I recently listened through Augustine’s Confessions, and thus have had reason to think more about Manicheanism.

Evil, Augustine came to realize, cannot be a thing in itself. It can only be a privation–a corruption of what is created which all must be originally good because it was created by a good God.

And if that is true, then we have to say the same about God’s character regarding God’s love and wrath. Wrath is not a primary attribute but rather a derived one.

God is not dependent on creation. This is why the Trinity must be true (or, if we were to be speculative rather than Scriptural, why there must be some sort of plurality in God). A unitarian God would have no one to love unless he created. He would be dependent on creation or love would not be an essential attribute.

But while love can exist in the Trinity from all eternity; wrath cannot. Wrath is not essential to God’s being. It is a secondary response, an application of God’s integrity and his love to the issue of sin and hatred.

The Father loves the Son and the Spirit and wishes to vindicate them both from their enemies. The same (in some unique way appropriate to them) is true of the Son and Spirit in their relations to the other two persons in the Trinity. The wrath on the enemies is a secondary issue. The essential attribute is God’s love.

God is love.

If “equal ultimacy” between love and wrath were really possible, then there could be no logical problem with Manicheanism. If there can be equal ultimates, then why not two “gods” who are true deity?