Can god be good?

[Thersites]

In the poll "Is religion the source of morality?" James R asked if "without religion, human beings would have no inmcentive to act morally because all morality ultimately comes from god".
There is a problem I raised there a couple of times, but in the excitement, no-one noticed. I think it is interesting enough to raise separately.
The religious claim is that things are good or evil, moral or immoral, right or wrong [the terms don't matter much] because god made them so. The consequence of this must be that god himself [I use the term purely for convenience and in deference to other peoples' prejudices] is not good or bad, because god exists separately from these qualities and created them. On the other hand, if we assert "God is good", then we are making a claim for god which is based on an independent view. If we say "God is good", then god is good by a standard of morality which is separate from god and exists independently of him.
In short, if religion is the source of morality, god is not good; on the other hand, if god is good, then god is good in a way that is not based on religion.

 

[water]

Yes, exactly!
(A Christian) God must be beyond good and evil -- in order to 1. create them, 2. judge which is which.

God created Lucifer, made him rebell, to be therefore cast into hell and become Satan.

What I don't understand is this: Lucifer was an angel. Angels, by definition, have no free will: they have no choice but to serve God, whatever he tells them -- even if he tells them to go away from him. But if Lucifer was an angel and had no free will -- how could he have rebelled?!
Lucifer simply obeyed God; certainly with a heavy heart, but he obeyed and went to hell.

In order to choose between good and evil, both options need to be presented.

It is only so that we can choose between good and evil: God now presents the good side, while Satan is presenting the evil side. It is only under this condition, that we "can be free" and choose.

In the end, we ought to thank Lucifer/Satan for serving God so devotedly and keeping the evil option working -- so that we are enable to choose and tell good from evil.

 

[Tiassa]

(A Christian) God must be beyond good and evil-- in order to 1. create them, 2. judge which is which.

Rosa ... what does that mean in relation to Mark 10?

And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone." (Mark 10.17-18, RSV)

Just as a starter, per se. The goodness of God is rather Biblical. However, I ask mostly because I'm confusing myself at the moment. I just tripped over the difference between religion and God, so ... yeah.

 

[Lemming3k]

"without religion, human beings would have no inmcentive to act morally because all morality ultimately comes from god".

What about atheists? They dont believe in god so can they act morally? Acting morally doesnt come from god, it comes from the reward of eternal life promised by most holy books, tiassa's quote shows the man ran up and asked about eternal life, he didnt care about being good to people he just wanted eternal life. So since atheists dont believe this can they do anything good? Of course they can, but they dont do it for eternal life.

 

[Proud_Muslim]

The question the original poster asked is flawed, goodness is human trait, it cant be applied on God who is divine.

 

[water]

Rosa ... what does that mean in relation to Mark 10?Just as a starter, per se. The goodness of God is rather Biblical. However, I ask mostly because I'm confusing myself at the moment. I just tripped over the difference between religion and God, so ... yeah.

The thing with religions is this that we are, for some reason or other, maybe because we have to, dealing with at least these aspects:
1. what the scriptures say
2. what the believers say
3. what the believers pracitce
(I would add 4. what God says -- but only God knows that ...)

I'll have to think about it ...

 

[water]

Also, the opposite of good is not evil, IMO.

The opposite of good is a good intention.

 

[§outh§tar]

Matthew 19

16Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?"
17"Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."
18"Which ones?" the man inquired.
19Jesus replied, " 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,'[4] and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'[5] "
20"All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?"
21Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
22When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
25When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?"
26Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
27Peter answered him, "We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?"
28Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother[6] or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. 30But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.


Now you know what is good.

 

[Lemming3k]

So population of heaven equals thirteen then? Since most poor people havnt 'left' anything for a god, they just dont have it.

 

[Lemming3k]

goodness is human trait

For once i agree with PM, at least on this part, anyone can be good if they want, it has nothing to do with a god its a human trait.

 

[Munchmausen]

Lemming,

I think the eternal life piece is a motivator. Namely, "Don't be a jerk and you'll live forever." There's an underlying premise that you shouldn't be a jerk. You shouldn't be a jerk because it's wrong, which is why God would provide an incentive not to be a jerk.

 

[Thersites]

It's interesting that both RoseMagika thinks that "God must be beyond good and evil" and Proud Muslim thinks that "goodness...can't be applied to god". They're going to have to revise their holy books and reduce the number of attributes of god pretty drastically if they're right.

 

[Lemming3k]

There's an underlying premise that you shouldn't be a jerk. You shouldn't be a jerk because it's wrong, which is why God would provide an incentive not to be a jerk.

