This is of special significance to Christianity & Judaism, where duty and faith are constantly put to the test, with Abraham, Noah, and Jonah being core stories of the 1st rank of prominence in these religion's account of themselves. There is a misunderstanding between heaven, which these figures were raised to, and the resurrection, the destiny of the righteous but not exceptional dead. Heaven, like being 'raised' to the name of a constellation, seems to represent becoming an exemplar, so resolving dilemmas or contradictions that they set a new precedent that becomes core to the culture. Judged for our judgements, and adherence to tenets.
It is not a cultural universal though. The Norse tradition judges between worthy and unworthy afterlives, purely on the basis of having died in battle or not (the word hell is Norse). It's interesting to note trial by battle as a judicial practice. The 11th C Norn poem 'Ride of the Valkyries' seems to show the afterlife is to be alive in the stories in mead halls, and the valkyries are drawn close by exceptional deads, representing the audience.
Solomon is an exemplar of wisdom for his judicial judgements reconciling apparently impossible dilemmas. Jesus reconciled an impossible dilemma when he said 'render unto Caesar what is Caesar's'.
So I would say there is a lot of cultural variation on what comprises tests, and choice of exemplars in cultural narrative. Dilemmas are a framing device, which bring a narrative to a culminating decision. Creativity that transcends an apparent binary decision has been highly valued. Precedent in interpreting accepted primary law in specific situations, is a formal illustration of how decision making can develop in scope and intelligence, building on a record.
If you frame a primary or the primary quality of people, as the judging of them for their decision making, then of course you will see dilemmas everywhere. But if bravery is prioritised, a person would see tests for that everywhere, and judge others by their record when facing those. But whereas the latter cannot truly progress, an approach valuing dilemmas and preserving the narratives of them, and preserving what is transferable about them, can progress in intelligence, like a judicial system, by develop practices to support good decion making, and to challenge whether and what kind of decion has to be made.
Science, our leading culture of intelligence, does not prioritise dilemmas, but distinguishing between hypothesees. It prioritises having the best model of systems, over decision making. Wisdom is a rarely used term now in philosophy, which I suggest is a result of assuming the best model will lead to the best decision being obvious. John Vervaeke is a philosopher attempting to resurrect philosophy of wisdom, and discusses this. Hypothesis creation is an interesting area, with Popper and others noting it cannot be a purely empirical or even necessarily rational process, because it is creative, and must go beyond current practice. I would suggest this goes beyond a judicial framing of widsom focused on dilemmas and judgement, as far as that went beyond a focus on bravery and being 'favoured by god/s' in trials of ordeal. There are dilemmas in science, between different risks, help vs harm, ethics, which having the best model cannot solve. But I would suggest there are a minimum of dilemmas, once the best possible model has been made.
