Yeshua believes there are no wicked people and that all power is violence. Woland believes that good needs evil as the earth needs shadows, and he exercises power at will. One is the powerless prisoner who dies on the cross, the other the sovereign of shadows who makes and unmakes things in Moscow.
The theses appear in opposite speeches. In chapter 2, Yeshua says to Pilate: "There are no wicked people in the world." In chapter 29, Woland replies to Matthew Levi, who calls himself Yeshua's disciple and calls Woland "spirit of evil and sovereign of the shadows," by asking "what would your goodness do if evil did not exist?"
The two also treat people differently. Yeshua calls good the centurion who whipped him and sees the pain of the one who judges him. Woland pronounces sentences: he announces Berlioz's death, delivers the verdict on the theater audience and, at the ball, sends Berlioz's head into nonexistence. And his retinue tempts more than it compels: Korovyov pushes a bundle of rubles at Nikanor Ivanovich, who hesitates but keeps it.
The novel does not set the two at war. In the end, Woland grants a request that comes from Yeshua's side and, in presenting Pilate, takes up Yeshua's phrase about cowardice to declare the dog blameless, with a caveat: "If it is true that cowardice is the worst defect." The book leaves both theses standing: Yeshua's withstands Moscow, where no one is wicked, only petty; Woland's withstands Yershalaim, where a man who does not think himself wicked sends an innocent man to the cross.