Is God good?

[marco]

Gods have been varied in their temperaments; many have been cruel, some eating their own children, some demanding the sacrifice of children while some have annihilated whole populations of humans.


In Christianity we are often told God is good. As an infant I sang "Jesus loves me - YES, I know! For the Bile tells me so." It didn't, in fact; adults did.

Now in later contemplation I'd like to ask how we know God is good and God cares. There may well be a Mars-type of deity angry every second Sunday. But we are told God loves us, gets a bit sad when we sin but jumps with joy when we say sorry.


What shows that God is good? In our modern world, how can we tell that God cares?

[KingandPriest]

Your response gets to the point of what I want to point out. The OP question is flawed in that in order to properly answer it, you have to begin with a standard.

I think I understood your point. You find it hard to understand the word: "good." When a mum says to her four-year-old: "You're a good boy," he has a very "good" idea what is meant. But you think that readers might be confused about the word.

I never suggested that I find it hard to understand the word good. All I asked was for a guideline to ensure we are on the same page.

If I did the same thing and replaced God with your username on this forum, what type of answers do you think you would receive?

This is a detour from the OP. It is understood that we experience God from his love, his mercy and his ubiquity or whatever else. I feel that Marco's qualities are not globally experienced, but one never knows. Doubtless people will draw conclusions about a portion of my qualities from my replies. Of course these may be insincere or copies or advertise a persona that does not exist, but people could make a stab at an answer.

I apologize for the detour, but I wanted to ensure that we began with the same premise.

The Bible tells us God is good; he loves us; Paul tells us to look around and it will be obvious what God does. So we can use our senses to detect whether we have a God who shows mercy, who takes an interest in us, who offers solace to the suffering, who answers prayers.... and all this would constitute the troublesome abstraction, goodness.

Thank you for finally providing some sort of reference point to begin discussion. Although I know the list above is not all-inclusive, it at least helps identify what aspects of goodness you wanted to question with your original question posed in the OP.

There are seveal examples which can be found to support the notion that God is good using the pattern you mentioned above. Just as you stated, using our senses, we can relay our experiences into some sort of reference as to whether God is good.

Mercy
As it pertains to mercy, we understand that mercy is "compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm." In other words it is the restraint one exercises in withholding due punishment.

God is shown to be good in the fact that He is both long suffering in the time he gives mankind to repent. He demonstrates compassion by withholding final judgement until a person dies.

There are countless testimonies of inviduals around the world which attest to the mercy of God shown to them in various instances of there lives. As you note, there are even well known hims about this mercy. One such hym that I can think of is the one penned by a former slave trader titled Amazing Grace.

The grace the author describes is the Mercy of God on display.
"With the message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of sins committed and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God, "Amazing Grace" is one of the most recognisable songs in the English-speaking world." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Grace

Interested in us
The point above directly affirms that God has an interest in mankind. IN order to show mercy, there must be an amount of interest towards the individual in need. If as the deist were correct in their views about God, then it would not be possible for anyone to receive mercy from God. There also would no explanation for how mercy arose in the human heart/mind. In nature, we do not find mercy as a common or natural trait. In fact, some would contend that it is unnatural to be merciful. Even when we discuss natural selection, there is no room or option for mercy to be displayed.

In a judicial context, mercy is often termed "clemency". It is a sovereign prerogative that resides in the executive and is entirely discretionary. The very nature of clemency is that it is grounded solely in the will of the dispenser of clemency.

This communicates that there is a dispenser of mercy to where humans can thereby receive mercy. We then learn and imitate this action with our own will. Nature did not and could not teach mankind mercy. We therefore learned it from our Creator who was interested enough in us to show us He cared.

Offers solace to suffering
This one can be tricky to rely on our senses alone. There are instances where a 3rd party observer would conclude that solace is not being offered to an indivual who is suffering, but this is due to a lack of knowledge of the foregoing circumstances.

For example, let's say there is a parent and child on a playground or at the park. The parent gives the child instructions on what to do, and what not to do so they do not get hurt. Subsequently, the child gets hurt (for simplicity, let's say it is a minor scrape of the knee) while performing an action they were instructed not to due. The parent then does not offer solace to the child who is at that point only focused on the pain they are suffering.

