Jainism etal

 Comment, corrections, elaborations??
 Westerners are not the only ones to have discovered atheism. Here is another case, Jainism, traditionally founded by Vardhamana Mahavira (about the same time as Buddhism was traditionally founded, although in both cases the tradition may be older).

I try here to provide a few of its teachings, with comparisons to Buddhism, but please be kind and forgive errors and important things I am not aware of – to be in a position to be accurate and complete in such things requires lifetimes of study.

1. The universe is neither created nor sustained by a supernatural being. It is without beginning or end and operates in accordance with natural law (Buddhism posits an uncaused and unknowable beginning to the universe, but agrees that all operates under natural law). I have been taught this, and I suppose it is true, but one has to wonder in both cases if these traditions, until recently, had any firm idea of what natural law might be, or at least if they had a Baconian or similar sense of it.

2. Existence has two categories, mind and non-mind (some Buddhism tends to the idea that non-mind is a sub-category of mind).

3. The law of karma is a law of automatic cause and effect. Karma comes by non-violence (Buddhism also posits a law of karma, but sees it as both negative and positive; also, Buddhism sees all cause and effect as examples of karma – that is to say that often Buddhists see the cause and effect of classical physics as an example of karma too).

4. Karma leaves when there is violence, detachment, anger, pride, infatuation, greed, hatred, or craving (Buddhists see such behavior leading to the accumulation of negative karma, except for detachment, which is seen as desirable). It may be that there is a difference in the meaning of words here, with one group defining detachment as absence of compassion. Buddhists emphasize compassion but applied in a detached way

5. Attachment to material objects is the main cause of bondage and leads to greed and jealousy (Jains identify the problem as bondage, Buddhists as one of suffering).

6. There is no need for the rituals of the Vedas (Hinduism tends to insist that the world will fall apart if the rituals are not sustained).

7. There is no God or gods (Buddhists make no such assertions, seeing such matters as speculative).

8. The goal of life is liberation. (Buddhists call it enlightenment).

9. Vegetarianism is necessary. (Buddhists encourage vegetarianism).

It is likely that both Buddhism and Jainism and other subcontinent traditions come from the same extremely ancient root. This may be as far back as the ancient Indus Valley (Harappa) cultures. While both traditions may have specific beginnings with particular founders, the very physical existence of these individuals cannot be proven, and I am not willing to go so far as to say their existence is likely or unlikely (many scholars will say the existence of an important religious figure is “likely,” I tend to suspect to be friendly and maybe retain access). If these “founders” were real people they may also have been kernels of myth clusters around which the actual traditions later developed, or they shaped and modified existing tradition ― it would be difficult to say they founded them, since main ideas had already been around a long time.

Hinduism shares characteristics with Indo-European religions (especially pantheons of deities specializing in different aspects of existence) and seems to be therefore derived more from the Aryan invaders. Hinduism, however, does also share with the other two traditions the ideas of karma and rebirth, so we can discern that the Hindu tradition picked them up over the ages in India.

This is a thoughtful summary, and for a non-specialist account it is surprisingly careful. Most of my corrections would be matters of emphasis rather than outright error.

The biggest correction concerns karma. In Jainism, karma is not merely a moral law of cause and effect. Classical Jain thought treats karma as a kind of subtle material substance that adheres to the soul (jīva). The soul is literally weighed down and obscured by karmic matter. This is one of the sharpest differences from Buddhism. Buddhists generally regard karma as intentional action and its consequences, not as a physical substance.

Your point 3 therefore needs adjustment. Non-violence does not create karma in Jainism; rather, violence and passions attract karmic matter, while right conduct prevents its accumulation and helps remove existing karma.

Point 4 seems partly reversed. Detachment (non-attachment) is highly valued in Jainism, just as it is in Buddhism. The Jain list of major passions includes anger, pride, deceit, and greed. Detachment is a remedy, not a cause of karmic bondage. You may have encountered a translation issue.

