 

Another problem with this conception of tribal ethics is that it makes altruism itself unethical. If you take an action without thought to your own benefit or the benefit of your tribe, it cannot be the right thing to do. But we know there are many situations where doing exactly what is not in our interest is the right thing to do.

You’d also have to wonder how a community every changes if the only thing that is ever right is the tribe itself. For example, if one tribe thought human slavery was good and built their whole economy around it, wouldn’t you as a member of that tribe be wrong if you went against it? And if another tribe tried to liberate your slaves so that they could live as free people, wouldn’t that be evil because it’s another tribe doing your tribe harm?

It’s one thing to render people in the past blameless for the circumstances of their world or for participating in the dominant mode of production, but it’s another thing entirely to absolve the act itself as if morality is a simple on/off switch. In the above example, a person who followed this kind of ethical precept would be forced to find slavery perfectly morally acceptable again, provided they moved to a tribe where it is common practice.

This is also a bit of an ethical side-step, like the Chaos vs Order side-step. Because it answers a different question that the one you asked. If you ask “what is good” and someone answers “that which is good for my tribe” they have answered the question of “who is morally considerable?” rather that “what is moral?” Some might pretend that they’re confused about this and say that the “who is morally considerable” question is the same question, but that’s more of an indication they they don’t really want to have an ethical discussion in the first place.

Classical Philosophy, especially Plotinus, may hold a key to why pre-Christian people had such a problem talking about evil.

Everyone in pre-Christian times seemed to have words for evil but not a lot to say about evil. Religion could drive away “ill spirits” or magicians could use “ill magic” but no one seemed to want to talk about what it was that made something evil. Enter Plotinus.

The Late Roman Neo-Platonist Philosopher Plotinus had an interesting idea about the nature of good and evil that could help us out. Plotinus postulated that “evil” isn’t really a “presence” of something. Rather it is the absence of goodness. Like how a shadow isn’t “present” as much as it simply a space the light cannot reach. The wholeness here is a metaphysical completeness that exists in a way we struggle to comprehend as imperfect beings. Where something that is perfect is no longer becoming, no longer in process, but in a state of full completion.

Of course, there’s no evidence anyone in the Viking Age ever read Plotinus or was convinced by his arguments. Though words like “holy” being related to the word for “whole” offer some tantalizing parallels to Plotnius, there’s no connection beyond etymology.

Winifred Hodge Rose: Oaths, Shild, Frith Luck and Wyrd

Another Heathen thinker who took a stab at Good and Evil is Winifred Hodge Rose in her essay collection “Oaths, Shild, Frith, Luck & Wyrd: Five Essays Exploring Heathen Ethical Concepts and their Use Today.” 

In my understanding, there are two interrelated areas of particular importance in Heathen ethics.  One is the growth and maintenance of ethical personal power, or might and main: the inner strength and drive that is necessary to develop and sustain a good character and reputation, and to achieve worthy deeds during our life.

The second is the pursuit of relationships and community life that promote individual, group, and community well-being and effective functionality.  Any thoughtful reading of Heathen history, old texts, tales, poems and sagas will show how important these two factors were in ancient Heathen life, and will show their complex interactions.  This was generally illustrated by showing the painful, cascading disruptions that were caused by failures of, and transgressions against, these ethical values and aspirations.

What are Might and Main? Hodge briefly explains:

I see ‘might and main’ as a common thread that ties together the subject matter of the five essays that I reference and link with this article, below.  Might, as in mighty, powerful, is a familiar term in modern English.  Main, as it is used here, is less so.  It is the descendant of Anglo-Saxon mægen, Old Norse megin.  It refers to power, but is also related to virtue and ethics.  Mægen is defined as strength, power, vigor, valor, virtue, efficacy, a good deed, a miraculous event (and the power behind it).  Modern Heathens often use this term in reference to spiritual and moral power.  Thus, ‘might and main’ refer to all the powers of our being: physical, spiritual, mental, moral, the power of our will and of our vision.

Hodge Rose’s insights run another interesting parallel to Plotinus where what is “good” is that which increases something, and what is “evil” is something that would then decrease it. Though unlike Plotinus, Hodge Rose makes no stipulation that there is a “perfection” or ultimate wholeness towards which we are increasing. The gaining in might and main theoretically continues even after death as one’s reputation and thus one’s spirit-power increases in good fame. Evil, then, would be that which decreases might and main either for the individual or for a community.

Eye for Eye or Turn the Other Cheek?

Some in the Heathen community believe in the “Lex Talonis” or the “Law of the Claw” which is like for like: repay good with good and evil for evil. Simple, right?  Not if we consider evil as absence. If we consider evil as absence, and that evil action makes a hole or our action casts a shadow, further evil action merely creates an even bigger shadow–more absence. 

Some Heathens, then might say that we respond to evil not with more evil but with goodness. The very goodness that is in the nature of our Gods. 

But to say “goodness” is too general. We respond to evil with specific expressions of goodness. Heathens 

We understand the pain evil action causes through compassion. We comfort the victims of evil action with kindness. With generosity we alleviate the effects of evil. And we respond to the evil actions themselves with justice. 

Why is there no Norse Pagan Satan? 

There isn’t an embodiment of evil in Norse Paganism. There is no Norse Pagan Satan.

It doesn’t take on any particular character, though some attempted to put Loki into that role, or cast Fenrir, Jormungandr or Hel into that role. None of it quite works because defining these characters as “evil” because Norse Mythology and Pagan moral and ethical thinking in general was a lot more sophisticated than people typically think.

It also doesn’t work from a dramatic perspective because the Gods in the literature also act in ways that we might consider “evil.” They cause harm. They lie. They cheat. They kill. They steal. Even by the standards of the people who told the stories, the Gods behaved badly in those stories. Even as Loki was not an example of a Norse Satan in the literature, the rest of the Gods were not portrayed as paragons of virtue either. Nor were they meant to be. 

But that doesn’t mean that there weren’t stories about creatures that would harm people. Jotuns, woodland spirits, dwarves, house spirits… There are plenty of folk-tales about how these spirits, having been aggrieved at something a person did, exact their terrible wrath on whatever human offended them. But no specific creature or action was the “source of all evil” either. 

There isn’t a metaphysical antagonist from which all evil derives.

The “Problem of Evil” and Heathenry

The problem of evil is a classic problem for religions that both have an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent deity and who also claim that evil exists. Most Heathens resent any implication that the Gods are “omni-anything” and will react with extreme skepticism should anyone argue anything approaching that. Heck, you may even find Heathens out there that violently object to the Gods even being called “benevolent” let alone “omnibenevolent.”

That is, of course, one way of dealing with the problem. 

There are a lot of ways that we can come at the problem of evil from a Heathen perspective. One is that Wyrd and Orlog are forces so powerful that the Gods themselves cannot change them, and may even be subject to Wyrd and Orlog themselves. Another theory presumes that the Gods are eternal, perfect and outside of Wyrd and Orlog where we remain ensconced within them. Either way, Heathens are comfortable admitting that while the Gods may be benevolent, they may not have the power to fundamentally change the nature of reality so as to pull us out of the reality of Wyrd and Orlog

For Heathens, the “Problem of Evil” is a specific practical question rather than a general theological one. Rather than wondering why the Gods would permit evil (as for most Heathens, the Gods don’t meet one or a few of the criteria for the Theodicy problem to arise) Heathens will work to resolve suffering, resolve harm and restore people through giving the gifts of our time, our money or our labor.