The senses of the child do not detect any solace while they are suffering, but the fact that the parent cared enough about the child to give safety instructions, could actually represent solace in a different perspective. Here the senses of the child do not detect solace, but in the potential reflection of what the child did wrong, they may see that the parent had their best interest at heart.

The same can be experienced from God.

answers prayers
Rather than write a long soliloquy about this, I will just affirm that I have experienced answers to prayer. This does not mean every answer was yes or that I got everything I wanted. In some instances, the answer came as a rebuke which taught me something about my character.

[marco]

One such hymn that I can think of is the one penned by a former slave trader titled Amazing Grace.

There also would no explanation for how mercy arose in the human heart/mind. In nature, we do not find mercy as a common or natural trait. In fact, some would contend that it is unnatural to be merciful. Even when we discuss natural selection, there is no room or option for mercy to be displayed. This communicates that there is a dispenser of mercy to where humans can thereby receive mercy. We then learn and imitate this action with our own will. Nature did not and could not teach mankind mercy. We therefore learned it from our Creator who was interested enough in us to show us He cared.

Your hymn obviously illustrates nothing other than man's leaning towards poetry and song. Your elaboration on the theme of mercy as being alien in Nature is perhaps contentious; acts of kindness are recorded among animals, but that's neither here nor there. In wild nature higher feelings may be absent. That they come from God is a leap too far. Mercy is an aspect of love; when we learned to settle down with each other and love each other we did things to please those we loved. I don't suppose there is a central reservoir of that quality resident in the realm of God. But it is a nice poetic idea.

Here the senses of the child do not detect solace, but in the potential reflection of what the child did wrong, they may see that the parent had their best interest at heart.

The same can be experienced from God.

Prior instructions do not in the general case in life do anything for suffering. People grow ill or suffer crippling disease that no amount of caution would avert. The parent is seen by the child; God does not make himself seen; the Rabbi in the Holocaust who despairingly cried: "There is no God" begged for a scintilla of assistance and there was none. That would not happen in the parent-child case. God in no way acts as a concerned parent. He offers no solace.

answers prayers
Rather than write a long soliloquy about this, I will just affirm that I have experienced answers to prayer.

You have received what you prayed for in some instances. That says nothing about the "giver." Of the million requests daily made we would statistically expect many of them to have positive results. When natives prayed to their gods for rain, their prayers were sometimes apparently answered. Are we to deduce their gods were listening?

Declarations of belief in God - sadly - do not make God real. I've no doubt that people in the past believed sincerely in their household gods, their wayside gods, their sea gods, the gods on Olympus or the giant who flew around sportingly for Moses. If we ask the old lady down the road she might tell us that God has been awfully good to her. It is right and fitting to accept this as truth, her truth. In the world of sense and logic, not a nice place, the old lady is cruelly pronounced wrong. I wish it were otherwise.

Your declarations announce your solid faith. It is its own reward but quite incapable of demonstrating the splendour it alleges. Goodness grows humbly in human soil.

[Don McIntosh]

I detect in it a rebuke.

That was furthest from my mind. I accept that your conclusions follow logically but we differ on their soundness. I have no problem with your logical presentation.

In that case I'm glad I was wrong.

The problem of discussions involving God is taking the statements "God exists, so there is....." as different from "If God exists, then there is...." I think this introduces something called the Frege–Geach problem, which is several miles away from what I thought might be a simple discussion, offering avenues for Biblical quotes and modern observations. But perhaps you are right in supposing that, when we ask questions about God's goodnesss, we must accept first he exists and then certain consequences follow, not least the truth of your premise.

If I'm not mistaken I looked up the Frege-Geach problem many years ago during a similar discussion, but didn't quite understand it and promptly forgot all about it. I looked it up again just now, and I must say it's still a bit beyond my pay grade. But it does seem to keep in check an anti-realist interpretation of morality (expressivism), and therefore helps keep afloat the viability of an objective source of moral authority, which I would suggest is God himself.

As for the circularity of asserting God's existence to ground goodness: for me the existence of God is self-evident, and so a properly basic belief, i.e., a true belief (like belief that logical rules are valid) which nonetheless no amount of argument or evidence can demonstrate to be true. Indeed, for me all of Christian theology is meaningless if the statement "God is good" is not true.