On point 2, "mind and non-mind" is somewhat too simple. Jain metaphysics usually distinguishes conscious substance (jīva) from non-conscious substance (ajīva). The latter includes not only ordinary matter but also space, time, and the principles that make motion and rest possible. Jain ontology is remarkably elaborate.

Your point 7 is broadly right but could be sharpened. Jains deny a creator god. However, they do not deny the existence of higher beings. The cosmos contains devas and other superhuman beings. The difference is that these beings are themselves trapped within the cosmic process and are not creators or ultimate rulers.

The Buddhism comparison here is interesting. Buddhism likewise contains gods in most of its traditional forms. The Buddha did not deny their existence; he simply denied that they were ultimate. Thus both traditions reject a creator deity while generally accepting various classes of superhuman beings.

On point 8, "liberation" and "enlightenment" are close but not exactly equivalent. The Jain goal is moksha, liberation of the soul from karmic matter. The Buddhist goal is nirvana, the cessation of greed, hatred, and delusion. The difference reflects a deeper metaphysical disagreement: Jains believe in an eternal individual soul, whereas Buddhism is famous for teaching anatta (non-self).

That may actually be the most important difference between the two traditions. If I were forced to summarize them in one sentence each:

    Jainism: there is an eternal soul, and liberation consists in freeing it from karmic contamination.

    Buddhism: there is no permanent self to be liberated, and suffering ends through understanding the true nature of experience.

Regarding vegetarianism, your formulation understates Jain rigor. Vegetarianism is encouraged in many Buddhist traditions but is not universally required. In contrast, non-violence toward living beings is so central to Jainism that many Jains avoid root vegetables, strain water, and take numerous precautions against harming even tiny organisms.

As for origins, this is where I would push back most strongly.

The connection between Buddhism, Jainism, and a common "Indus Valley" religious source is possible but highly speculative. We simply do not have enough evidence about the beliefs of the people of the Indus civilization. There are intriguing hints, but no deciphered texts. Scholars generally hesitate to draw direct lines from Harappa to later Indian religions because the evidentiary gap is enormous.

The safer statement is that Buddhism and Jainism emerged from the wider Śramaṇa movement of northern India, which also included other ascetic and philosophical schools. This movement existed alongside Vedic religion and challenged many Vedic assumptions. Both Buddhism and Jainism appear to have arisen from this broader intellectual environment rather than one directly from the other.

I would also be cautious about calling the Aryans "invaders." That language was common decades ago, but modern scholarship is more divided. The dominant view today is usually described as Indo-Aryan migration rather than outright military invasion, although the details remain debated. What is much less controversial is that Vedic religion brought clear Indo-European features into India, including deities with relatives elsewhere in the Indo-European world.

Finally, on the historicity of the founders, your skepticism is understandable, but I think you may be a little more skeptical than the evidence warrants. Most historians regard both Mahavira and Gautama Buddha as probably historical individuals. The reasons are not primarily friendliness toward believers but rather the normal historical criteria used for ancient figures. We know very little about them with certainty, but the existence of a founder behind each movement is generally considered more likely than not. Whether the traditions later accumulated legends around them is a separate question; virtually all major religious founders undergo that process.

Overall, I would say your account captures an important truth: Buddhism and Jainism are among the world's great examples of sophisticated religious traditions that do not depend upon a creator god. That observation is historically significant and often surprises people whose idea of religion is shaped primarily by the Abrahamic traditions.

I'm interested in karma contrasted with Baconian natural processes.

That is a fascinating comparison, because at a deep level the two ideas are trying to explain quite different things.

A Baconian view of nature—meaning the view that eventually developed into modern science—sees the universe as governed by impersonal regularities that can be discovered through observation and experiment. If I drop a stone, it falls. If I heat water, it boils. These events occur regardless of anyone's moral character. Nature does not care whether the person dropping the stone is a saint or a murderer.

Karma, in its classical Indian sense, is different. It is also a law-like process rather than the whim of a deity, but it is morally structured. Actions have consequences not merely because of physical causation but because the universe itself is responsive to intention, virtue, vice, attachment, and so forth. The moral dimension is built into reality.

