How do we know God is "Good"?

You can argue that God is good apart from scripture however. Christianity teaches that God is good. Therefore, in order to say that Christianity is wrong, you must perform an internal critique of the Christian worldview (I think this is what Mike perhaps was eluding to). Once you do this, the simplistic version of the Christian God is gone and you are left with the true version of this God - in all His wonder and glory.Define good.It really is no argument for you to say that the Christian God does not fit in or appeal to your humanistic definition of good. I agree. If man is the standard of all things - then No God can meet up to this standard unless it is the person creating the standard (you). This is the problem with a worldview that attempts to criticize the Christian view of God using humanistic standards. You will find God at fault - not measuring up to YOUR standard but why should He? Were He to obey your standard He would not be God - you would be.You can't produce some subjective-humanistic definition of good - and then expect God to submit to this definition. If your question is "Is the Christian God good - in terms of a humanistic definition of good - then the answer is NO. God is not good if good is defined in this manner. If you ask "is God good in accordance to the Christian definition of good?", then yes, He is. He is the standard of good , consistent with 2000 years of Christian theology- we measure all other actions in light of this standard.Why would you expect the creator of the universe, the great I AM, the omniscient soveriegn one - to submit to some faulty defintion of good in order to be good? It doesn't make sense that He would do this, if He did, I would say He would be irrational.I think it would help if you defined what "good" means in this context. If you borrow from Christianity then God is good (by definition) and the discussion ends. If you define good in some relative - humanisitic term - perhaps that being good is not causing harm to others or removing ones ability to roam freely, then I agree with you - God is not good in this narrow relative standard - but this standard has no meaning in the final end - it's just some creatures arbitrary definition. Reading your comments it doesn't even seem that you think anything can be objectively good and so why even ask the question? I would argue that it's because deep down you know that there are objective standards such as "goodness", and that you are trying to deny that the one who gave you this standard is in fact good - the fallen rebellious nature that we all have drives us all to search for this conclusion.The question of children always comes up in these examples. For one, noone is innocent - even children. But putting that aside, I will grant for the sake of argument that children are innocent. You look at some entity killing another creature as being perhaps one of the most haneous crimes or at least Not Good. Why? What is the rational basis you have for concluding that this is wrong? What is being wrong anyway? The problem you must deal with, is that without this God, you have no basis to claim ANY act is wrong or good - except for some meaningless humanistic relative standard (which has no true epistemological purpose or meaning).The unspoken (maybe it is spoken) argument is this "Come ON, its obvious this God can't exist. look at what He has done in the past to the children!"In your worldview, why is this wrong? Who cares if some flesh kills some other flesh? But more importantly, why do you think its wrong for a God to do this - christian or otherwise?Can't God do as he pleases - as long as it doesn't violate His own nature? Concerning the death of children, why is this always brought up? Who really cares if all we are is some lump of evolving matter? If it will help my species survive, isn't it good to kill the enemies future warriors?This is an emotional argument that as far as I can tell has no rational basis.Even still, I've missed the forum, take care!This message has been edited by grace2u, 10-31-2004 11:19 PMThis message has been edited by grace2u, 10-31-2004 11:26 PM

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"The moral rectitude of God must consist in a due respect to things that are objects of moral respect; that is, to intelligent beings capable of moral actions and relations. And therefore it must chiefly constist in giving due respect to that Being to whom most is due; for God is infinitely the most worthy of regard. The worthiness of others is as nothing to his; so that to him belongs all possible respect. To him belongs the whole of the respect that any intelligent being is capable of. To him belongs ALL the heart. Therefore, if moral rectitude of heart consists in paying the respect of the heart which is due, or which fitness and suitableness requires, fitness requirees infinitly the greatest regard to be paid to God; and the denying of supreme regard here would be a conduct infinitely the most unfit. Hence it will follow, that moral rectitude of the disposition, inclination, or affection of God CHEIEFLY consists in a regatd to HIMSELF, infinitely above his regard to all other beings; in other words, his holiness consists in this" J. Edwards

