Claim. Any standard of goodness set during the providence of restoration is relative, not absolute. Compliance with the prevailing authority’s doctrine counts as “good” until a new era brings new doctrine and new standards. Only after Christ at the Second Advent expels Satan’s sovereignty will the standard of goodness become absolute.
Elaboration. Per 4.3. Good and Evil Seen from the Viewpoint of Purpose: “In any particular period of history, obedient compliance with the doctrines expounded by the prevailing authorities is considered good, while actions in opposition to them are considered evil. But the change of an era ushers in new authorities and doctrines, with new goals and new standards of good and evil.”
This applies inside religions and philosophies too: complying with one’s tradition is good for that tradition; converting changes the standard. Conflicts and revolutions persist precisely because of these shifting standards, as people pursue divergent purposes while their original mind seeks the absolute goodness only attainable at the providence’s completion.
The eschatological resolution: “Once the sovereignty of Satan is expelled from the earth, then God, the eternal and absolute Being transcendent of time and space, will establish His sovereignty and His truth. In that day, God’s truth will be absolute, and hence the purpose which it serves and the standard of goodness which it sets will both be absolute. This cosmic, all-encompassing truth will be firmly established by Christ at his Second Advent.”
The atomic licenses DP’s posture toward existing religions: compliance-with-prevailing-tradition is good relative to its era; the absolute standard awaits the second-advent. This is a key plank in DP’s theory of religious history and pairs with the Ch 1 “world religions as partial truths” cluster.
See also. dp-good-and-evil-discerned-by-purpose-direction-not-form