That difference is enormous.

In Baconian science, if a dishonest merchant becomes rich through fraud, there is no reason to expect gravity, chemistry, or biology to punish him. Any punishment comes through social mechanisms—courts, reputation, retaliation by others—not from nature itself.

In a karmic system, the fraud is itself a cause whose effects are built into the fabric of existence. The punishment may not be immediate, and may not even occur in the present life, but the action has altered the actor's future in a morally significant way.

One could say that Baconian causation is morally blind, while karma is morally sensitive.

This creates an interesting historical puzzle. Ancient Indians often spoke of karma as though it were as objective and reliable as gravity. Yet they lacked the experimental methods that would later characterize modern science. To them, moral causation may have appeared just as self-evident as physical causation. Good people seemed to flourish in some cases, wicked people seemed to suffer in others, and the doctrine of rebirth helped explain apparent exceptions.

The modern scientific worldview introduced a challenge. We can measure gravity, electromagnetism, bacterial infection, and genetic inheritance. We have not found a measurable mechanism by which an act of generosity alters future events in the way karma traditionally proposes.

That does not necessarily make karma meaningless. Some modern interpreters redefine it in more naturalistic terms. If you cultivate anger, you become an angrier person. If you cultivate generosity, you become more generous. Habits shape character, character shapes choices, and choices shape life outcomes. There is certainly a causal chain there.

But notice what has happened. Karma has been translated from a cosmic principle into a psychological and social one.

The classical Buddhist and Jain doctrines usually meant something stronger than that. They did not merely claim that greed makes one unpleasant to be around. They claimed that greed has consequences extending beyond ordinary social and psychological mechanisms.

An interesting question is whether karma was originally conceived as a natural law in something like the modern sense. I suspect the answer is no. The resemblance is superficial. Both speak of regularity and causation, but Baconian natural law is descriptive: it tells us what happens. Karma is normative: it tells us what ought to happen and asserts that reality is arranged accordingly.

That may be why modern people can admire the ethical insight behind karma while remaining doubtful of its metaphysical claims. The observation that actions shape character is easy to verify. The claim that the universe itself guarantees moral accounting is a much larger proposition.

In that sense, karma occupies a position somewhat analogous to the idea of justice in monotheistic religions. The mechanism differs—automatic law instead of divine judgment—but both express the intuition that the moral order of the universe ultimately matters, whereas Baconian science is entirely silent on whether the universe has any moral order at all.

The issue of invasion opposed to migration and gradual replacement occurs a lot in pre-history.

It does, and the debate is often as much about terminology as evidence.

At one extreme, "invasion" conjures images of armies crossing a frontier, defeating the existing population, and imposing a new culture in a relatively short period. At the other extreme, "migration" suggests families and small groups moving over generations, intermarrying, trading, and gradually shifting the language and culture of a region.

The archaeological and genetic evidence in many cases points to something in between. Human populations rarely remain static, and they rarely disappear completely. New groups arrive, sometimes peacefully, sometimes violently, and often with a mixture of both. Over centuries, languages, customs, technologies, and genes become blended in ways that make simple narratives difficult.

The Indo-Aryan case in India is a good example. Earlier scholarship often spoke confidently of an "Aryan invasion." Later scholars reacted against that picture and emphasized migration. Today many researchers accept substantial movement of Indo-European-speaking peoples into South Asia, but the details remain debated. The evidence does not neatly support either a Hollywood-style conquest or a completely peaceful diffusion.

The same pattern appears elsewhere. The spread of agriculture into Europe involved migration, but also the adoption of farming by existing populations. The expansion of steppe peoples into Europe during the Bronze Age seems to have involved large-scale population replacement in some regions, yet not total replacement. The spread of Turkic languages across Central Asia and Anatolia involved relatively small numbers of migrants in some places but profound cultural change. Even the so-called "barbarian invasions" of the late Roman Empire were often migrations of whole peoples that included women and children, not merely military campaigns.

