When creating characters to play in a role-playing game like D&D people will often pick an alignment, which is a position on a 3x3 chart. The three rows: good, neutral and evil. That’s about ethics and what you tend towards choosing. The three columns: lawful, neutral and chaotic. Lawful good is good-hearted and by the book, like Joe Friday or a child’s idea of a police officer. Chaotic good is doing the right thing in a wild way that might break all the rules. Television’s Doctor Who is in there. Lawful evil is sticking to the rules to make sure someone loses their benefits and starves. Chaotic evil is wild, unbridled unkindness. An unpredictable murderer, or a horrible goose who is going to spoil everyone’s day on a whim.

So how would this work with Bible figures? If you had to pick a representative for each category. I think people will disagree with my choices for a lot of these, so I’d be interested to hear your own suggestions.

We’ll start from top-left.

Lawful Good: God the father! He’s good, he wrote the rules and he stuck to them. If he was laxer on the rules there could be blanket forgiveness without anyone needing to believe or repent. The Old Testament has a constant tension between God being just, and upholding his law, and being kind and merciful. Jesus is the solution to that conflict, so the price does still have to be paid.

I’d also accept Paul of Tarsus, if you wanted a human in the box. He was a very devout pharisee, and in Acts 26, which for me is a real highlight of the New Testament, he makes a magnificent speech in court which relies on his meticulous following and knowledge of the Jewish law, and the compatibilty of this and Christianity.

Neutral Good and Chaotic Good gave me some trouble, as it was hard to allot them between Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I eventually settled on Jesus as Neutral Good, as he both embodies and fulfills the law, and goes appropriately wild in the temple, driving out the money-lenders. That leaves the Spirit as Chaotic Good, because Pentecost is very chaotic, and anything I ever hear about the Holy Spirit suggests a magnificent surging, rather than anything with a checklist. We’ll come back to the Holy Spirit.

I gave the whole top row to the trinity, because as the Christ said in Matthew 19 and Luke 18, ‘none is good save one, that is God!’. The Bible is full of admirable believers, but I don’t feel I can fully put them on the same row as God, goodnesswise. It’s where the alignment chart already falls down. If I was going to put someone non-divine the the Chaotic Good box, Samson fits it to a tee. 90% of everything he did was excellent , and it was all of it horny and hog-wild.

Lawful neutral: I’ve got to go with centrist icon Pontius Pilate. Sources outside the Bible - notably Flavius Josephus - tell us Pilate was a terrible and murderous man, so he ought to be on the evil layer, but on purely Biblical evidence, you could make a case that he clung tight to the law with an abject refusal to take a moral stance in either direction. He did what people wanted and washed his hands.

True neutral is the centre of the chart, and it’s the most boring possible spot. Arguably humanity dwells in here, given that we’ve extended good and evil to infinity by our inclusion of God. I’m tempted to put Eli in here because he just sort of bumbled along, and Adam and Eve who were really all over the place. Maybe Esther, who was heroic, once she was adequately persuaded, and did so in a colossally violent way. I can fully understand her, but given her lack of proactivity or mercy she might sit here.

Chaotic neutral has to be Jonah! Was there any doubt. He was asked to prophecy doom, and he ran away, with hilarious consequences. He eventually made his prophecy, and then got really annoyed when the people repented and God didn’t kill them. In the lesser-remembered chapter 4, has a complete hissy-fit about it and has to have a nap to calm down, but he’s still cranky when he wakes. In many adaptations of the story, God gives him a talking to and Jonah ends the story wiser. In the Vegetales movie, God gives Jonah a talking to but Jonah just doesn’t get it. He can’t comprehend what he’s being told. That surprised me, and when I checked the Bible, God has a stern word with Jonah, but we have no clues whatever how much Jonah listened. Jonah does everything wrong, so he fits this alignment remarkably.

Now, evil! This is a difficult one, but I’ve got it like this:

Lawful Evil? I thought about putting Satan here, as technically he is bound by God’s law, and uses it wretchedly — he actually asks God’s permission before attacking Job, which baffles a lot of people, but to my mind is the exemplar of free will. Free will is being able to say ‘God, can I throw this hamster’ and God saying ‘technically yes, because you’re not a mindless robot’. But I’m going to suggest Caiaphas, at least as he’s presented in Jesus Christ Superstar, obsessed with killing Jesus, and using the proper authorities - the Roman police state - to do so. This would also be a good spot for Saul of Tarsus — that’s Paul pre-transition, who was a law-abider if ever there was one, and got letters of permission before he began his anti-crusade.

Neutral evil is king Herod Antipas, who beheaded John the Baptist, not because it was lawful and not because he was wild, but in a rather reluctant, detached sort of way because he was trying to flirt with his stepdaughter. A pretty evil act, undertaken almost passively. You could probably argue he and Pontius Pilate are the same in this regard. I’d also suggest this is the box for Dr Judas Iscariot. He wasn’t a doctor, but I feel like the title really works with his name.

Chaotic Evil? I struggled with this a bit, as everyone in the Bible has an agenda, and everyone in the Bible lives under the law. Who’s out there doing evil for evil’s sake with wild eyes? Who’s The Joker? I thought about Jezebel or Baal or Philistia or anyone whose life ended with a murderous tirade. But let’s have Satan here. I don’t know much about Satan, neither do you, probably, but he’ll do any old thing. Every trick in the book. What an a-hole. As St Michael said, ‘the Lord rebuke you!’

So there you have it:
Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Pilate, Adam, Jonah
Caiaphas, Antipas and the Devil Himself.

I’d be interested to hear your own take on the alignment chart. I feel sure I’ve missed some obvious spots. Putting the chart together made me think about the trinity, and the way God’s law works on earth more than anything, so I hope it’s left you with something to ponder.

Fun fact: a friend once described me as 'chaotic lawful', which, while not a valid position on the chart, rings true.