I attempted to: "Being positive or desirable in nature, Worthy of respect; honorable, Of moral excellence, Benevolent; kind, etc, etc"These are relevant extracts from dictionary.com. It's the entire argument. I'm not arguing anything else. Of course he could. Some humans have lived up to the standrad that the majority of us define us good. Your God should unambiguously too. Well like I said, then it's not good that we are talking about. Christians have to find another word. Why don't you just say "God is God" and exclude the value judgements?We are pretty much done with this right here. The Christian God is not good, in the way human's define and apply the word good. I already knew it, and you've just said it.Yours and Christianity's continued use of the word good in describing your idea of God is then grossly misleading and untrue. Chose another word. God is wubble? Of course he doesn't have to submit, but it would be nice if he at least demonstrated qualities that might endear us to him. But you guys have just made this stuff up anyhow, and this is just example numer 756 of the deficiency of your theology. Goodness is a subjective term, but I subscribe to humanity and society that defines it. It is still a worthy means of assessment irregardless of it's subjectivity or not.I don't buy concepts such as objective goodness or morality. Flick through the numerous moriality threads that have run here recently and witness your breathren being bankrupted on the issue. That sentence alone, is not good, because you are assigning some sort of culpability of our ancestors to our guiltless children. When you were at school how did you feel when the whole class was punished for the errant behaviour of one? It wasn't good, was it? Well this is much, much worse. This is the bullshit argument from morality. Grace, visit the other threads on this issue. Morality can be rationalised independent of a deity, and such arguments are considerably more compelling. It is more like, look at theological deficiency number 756, your God looks like nothing more than the desparate machinations of the human mind. I wont enter into a debate on the origins of morality on this thread. My brethen have dealt with it well elsewhere. I don't know. You are the guys that speculate plenty about this unknowable entity, then shout "it is beyond our intellect to know of his ways" as soon as the absurdity of this God concept is pointed out.Are there any Christians out there who actually believe that God is good; not just wubble?This message has been edited by Gilgamesh, 11-01-2004 01:39 AM

I would have specifically noted "modern humanistic standards". The OT has an evolving concept of God as the Jewish people evolved their standards of good. The standards have continued to improve. In America and Europe at least no one has been stoned to death recently, though the barbarism of circumcision remains a medical fad in the USA. At one time slavery was good but times have changed. I would criticize the idealization of goodness that people imagine and then attribute to what they imagine the source of the universe or God is. The concept of God is created by humans and so humans are creating the concepts of good and evil and then attributing this creation to a concept that they also created and claiming that that is the source, well by a round about route it is. It's fundamentalist Christians who I find at fault with their simplistic ego naive conception of divinity or deity. I don't think the source of the universe should be held responsible for the Bible and Christian theology.lfen

Do you agree then that your question of Gods goodness really has no meaning?
In other words perhaps the question is better phrased like this :Question: "Does God meet the subjective humanistic standards of goodness?"
Answer: NoWhat is the point? Who really cares if God meets some relative standard of goodness? Any sincere searcher of truth could care less. The question is what does this mean for our lives? Would you suggest that because of this, the Christian God does not exist? Many make that claim because of reasons like this and I would argue that it is a foolish reason to not beleive in the Christian God as defined through revealed theology.So what is the original point of the question you pose? I agree that you might not "like" the version of God that is presented but what does this mean conerning His true nature or inclination towards goodness or perhaps concerning His very existance?Regards..

I am diabetic, so I can't handle much sugar! The angle that I wish to ask is this:
Why are you here? I don't mean here on earth. I mean here in this thread. What is it that compels you to spend the amount of time that you spend typing comments, answering posts, making new posts and hanging out?
1) If it is the social relationships online with the rest of us in here, what is it that makes any of us "good" enough to warrent your time spent with us? Did this charming character that we have come in our evolutionary package? If you say that humans instinctively have social instincts, why is it that school is not enough? Or work? Or church? What is the attraction that this EvC website has?
My point? That humans were created in the image of God and that God draws all people unto Himself...and that the fact that we see goodness in each other can be attributed to our original source.
Do you believe in another origin? Tell us how our goodness evolved.

Grace2u wrote: Not at all. It is particularly pertinent. Or simplistically:Question: Is God good?
Answer: No. (answered by athiets and Christian alike)We all know what we mean by good.
There is no need to clarify and make a special reference to the fact that Christian's are screwing with the definition of yet another word. Several points really:1)The Christian God is not good.
This means he is not positive or desirable in nature, Worthy of respect; honorable, Of moral excellence, Benevolent; kind, etc, etc.Such an entity, if it exists is not worthy of respect, acknowledgement or praise. It embodies the Christian concept of evil.2) Christians, once again, deliberately mislead others about the nature of their God. They do this by using the word "good" when they don't mean it as it is commonly used and in some cases claiming that their God has desirable qualities, when in reality the Bible and the world evidences a despicable entity.3) This contradiction is probably not the intention of Christians (because they generally spend a lot of apologetics time trying to establish that God IS good). This theological inconsistency suggests that the Christian God is the fictional product of the human mind or as Ifen articulated that the Christian God is merely an evolving product of what humans think a God should be.Most Christians would attempt to defend God's goodness. You bailed on this stance because you thought you could find another way out of this pickle. Instead you painted a picture of a flawed, undesirable and arguably non-existent entity.

Phatboy wrote: I know this is response to Lam, so I'll let him consider dealing with it.But just aside: what the hell are you on about? Do you want to try and formulate a coherent question relevant to this thread, or are you just flying the flag for Christian incoherency?