Part of the difficulty is that prehistory leaves us fragments: pottery styles, burial practices, settlement patterns, DNA samples, and later traditions. These are powerful sources, but they do not tell stories as clearly as written records. Archaeologists may see evidence of cultural change without knowing whether it resulted from trade, prestige, migration, conquest, or some combination.

There is also a modern sensitivity around the terms. "Invasion" can sound accusatory or politically charged. "Migration" can sound gentler and more acceptable. Yet ancient reality was often messy. A migrating group might arrive peacefully in one valley, fight for land in another, and become indistinguishable from the local population within a few generations.

What fascinates me is how often cultural replacement occurs without anything approaching extermination. A language can vanish while most of the people remain. Consider the spread of Latin in parts of Western Europe or English in much of Britain. The descendants of earlier populations frequently survive, but they come to speak a different language and identify with a different culture. From a genetic perspective there may be continuity; from a cultural perspective there has been a profound transformation.

That is one reason scholars have become cautious. The older habit was to equate a new pottery style or a new language with a new people sweeping in. Modern archaeology and genetics have shown that cultural change, language change, and population change can occur together—or separately.

So when discussing ancient India, Europe, or almost anywhere else in prehistory, I generally find it safest to think in terms of movements of populations, varying degrees of conflict, and long periods of cultural interaction, rather than trying to force events into the binary categories of "invasion" or "peaceful migration." The historical reality was usually more complicated than either label suggests.

The Indo-European deities, at least from what I know of Greco-Roman or Norse mythologies, were not Abrahamic.  They were born, defeatable, etc.

Quite right. In fact, one of the things that can mislead modern readers is the tendency to use the word "god" for beings that are very different from the God of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.

The deities of the Indo-European traditions were generally powerful inhabitants of the cosmos, not creators standing outside it.

Take Zeus. He is king of the gods, but he is not the creator of the universe. The universe, in Greek myth, already exists in some form before Zeus comes to power. He is born, has parents, can be deceived, can be opposed, and is subject to forces larger than himself, such as Fate.

Similarly, Odin is immensely powerful and wise, but he is not omniscient, omnipotent, or eternal. He seeks knowledge because he lacks it. He sacrifices an eye for wisdom. Most strikingly, he is destined to die at Ragnarök.

Even in the Vedic tradition, deities such as Indra are mighty but hardly absolute. They fight battles, make mistakes, are surpassed in importance by other deities over time, and exist within a larger cosmic order.

In many polytheistic systems, the gods are not above nature; they are part of nature. They personify aspects of it, govern portions of it, or inhabit it. They may be immortal in practice, but they are not necessary beings in the philosophical sense.

This is one reason Buddhism and Jainism could reject a creator god without necessarily rejecting the existence of devas or divine beings. They were operating in a cultural environment where "god" did not automatically mean the ultimate source of all reality.

A Buddhist hearing about a deva might think something like, "Yes, such beings may exist, but they are also trapped in samsara." A Jain might say something similar. Neither response would have sounded particularly shocking in a world where divine beings were already understood to be finite.

In fact, the Abrahamic conception is arguably the unusual one historically. The idea of a single, uncreated, omnipotent, omniscient creator who sustains all existence is philosophically elegant, but it is quite different from the older Indo-European picture of a populated cosmos containing many powerful but limited supernatural beings.

That difference sometimes creates confusion in modern discussions. Someone says, "Buddhism has gods," and another replies, "Then it isn't atheistic." But that assumes "god" means the Abrahamic God. A Buddhist deva is much closer to a very long-lived and powerful being than to the creator of heaven and earth.

In that sense, the gap between Buddhism and ancient Greek religion may be smaller than the gap between either of them and classical Christian theology. The Greek might say, "The gods exist but are not ultimate." The Buddhist might reply, "Some gods exist, but they are not ultimate." They would disagree on many things, but they would at least be speaking within a somewhat similar conceptual universe.

In that limited sense, then, classical polytheism or "paganism" was atheist.

There is a respectable argument for that, but it depends heavily on what one means by "atheist."