Of course that raises the question of whether a belief that is properly basic for me may be less than properly basic, or even false, for someone else. In one sense I seriously doubt it. I think most everyone, at least early on in life, has an innate knowledge of God, leading to a true and basic belief that he exists. But in another sense I think many have been led away from that belief. Through the influences of friends and peers, secular education, life experiences (especially disappointments and losses), and yes, their own sins, they come to doubt, and even despise, what they once believed.

The dissection of a question often presents better answers than the simplicity of the question anticipated.

Yes! You remind me of what I've long observed to be the case, but had forgotten of late. Thank you.

[marco]

If I'm not mistaken I looked up the Frege-Geach problem many years ago during a similar discussion, but didn't quite understand it and promptly forgot all about it. I looked it up again just now, and I must say it's still a bit beyond my pay grade. But it does seem to keep in check an anti-realist interpretation of morality (expressivism), and therefore helps keep afloat the viability of an objective source of moral authority, which I would suggest is God himself.

Raising complexities sometimes just obscures the truth of an argument. Introducing a protasis (an if clause) takes away some of the dogmatism that removes discussion. In other words, suggesting consequences IF there is a God is fine; demanding there is a God and then deducing consequences is a movement into circularity.

As for the circularity of asserting God's existence to ground goodness: for me the existence of God is self-evident, and so a properly basic belief, i.e., a true belief (like belief that logical rules are valid) which nonetheless no amount of argument or evidence can demonstrate to be true. Indeed, for me all of Christian theology is meaningless if the statement "God is good" is not true.

This is a statement of what faith means. If we take God's existence as axiomatic, as many do, then a thousand theorems follow. Aquinas didn't prove anything; he satisfied himself that what he believed was sensible.

Obviously I don't regard the existence of God as a truth. But in the OP I am not arguing against the existence of God, but I am asking whether we can automatically regard God as good IF we have a God.


There is an obscure philosophical point here in that God might regard God as good, regardless of human measurement. But that should not concern us; we don't dine with God (at least I don't). If we examine man's accounts of Yahweh, and examine our present world, do we deduce that a Creator is good? Would we call Mars good or Jupiter?

For me the God we know from the Bible, a man-made tome, is a human fabrication, identifiable as such from the human flaws he has beeen given. A modern version of God, informed by advances in science, might not walk down a mountain or emerge from an old fashioned idea of heaven; or employ language of sacrifice and covenant; his communication would probably avoid local language, and his audience not just a single biped but the entire collective of humanity.

For me the question is the same as asking whether Hamlet or Antonio or Romeo is good. That might be a question about Shakespeare's abilities or it might involve an examination of the part played, as if the character were real. In the same way I am regarding the God character as if he were real. I do not see that goodness essentially follows.

Of course that raises the question of whether a belief that is properly basic for me may be less than properly basic, or even false, for someone else. In one sense I seriously doubt it. I think most everyone, at least early on in life, has an innate knowledge of God, leading to a true and basic belief that he exists

I know that Wordsworth suggested the child is father of the man, with much truth; but it would be alarming if our adult reasoning, our years of study; our corrected errors and annual growth of wisdom - if all this fell servant to the idea in a child's brain. Rather, I would think that when we were children we thought as children; and as adults, like Paul, we put aside childish notions. The belief in God is seductive; in itself it heals hurt and reassures when our sorrowing fingers touch a coffin; it endows us with humility and a desire to share our cup of water. I think I want that to be true but I suspect that my desire has no power to grant anything reality. Art is often best represented in its concealment, but should God act in this way too? Are we to battle against our brain and first believe, so that then we can understand, under the opiate of seduction? I think that would be dishonest.

So I ask: Is God good? And if you think so, in what way do you explain his reported acts of destruction, and is your legal defence convincing? Is it sufficient to say that Earth is a wilderness, like the one Jesus allegedly entered, with its false promises and coloured allurements that God is where real joy is found, and God is all good?


And we know this because?

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 63 by Don McIntosh]

As for the circularity of asserting God's existence to ground goodness: for me the existence of God is self-evident, and so a properly basic belief, i.e., a true belief (like belief that logical rules are valid) which nonetheless no amount of argument or evidence can demonstrate to be true.