There is an older concept that GOD is terrible. In fact, he often describes himself as such in the writings of the OT.Terrible in these passages is used in a classic sense, meaning great, good, awesome, horrific, ultimate. It is a concept of amorality, something beyond moral or immoral. It can be good, or bad.Good and bad are actually just taglets that we apply to individual experiences. They are attributes that we assign, based on our individual point of view and personal, cultural environment.So asking if GOD is good is a limiting question. GOD is good, and I believe I've pointed out some reasons that I believe that to be true.But GOD is also terrible.Does GOD also embody evil? Yes.GOD is complete.GOD is all.GOD is Yin and Yang.GOD was and is and will be.Is GOD worthy of respect, acknowledgement or praise? IMHO, yes.And fear and awe.And love and honor.GOD Is!

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Are you serious? You have our own definition of good that you are curious if God meets. The answer is no. He doesn't meet your standard in fact, you standard is woefully superficial and extremely simplistic and oversimplified compared to His standard - which is really what we should all be interested in trying to understand.The question is not "is God good" - especially when you can't even define good - or provide a response like "we all know what good is". The question is "Are we good as defined by God".This oversimplified thinking is based on a sin-cursed minds feeble attempt to be divine (as my version of morality is as well - not picking on you - the best any creature could muster is still extremely lame and empty compared to Gods infinite glory which is a direct reflection of His moral character and goodness).The point you are missing is the following:In order to ask whether or not the Christian God is good, you must define good. The problem you have is that it is impossible to define good in such a way that would be binding on God - at least in some way that would matter to the rest of us that is.To further complicate your problem, you speak as if goodness is some absolute standard that you are curious if God meets. I think you're reply that "we all know what goodness is" demonstrates this quite clearly. You would probably be the first to disagree however that goodness is absolute (my apologies if I'm wrong on this).So - if you beleive that goodness is relative, dependent upon the current culture at the current time, then why do you even care if some supposed Christian God meets up to this subjective and everchanging humanistic standard of morality?The Christian does not have this problem - for by our definition, God is good and is the standard of all goodness. Nothing is more good than God. We measure all things by His holy standard. Does this answer all question concerning acts that God allows to occur today or perhaps that He even commanded in the Old Testament? No - of course not. Ultimately, God is not bound by man - it's the other way around. God does not have to answer to us - we have to answer to Him. We might shake our fist in rebellion against God, the whole time acknowledging His existence by the very questions we pose(is God good). You have all the evidence you need for answering the question of whether or not God is good.The emotional questions are good questions - I am not belittleing them. I would say that most every beleiver has questioned Gods goodness at one point in time.Ultimately, the answer for the believer lies in who we know God to be. God has revealed Himself to us and we know that He is good because He has demonstrated this to us (for us it is abundanent life - not dependent upon our circumstances, a real relationship with our maker(throught Christ), a church or body of believers to help us out and provide fellowship, loving families, true friendships, unselfish brotherly love for non-believers and believers alike - as commanded through scripture, putting others above ourselves - all these things and more, commanded by a God who must be good. And obove all - our salvation and very existance. Furthermore, its things that really can't be described - spiritual truths that are revealed that demonstrate how foolish and lacking the world really is. Things that speak to us in ways that words could never come close - the best I can do is say compare it to a mother holding her baby for the first time, a father getting a hug from his kids, its contrasted with understanding the wickedness in the world - watching people mercilessly slaughtered on tv, watching man cause horrendous acts of violence against his fellow man. We see evil and we see good. We know that the good is from God and that the evil has nothing to do with God. Then we read things about how God hates evil even more than we do or more than we could even come close to. We feel the presence of His love in our lives every morning when we wake up and spend a little time meditating on His wonderous ways. We are encouraged by the hope of eternity being spent with Him, constantly learning more about His goodness but never quite reaching it in all its glory.Christians simply know God is good. Taste and see.

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"The moral rectitude of God must consist in a due respect to things that are objects of moral respect; that is, to intelligent beings capable of moral actions and relations. And therefore it must chiefly constist in giving due respect to that Being to whom most is due; for God is infinitely the most worthy of regard. The worthiness of others is as nothing to his; so that to him belongs all possible respect. To him belongs the whole of the respect that any intelligent being is capable of. To him belongs ALL the heart. Therefore, if moral rectitude of heart consists in paying the respect of the heart which is due, or which fitness and suitableness requires, fitness requirees infinitly the greatest regard to be paid to God; and the denying of supreme regard here would be a conduct infinitely the most unfit. Hence it will follow, that moral rectitude of the disposition, inclination, or affection of God CHEIEFLY consists in a regatd to HIMSELF, infinitely above his regard to all other beings; in other words, his holiness consists in this" J. Edwards

I think that my question was "on topic". I said: Aside from THAT, my purpose here is communion of spirit and truth with others here. Those of like spirit will accept me, while those who seek some sort of intellectual checkmate will not.