If by atheist one means "does not believe in a creator God who is the ultimate source and sustainer of reality," then much classical polytheism comes surprisingly close. The Greek, Roman, Norse, and many other pagan traditions lacked anything quite analogous to the God of classical Christianity, Judaism, or Islam.

A Greek could believe wholeheartedly in Zeus and yet not believe that Zeus created the universe. The cosmos, the primordial powers, and the Fates all existed independently of Zeus in one way or another. Zeus ruled; he did not create existence itself.

However, most historians and philosophers would hesitate to call such a person an atheist because the term normally means disbelief in gods altogether. The ancient Greek who sacrificed to Zeus, prayed to Athena, and consulted oracles would have found the label baffling.

The deeper issue is that the word "atheism" was coined in a cultural environment where "God" had come to mean something much closer to the Abrahamic conception. When we look backward into cultures that lacked that conception, the categories become blurry.

In fact, early Christians were occasionally accused of atheism by pagans because Christians denied the existence or legitimacy of the traditional gods. From the pagan perspective, refusing to honor the gods looked atheistic. From the Christian perspective, they were anything but atheists.

You could therefore construct a spectrum:

    Classical monotheism: one ultimate creator God.

    Classical polytheism: many powerful supernatural beings, none of whom is the ultimate creator.

    Buddhism and Jainism: no creator God, though many traditions acknowledge various superhuman beings.

    Philosophical naturalism: no supernatural beings at all.

The first and last are relatively easy to classify. The middle two categories are where our modern vocabulary starts to creak.

Personally, I think it is more accurate to say that classical paganism was non-monotheistic rather than atheist. But your observation points to something important: many people unconsciously assume that belief in any deity is equivalent to belief in the Abrahamic God. Historically, that is not true. The religious landscape of the ancient world was far more varied.

There is also an interesting irony. If you were to explain the Olympians to a modern philosophical atheist without using the word "god," you might describe them as extremely powerful, long-lived, superhuman intelligences inhabiting the universe. The atheist would likely object that there is no evidence for such beings. But the concept itself is much less metaphysically ambitious than an omnipotent creator existing outside space and time.

So in one sense, pagan religions often asked people to believe in more supernatural beings than monotheism does, but in another sense they asked them to believe in beings that were considerably less extraordinary. The Olympians are grand characters within the universe; the God of classical theism is the reason there is a universe at all. That is a much larger claim.

Yea, it's best that I stick to definitions as they are generally used.

I think that's wise, especially when discussing religion across cultures and eras.

The problem is that words like atheism, god, religion, and even belief carry a great deal of baggage from particular historical traditions. If you redefine them too aggressively, you can make a technically defensible point while confusing your audience.

For example, you could argue that Buddhism is atheistic because it lacks a creator God. Many scholars have said exactly that. But if you then tell someone, "Buddhism is atheist," they may picture something much closer to modern secular naturalism than to actual Buddhist traditions, many of which include devas, heavens, hells, rebirth, and other supernatural elements.

Likewise, calling the ancient Greeks atheists because they lacked an Abrahamic-style creator can obscure the fact that they spent a great deal of time worshipping gods.

In ordinary usage, most people mean roughly:

    Theism: belief in one or more gods.

    Atheism: absence of belief in gods.

Those definitions are somewhat blunt instruments, but they are widely understood.

Then, if necessary, one can add qualifications: Buddhism lacks a creator God; Jainism lacks a creator God; Greek religion lacked an omnipotent creator God; many Hindu traditions conceive of divinity very differently from Abrahamic traditions; and so forth.

That approach preserves the useful distinctions without forcing ancient traditions into modern categories.

One thing I have noticed in your recent reflections on Buddhism and Jainism is that you are often less interested in whether a tradition is "theistic" than in whether it posits moral structure in the universe. In that respect, karma is the more important concept than gods. A universe filled with gods but lacking karmic order would look very different from a universe with no creator but governed by karma.

