Agathism is the doctrine that all things ultimately tend toward good, even though the means by which that happens may be evil or unpleasant or unfortunate. The word comes from Greek agathos, meaning good, which is also the source of agathokakological, an adjective describing a mixture of good and evil. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Agathism”
Until this week, I did not know the word agathism.
It comes from the Greek for good, agathos meaning good.
And agathism is the doctrine that all things ultimately tend toward good, although the means by which this comes about may be evil or unpleasant or unfortunate.
It’s sort of different from optimism, which holds that everything now is happening for the best.
Agathism is the idea that things will turn out well, but we may have some ups and downs along the way.
Gotcha. What is the saying that I’m thinking of about the arc of history bends toward justice?
It reminds me of that.
Yeah. And it’s also, of course, related to the word agathacological, which is a mixture of good and evil.
The caco is bad, the agatho is good.
Akathokological.
Mm—