If no amount of argument or evidence can demonstrate the existence of God to be true, in what sense is the existence of God self-evident?

[marco]

[Replying to post 63 by Don McIntosh]

As for the circularity of asserting God's existence to ground goodness: for me the existence of God is self-evident, and so a properly basic belief, i.e., a true belief (like belief that logical rules are valid) which nonetheless no amount of argument or evidence can demonstrate to be true.

If no amount of argument or evidence can demonstrate the existence of God to be true, in what sense is the existence of God self-evident?

Things that are self-evident require no proof, brunumb. Euclid did not and could not prove the axioms on which he built his famous geometry, whose propositions millions of schoolchildren have laboured to prove, propositions that have advanced the world.

When some people got upset with Britain, they said: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." By declaring self-evidence, there was no need for them to prove what they claimed - among them, incidentally, truths about God.


So, my friend, if you and I want to challenge the great Godhead we can, because we don't see any self-evidence in his being somewhere or everywhere, but those who declare his existence is self-evident draw a veil over proof. The big question then is : when does something become self-evident? Even Euclid's axioms have been challenged and new geometries built on opposing axioms - so, much is possible, even with God. Go well.

[kcplusdc@yahoo.com]

Looking at an action in isolation is a poor technique when trying to fathom its worth.
Saying, 'America is evil because it dropped two nukes on innocent people.' is factually correct but nonetheless inaccurate because of the context in which action was done.'

Trying to evaluate God requires that we understand motivation, context and he be knowable.
Case dismissed.

[ttruscott]

We are discussing the Abrahamic God, the one who annihilates whole populations but who was given a merit certificate by his son. We must remember that he's sometimes called Allah, and today Allah is regularly called great, after atrocities.

YHWH is deemed to do evil things yet is called good.
Allah is deemed to do evil things but is called good.
Therefore YHWH is Allah.

??????

[ttruscott]

You think that whenever Jesus said "I am" he was imitating God's reported reply to Moses, in Exodus. So when he announces: "I am thirsty" he's declaring his divinity.

Without history and context this might be plausible but I know he knows the history and the context so this is just a hunt around the bush for woozles...cute but doomed as a method to find the truth.

You failed to understand the flaw in your deduction that "the son of an ape is an ape" so the son of God is God. The indefinite article is forgotten.

In this case "Son of" carries the meaning of "being a full expression of" with no reference to being "a creation of a father" at all...therefore no article is needed.

This also ignores that the Divine attributes are such that a sharing of those attributes do not make another GOD but rather make a UNITY such that the words ONE GOD in three persons has true meaning.

The meaning of child of GOD in the beatitudes does not refer to the same kind of Son which Jesus claimed but rather to a person created in GOD's image coming into the unity of holiness (not attributes) with their GOD.

[Don McIntosh]

If no amount of argument or evidence can demonstrate the existence of God to be true, in what sense is the existence of God self-evident?

Good question. When I say God's existence cannot be proven, I mean only that self-evident truths are the very foundation of what constitutes a proof in the first place. We can prove lots of things with logic, short of the axioms of logic themselves. Those can only be accepted, or believed to be true, on their own authority. I mean, by what form of logic would one prove that the conclusion of a valid syllogism with true premises is actually true? If the logic of the syllogism itself doesn't do it, evidently nothing else will. The same holds at a more empirical level: I may know for certain that I had a sausage biscuit for breakfast yesterday morning, but how to prove that on an Internet debate forum remains beyond my reasoning powers.

So it is with God. Thus I am a theistic foundationalist, with God himself being the ultimate self-evident truth from which all other truths (including the axioms of logic) are derived. This is why I mentioned earlier the ironic fact that self-evident truths are the truths most resistant to proof. As Marco seemed to suggest, at minimum we have to be willing to import God's existence into the argument as a conditional or hypothetical for theistic inferences to go through.

At the same time, given that skeptics allow themselves to suspend disbelief long enough to seriously entertain the possibility, I do think that good arguments can be constructed to strongly infer the truth that God exists. And so I set about to reason with those who seem receptive to that possibility. Apologists like me jump through hoops to answer questions about God in the context of history, theology, philosophy, science, mathematics, etc., not to discover whether he exists (we know he does), but as an expression of his grace.