From that perspective, Buddhism and Jainism may actually have more in common with Christianity than either does with modern secular naturalism. All three, in their classical forms, hold that moral actions are woven into the structure of reality itself. They disagree profoundly about the mechanism, but they share the conviction that morality is not merely a human convention.

Modern scientific naturalism is the odd one out. It can describe consequences of actions in psychological, social, and biological terms, but it does not contain any built-in principle that virtue will ultimately be rewarded or vice punished. Nature, as science describes it, has no apparent concern for justice.

That distinction—between a morally ordered universe and a morally indifferent one—often turns out to be more philosophically significant than the simple question of how many gods there are.

The classical gods were very involved with enforcing moral order.  Their own behavior may appear to belie this, but the idea of what is pleasing to the gods and what is good are linked.

Yes, and that is an important qualification to what I wrote.

The Olympians, the Norse gods, and many other pagan deities were not merely cosmic functionaries. They were deeply involved in human affairs and often acted as guardians of certain kinds of moral and social order.

The difficulty is that their morality was not always what we would call universal morality.

For the Greeks, for example, hospitality to strangers (xenia) was sacred because it was under the protection of Zeus. Oath-breaking, perjury, and violations of guest-friendship could bring divine punishment. Excessive pride (hubris) was another recurring target of divine wrath. The gods might overlook many things, but they often punished mortals who forgot their place.

Similarly, in Norse tradition, courage, loyalty, oath-keeping, and honor were not merely social preferences; they had divine significance. The gods themselves embodied and reinforced those values, however imperfectly.

What is interesting is that the moral order in these traditions is often personal rather than automatic. A man suffers because he has offended a god, violated a sacred custom, broken an oath, or incurred divine displeasure. The mechanism resembles a legal system with powerful rulers enforcing norms.

Karma works differently. The karmic process is usually conceived as automatic. There is no cosmic judge deciding whether you deserve punishment. The action itself generates consequences.

That distinction may partly explain why the behavior of pagan gods can seem so inconsistent. If moral order depends on powerful persons, then the personalities of those persons matter. Gods can be jealous, partial, angry, or capricious. If moral order is an impersonal law, as in Jainism or much of Buddhism, then it should operate whether anyone likes it or not.

The ancient Greeks themselves were aware of the tension. The tragedians repeatedly ask whether the gods are just, whether fate is just, and why good people suffer. One does not get the impression that they thought divine justice was always obvious.

In fact, there is a fascinating progression in some strands of Greek thought. Early myth often depicts a world governed by powerful divine personalities. Later philosophers increasingly seek a more rational and universal principle behind reality. By the time you reach figures such as Plato and Aristotle, the discussion is moving toward concepts that look much less like the squabbling Olympians of epic poetry.

So I think your point is correct: classical paganism was not morally indifferent in the way modern scientific naturalism is. The gods cared about human conduct. What differs from karma traditions is not the existence of moral concern but the mechanism. In one case moral order is largely enforced by divine beings; in the other it is embedded in the structure of reality itself.

Whether ordinary worshippers experienced the distinction that sharply is another question. A Greek farmer who feared offending Zeus and a Buddhist villager who feared bad karma might behave quite similarly, even though the underlying theology was very different. The practical effect—live rightly or suffer consequences—could feel much the same.

I suspect the contrast between divine stories and divine roles is that one is mythical while the other is immediate.

I think there is something to that.

In many religious traditions, the stories about the gods and the functions of the gods operate on somewhat different levels.

The myths are narratives. They explain, entertain, preserve cultural memory, and provide symbolic frameworks. They are full of drama because drama is memorable. Gods quarrel, deceive, seduce, fight, and suffer reversals. If they did not, the stories would be dull.

The divine roles, by contrast, are what worshippers encounter in lived religion. The farmer concerned about rain, the sailor concerned about storms, the family concerned about an oath, or the host concerned about hospitality is not primarily thinking about some ancient tale. He is thinking about a power that is active now.

As a result, there is often a gap between mythology and devotion.

A Greek listening to stories about Zeus's amorous adventures might laugh or shake his head. But when swearing an oath, he was not dealing with a comic character from a story. He was dealing with the divine guarantor of oaths. The role was immediate and serious.