I wrote:"We all know what we mean by good."Grace2u replied Yes.Defining good, it seems, is not difficult for anyone other than Christians.Are there people that you have considered good, demonstrate qualities of goodness, do good acts? Maybe your church elders or historical Christian characters? What actions of these individuals demonstrate goodness: kindness, selflessness, generosity, compassion, sincerity, trustworhtiness, etc etc. It isn't difficult. Are you deliberately being obtuse? "His" standard, as you call it is not relevant. It is a concept that you have made up and labelled "goodness", but it includes a whole plethora of qualities that we would never describe as good in the common use of the word. Now I know you are being obtuse. I have defined this term at least twice above: "Being positive or desirable in nature, Worthy of respect; honorable, Of moral excellence, Benevolent; kind, etc, etc"Go to http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=good and identify for me where the concept of good is referenced to any God. Does killing innocent children comprise any of the definitions?Do you know of anyone, who is not in desparate need of being locked up, would consider that act of killing children good?Do not ask me to define good again. It is a grave concern that you foundate you definitions of good and morality in your God concept, because it means that anything you believe God tells you to do, whether derived from scripture or divine revelation, must be good. Even if you are told to kill innocent children. Human morality has moved on from this nonsense.READ THE THREADS ABOUT MORALITY. Catch up Grace2u. As I stated and you keep ignoring, I am only interested in what we human's call good. I have no interest in pondering what some fictional diety might think. Well we have the definition. The problem is that you are blindly accepting your theology, despite that fact that the God it describes is flawed and not worthy of recognition.Besides just being in awe and fear of this supposed deity's power, and fearing for our mortal souls, what ethical reasons are their to recognise the Christian deity? Then re-write the Bible again, and stop using the word good. And this is why morality derived from Christianity is frightening and has no place in modern society. It also makes those who subscribe to this form of morality potentially very dangerous individuals. I acknowledge the exsitence of your God proposition. The flaws of that proposition and the evidence of the world attests to it's very non-existence. And justifiably so when everything about the Bible and the world evidences a very non-good God. You then have to fall back to faith, and claims of not knowing the bigger picture, and as I said from the outset, you then have absolutely no basis for knowing anything about your God.Will he even come through with his promise of eternal life? Or, you score lives statistically immaterially different from non-believers and those of contrary faiths, a church that screws you for 10% of your net earnings, demands much of your leisure time and may emotionally screw you or even kill you (a-la Waco or Jonestown), family and friends just like the rest of us (or you may be required to ostracise them for your faith), bigotry towards non-belivers (and women and other sexual orientations) that can lead to wars and a self centred theology to the detriment of the rest of humanity and the planet because you are "God's chosen ones".None of this stuff is very good. And it those "spiritual truths" should reveal that all children must die, God help the rest of us. It has everything to do with an omnipotent and imnipresent God. Heck he even admits to ordering or personally committing this stuff in the OT.There really are some serious problems with your theology. Yes, but not good as we know it. Your being misleading again, aren't you?I don't want to taste and see. I don't think I could kill innocent children.Edited for typos.This message has been edited by Gilgamesh, 11-02-2004 09:21 PM

Jar wrote: Hmmm. So how to we judge an entity that is good sometimes, bad others; good and evil?It's like a emporer that sometimes shows acts of great kindness and compassion, but other times incoherently inflicts great agony and pianful death.We would certianly fear such a character, but would we call him good?Here's that definition again: desirable in nature, Worthy of respect; honorable, Of moral excellence, Benevolent; kind etc etcI don't think "good' encompasses bi-polar personalities. So the best we have got is that God is sometimes good. Which still makes the Christian claim of God being all good misleading and incorrect. And we are only defining him as part good because of his own say so. His actions are very much otherwise. Only out of fear.

Well,as I've said before, good and evil are arbitrary terms that we assign, usually based on personal opinion as opposed to the actual incident.GOD is complete.Before we get too deeply buried in specifics, I need to make sure that you and I are talking about things from at the least, a common language.So let's first deal with the Biblical tales.As I have said in the past, IMHO we must read the Bible remembering that it was written by men of a given period and contains all of the limits, prejudices, bias and culture of their period. Can we agree with those assumptions or do you want to first address particular instances from the Bible?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

God is not the storm...but the calm after. It is when all is at risk and all is lost do we realize what is truly important to us. I heard this once and thought I'd share. Peace Jar.

Thanks. He may well be both, but he is definitely in the calm afterwards. I find him often in the Pastoral. Also the sad Jew Mendelssohn captured GOD in the second movement of his Concerto in E Minor for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 64.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion