Men, gods, and the unnaturalness of sin

The Hero will have the power to save the world.  But he will also have the power to destroy it.
We never understood.  He wouldn't simply bear the power of Preservation.  He needed the power of Ruin as well.
The powers were opposites.  As he drew them in, they threatened to annihilate each other.  And yet, because he was of one mind on how to use them, he could keep them separate.  They could touch without destroying each other, if he willed it.  For these two powers had been used to create all things.  If they fought, they destroyed.  If they were used together, they created.
-Mistborn - The Hero of Ages

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The Mistborn trilogy was quite excellent.  Strong character development, a grandiose storyline that all fit in the end, and plenty of action to tie it up.  But Sazed's search still remains one of the most depressingly blinded statements the books make.

Near the end of his study of all three-hundred religions he had in his copperminds, Sazed began to know there was no hope in any of them.  They all contradicted themselves, throwing logic aside, demanding faith in something he couldn't see.  Something he couldn't accept, not when it couldn't answer his questions.  Not when it couldn't tell him where Tindwyl went when she died.

But he realized there was one religion left.  One that had survived for a thousand years, though no Terrisman had ever recovered it: the Terris religion.

Through a long and complex series of circumstances you don't want to know about, he finally finds the one group that still knows his people's long-lost religion.  And he finds that it, like the others, demands faith, instead of giving logical, scientific reasons for its prophecies and teachings.  And looking around him, he saw that's what made followers of the Survivor different from these long-dead religions.

They had faith.  And they had hope through it.

While this is all well and good, I'd have something to add.  Ironically enough, while Christianity does require faith, just as any religion does, it also is able to back itself up logically, scientifically, and through personal testimonies of the saints who have come before us.  Sanderson had it close, I think.  But he's missing a lot of the argument.  Sazed could have placed his hope in any of the other religions... and would have been misled.  Faith and hope aren't the reasons religion exists.  But more on that later.

Now to deal with the second big topic: today's quote.  In the books' mythology, Preservation is the power of... well, preserving.  And Ruin is the... power of ruin.  Pretty straightforward.  A classic concept - order and chaos, age-old rivals.  But in the ending, he notes that all of the world was created using both the power of Preservation and the power of Ruin working together in a bargain, in order to prevent a stalemate, where each would block the other's touch on the world.  This would infer that chaos, and therefore the power of destruction, death, and sin, are a natural part of the world.  And this is what disturbs me most.

I wish I had a book I could look this up in, to get more specific references.  But looking at Genesis 1 will suffice.

The finished creation.  No death.  No decay.  No destruction.  And what did God say?

It was very good.  Not "it's not right, there needs to be a counter-balance", but "it's good as it is".  The whole concept of sin being a natural part of the world was probably dragged in from Taoism's Yin-Yang, or some similar ideal.  And do I even have to note that the fact that the Hero became God is ludicrous? An imperfect man as God would be no God at all.

Aside from that, I must say, excellent story.  Most of his other moral issues were dealt with very well, though sticking very closely to a classic world standpoint.  What I think made the moral conflicts worthwhile was each character having to struggle through whether they were doing the right thing at any given time.  And eventually coming to the right decision, for the most part.

But enough ranting for now.  I need my sleep to kick this stupid cold.