The same phenomenon appears elsewhere. In Hindu traditions, stories about deities can be playful, paradoxical, or morally ambiguous, yet worshippers may simultaneously approach those same deities as embodiments of cosmic order, compassion, wisdom, or protection. The mythic narrative and the devotional reality are not necessarily read in the same way.

One reason modern readers sometimes find ancient religions odd is that we tend to read myths as if they were biographies. We ask, "If Zeus behaved this way, why would anyone worship him?" But that may not have been how many worshippers understood the stories. The myths often functioned more like symbolic narratives than character references.

There is also a deeper possibility. The stories may express truths about forces that are larger than morality in the ordinary sense. Storms are life-giving and destructive. The sea feeds people and drowns them. Fertility creates life and disorder. A god associated with such powers may be depicted as majestic, dangerous, generous, and capricious all at once because nature itself appears that way.

That may be one reason the gods of polytheism often seem less morally polished than the God of later monotheism. They are not primarily embodiments of perfect goodness; they are personifications of powerful aspects of reality. Their stories reflect that complexity.

So I think your distinction is useful. The divine stories belong to the mythic realm, where paradox, symbolism, and narrative flourish. The divine roles belong to the lived religious realm, where people seek protection, meaning, justice, rain, healing, fertility, or guidance. The two overlap, but they are not identical.

Indeed, one could argue that a religion survives not because of its mythology alone but because worshippers experience the divine roles as real and relevant in their own lives. The stories are remembered because they illuminate those roles, not necessarily because they are read as straightforward historical accounts.

Assuming one can be confident the God of the OT was consistently moral.

That is exactly where the comparison becomes complicated.

When people say that the God of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam is morally perfect, they are usually making a theological claim about God's nature, not a claim that every action attributed to God in scripture will appear morally unproblematic to a modern reader.

A reader approaching the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) without prior theological commitments will quickly encounter difficult passages: the Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, commands connected with warfare, punishments that seem severe by modern standards, and so forth. For centuries, Jewish and Christian thinkers have wrestled with these texts precisely because they are not easy.

In fact, one could argue that the Greek gods are often easier to understand. Zeus behaves badly because Zeus is not supposed to be morally perfect. His flaws are part of the story. The theological problem is relatively small.

The God of classical monotheism is a greater philosophical challenge because He is traditionally held to be perfectly good, perfectly just, and perfectly wise. Therefore every troubling passage raises the question: how should this be understood?

Different traditions have answered differently. Some interpret difficult passages literally and defend them. Some read them in historical context. Some regard parts of the text as reflecting the understanding of the human authors rather than a direct transcript of divine action. Some emphasize allegorical or symbolic readings.

There is also a historical development visible within the Bible itself. The portrait of God in the earliest texts is not always presented in exactly the same way as in later prophetic, wisdom, or rabbinic traditions. The texts were written and edited over many centuries, and one can often see reflection and reinterpretation occurring within the tradition itself.

Your observation returns us to the distinction between divine stories and divine roles.

A Christian theologian may say that God is perfectly good and the ground of morality itself. That is a statement about the divine role in the theological system.

A historian reading biblical narratives may observe stories in which God appears angry, jealous, destructive, merciful, patient, or forgiving in ways that can seem inconsistent or troubling. That is the narrative level.

The tension between those levels is not unique to monotheism. What is unique is that monotheism generally insists that the ultimate divine reality must be morally perfect. That raises the stakes considerably. A morally imperfect Zeus is not much of a philosophical problem. A morally imperfect creator God would be a very large problem indeed.

This is one reason the so-called "problem of evil" became so central in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thought. Once you posit a single omnipotent and perfectly good creator, every instance of suffering and every troubling divine action demands explanation.

The Greeks had questions about justice too, but they could always say that the gods were powerful beings with mixed motives. Classical monotheism does not have that escape route. It commits itself to a much stronger moral claim about the divine, and therefore inherits much harder philosophical questions.