Gilgamesh,
I have read your reply and do appreciate it. I think that the discussion that at least you and I are having hinges around this statement:
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.
To honestly answer the question "is God good" requires a tremendous ability to think clearly and rationaly in order to disect the true nature and meaning of the question. You must be able to seperate your presuppositions and emotions if you are to arive at an answer to this incredibly complex question. As it is phrased above, we must define good. You have done this in humanistic terms and therefore the question has no meaning at least when applied to the Christian definition of God.
Christianity actually agrees with you in a sense. Reformed theology would argue that you are in rebellion against God and that any definition of good you produce, God will not adhere to - and thereofre to you, God is not good. It only answers the question:
"Do I find God personally pleasing or Does the Christian God meet the subjective definition of good that I have produced - even though it might change as my opinions change"
Or perhaps better put,
"Do I like the Christian version of God"
We agree on this. You do not like the Christian version of God - nor should you - acording to 2000 years of Christian theology. It is no suprise to believers that there are people in the world that don't like God. I myself was in rebellion against God until He saved me (as were all Christians). This is ultimately what drives the world against God. In its feeble attempts to be God - it denies the reality that He is all things and that everything : sensible morality, rationality, logic and science all depend upon His existance. So in an attempt to make ourselves God, we deny that which is obvious. To the world, Christ - the Wisdom of God, is foolish. What the world fails to see is that it is dependet upon His existance in order to make sense of itself and of the entire human experience.
This is a prime example. Your disaproval of the Christian God HAS NO epistemological meaning. Just because you don't like God, doesn't mean that He doesn't exist or that He isn't good if He does. It just means that He doesn't meet up to your humanistic definition of good - something that He clearly states He will never meet up with. He won't meet this weak standard of goodness because it is just that - weak. His goodness is far greater than any changing and relative defition the greatest humanisitc philosophers could come up with. HE IS THE STANDARD. You subtely acknowledge that a standard exists, and even suggest that it is absolute, universal and invariant. You claim that this standard is whatever the current definition is - already contradicting your own position.
For example - surely you know that the Christian God is unchanging - as defined by Christianity. Your question would otherwise be this - "does some humanisitic, changing and relative definition of good apply to a God that is unchanging?" How could it be??? God might be good by todays standard but not good by tomorrows standard. Just because He might not be good now, doesn't mean that He isn't good in the universal sense. BUT, your question is not this, it is "Is God good". Clearly you are aknowledging a univerasal/unchanging standard and you are attempting to determine if an unchanging God has met this standard.
This is why your question makes no sense. This is why in order to make sense of your question, you must affirm that which you are clearly trying to disaffirm. - namely if God is good.
To ask if God meets some relative standard of good has no meaning. What is the point. Who really cares, especially since God has said that you will not agree with Him.
God is the standard. He answers to no-one, except His own nature. God is good because He is the definition of good. He is all things. His absence is darkness (or evil) - as the great St. Augustine so clearly stated hundreds of years ago. Your questions are not rational unless you borrow from Christian philosophy.
The questions you have concerning Gods goodness are emotional problems and they are real questions. I would never discount them or belittle them. They ultimately lead to a traditional answer to the problem of evil. That if God exists He is evil.
Using this as a premise however, produces many more problems than it solves. For exmaple, you would then have the problem of good "How could an all evil god allow good in the world". Clearly, the good in this world outweighs the bad. GOd has an answer for the bad. He says that the bad is a byproduct of disobedience towards His will and rebellions against His nature. While we might not fully understand all the evil- at least we know that there are some potential answers out there - free will, differences between Gods directed and permissive will, etc.
Your question ultimately has no meaning because of the fact that your definition of good is not binding on God and because God Himself has stated that you will not agree with Him. He is God and He defines goodness. Of course there are questions at times (such as when the kids were massacred in russia). This however drives me to a deeper understanding of Gods goodness however (we know evil exists, the absence of God) - not further away from Him. Because I know that GOd hates these acts far more than I could ever hope to dispise them. Because of this, I know God is good. To the qeustions, I rely upon His goodness and His understanding. This is not irrational - I do not know everything - nor do you. Many things we are not capable of understanding. This does not mean God is not good however. It only means that He is at times unsearchable and that His ways are not our ways.
In Christ,
Richard M (grace2U)
"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
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