Does the Force always try to balance itself?

Question

Throughout The Last Jedi, it is often mentioned that the Force balances itself. Luke says this in the island, when he is talking to Rey:

She feels the dark place in the island, then Luke says: Powerful light, powerful darkness.

Also, in Snoke's chamber, he says that he had warned Kylo:

That as he (Kylo) grew stronger, his equal in light would appear. And that he (Snoke) assumed it was Luke, but it was Rey after all.

Now it doesn't make sense when you think about the fact that Snoke is supposedly the stronger user of the Dark side. So where is/was his match, his balanced light-side Force user?

One would assume it was Luke, but Snoke himself didn't assume that. He taught Luke was Kylo's match. If he was so smart, wouldn't he follow his own advice, and imagine that his equal was going to show up too?

So, does this idea even make sense? Does the Force always rise someone to balance, both light and dark side?

We also know that Snoke has been alive long enough to see the rise and fall of the Empire. How come the Force didn't balance itself then? In this movie, Luke says that:

For a few years after the destruction of the Empire, the Force was balanced, at peace.

But if Snoke was around then how was that possible?

Answer 1

Yes, but the means of said balancing is not always clear

The Force being in balance has been a running theme since the very beginning. Lucas drew inspiration from Eastern philosophies like Zen Buddhism and Taoism, in which balance is a large factor. So, in that regard, yes, The Force will always try to balance itself, since out-of-universe, that how it was created, and therefore, in-universe, thats how it is.

Lets establish a bit of context as to why The Force tries to balance itself¹. If we simplify the Light and Dark side to Order and Chaos, it is easier to understand. If you have too much Order, nothing changes. If you have too much Chaos, nothing can be.

The Jedi strive to protect and preserve everything, and so can pull The Force out of balance with too much Order. The Sith, on the other hand, strive to bend The Force to their will, and take its power into their own hands. This tends to lean too close to Chaos.

When either of these happen, The Force corrects for it. On a Macro scale, we can see this in the fall of the Jedi. They had held the galaxy in stasis for almost 1000 years, so the Sith overthrew them. Then the Sith went power mad and wrought too much destruction and The Force had to correct again.

On a Micro scale, we can see the same thing play out with The Ones in the Clone Wars animated show. We see them in Overlords, Altar of Mortis, and Ghosts of Mortis where they have almost absolute control over The Force, and by extension, their world. Which is why The Father chose to sequester them on said world. Without going into many details, it is there that The Son (who had inclination towards destruction) and The Daughter (who was inclined to preserve) were both kept in balance by The Father.

Now, to get back to the question at hand, you outlined a scenario presented in The Last Jedi, and asked if The Force always raises someone Light/Dark to balance someone Dark/Light (and if so, where is Snoke's equal). And the answer is... kinda. The act of balancing sometimes manifests as an individual person with the power to affect change. Sometimes not. In current canon, it is almost exclusively this method. However, Anakin's birth is an example of a time where The Force was altered so drastically, balance naturally occurred without a person bringing it to fruition².

Its worth pointing out that The Force is not always in balance, but tends to swing back and forth in a constant attempt to correct itself. And this takes time, so there will not always be a match for a certain Force user (in this case Snoke³). I imagine that Episode 9 will round out the current arc and show up the completion of this rebalancing.

To wrap this all up, balance is not necessarily the "light-side" having as many equivalent users as the "dark side". And error correction takes a bit of time to occur.

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^{1 - While slightly outdated, this answer does a good job talking about balancing The Force (though in context of The Chosen One).
2 - This was more fleshed out in Legends and is less clear in current canon
3 - Though if we are being honest, how powerful was he really given the ease of his death?}

Answer 2

No, Force balance as balance of Light and Dark is a Disney invention.

Originally, George Lucas intended that the natural state of the Force is the light side. Sort of like Zen Buddhism, no attachment, meditation, Yoda stuff. In The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda was no warrior; he even mocks idea that wars make someone great. Instead he was a Zen master, a bit crazy and silly on outside, but very wise inside. Like all Zen masters from Zen stories.

The dark side of the Force was portrayed as a cancer, a selfish part of beings that wants everything for itself, but in the end, by ruining others, it ruins itself. Just like cancer cells by killing the body eventually kill themselves. Balance of the Force is simply killing dark side, killing powerful dark side users like Palpatine, killing the tumor.

Thus, the prophecy of “the Chosen One” is bringing balance in the Force by destroying the Sith (the most powerful and galactic wide Dark Side organization) once and for all.