Theres also the atheist view which is dont be a jerk. Period. I dont see it as having anything to do with god as plenty of christians arnt nice people, and the ones that are may possibly be doing it for the reward, i stand by the statement goodness is a human trait, just like being bad.

 

[Jenyar]

God, who defines or embodies (x), creates people with the ability (x), who recognize that they have ability (x) and credit their awareness and definition of it to God. In short, religion comprises the necessarily human understanding of a divinely endowed ability, over which God has authority.

Therefore when God created us in his image to be good, we act decidedly un-godlike when we deviate from what He considers good. Our ability to know what is good is inbuilt, but our ability to work with that knowledge is dependent on how God defines it, and our relationship with God (and of course each other) determines and demonstrates how well we are acquainted with this divine characteristic.

To summarize. Morality as we understand it is where our knowledge of God's nature becomes real - where it touches down. To paraphrase the Biblical perspective: We're not "good", we're obedient to goodness.

 

[Thersites]

God, who defines or embodies (x), creates people with the ability (x), who recognize that they have ability (x) and credit their awareness and definition of it to God. In short, religion comprises the necessarily human understanding of a divinely endowed ability, over which God has authority.

Is this logically true? Definition and embodiment are not the same thing at all. The theological version is that god creates good and evil- they exist because god makes them. However, it is quite possible to argue that this is an evil thing to do.

Therefore when God created us in his image to be good, we act decidedly un-godlike when we deviate from what He considers good. Our ability to know what is good is inbuilt, but our ability to work with that knowledge is dependent on how God defines it, and our relationship with God (and of course each other) determines and demonstrates how well we are

acquainted with this divine characteristic.

Again, is good in god's image? God and "what he considers to be good" are separate things. If god is good, then god must be good as defined by some other being than god.

To summarize. Morality as we understand it is where our knowledge of God's nature becomes real - where it touches down. To paraphrase the Biblical perspective: We're not "good", we're obedient to goodness.

But is god good, or the inventor of goodness?

 

[thefountainhed]

Morality cannot be based on a God, for before monotheism, there was morality. The attribution of morality to God, therefore serves as a way to validate morality, ratherthan a way to define it. But then if God is good, how then can God justify or enforce morality? I think that way around this is to say that God is both good and evil, and therefore God himself is morality. Otherwise, if we define God as being good, and then attempt to justify morality by basing in on a God, and the repercussion of immorality as being at the whim of God, then we have a circularity that must only come from a way to validate the deifnition of the God itself as the authority on morality. It makes no fucking sense. God is not good; God is. I think this is what religions should say and some do say.

 

[Jenyar]

Is this logically true? Definition and embodiment are not the same thing at all. The theological version is that god creates good and evil- they exist because god makes them. However, it is quite possible to argue that this is an evil thing to do.

Agreed, I was caught in my own device by trying to generalize. ANother way to put it is 'what God can embody, we can only define'. God created the environment and the ability. We just can't escape our position as part of the universe long anough to be objective about it. In other words, we can't judge God by the laws that judge us, because we can't separate ourselves from it the way God is separate from us.

But is god good, or the inventor of goodness?

As above, our defintion of goodness is a human expression of a divine "quality". God created a universe in which his ability to separate good and evil could find human expression. His act of separation is called "creation" (cf. Genesis), and once it has been created, we can only imitate and discern. We derive our "goodness" from Him, and only exercise it in obedience to Him (whether we recognize it or not).

We must necessarily interpret events and actions according to our human understanding. Hamlet said "nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so". When someone says something like "God created evil", he must have some kind of "evil" in mind, and that means he already judged the difference. When we rely on our judgment to implicate God, we are relying on the very ability He gave us to imitate Him!

 

[water]

Thersites,
>>It's interesting that both RoseMagika thinks that "God must be beyond good and evil" and Proud Muslim thinks that "goodness...can't be applied to god". They're going to have to revise their holy books and reduce the number of attributes of god pretty drastically if they're right.

Do you think that I have a holy book?! Hih, do I really come across as a religious person? I don't think so.



Jenyar,
>>We must necessarily interpret events and actions according to our human understanding. Hamlet said "nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so". When someone says something like "God created evil", he must have some kind of "evil" in mind, and that means he already judged the difference.

That's the thing: we can recognize something only if we already know it. We know what an apple is because we have learned what an apple is -- we don't invent it every time anew, we ***recognize*** it.

When you say, "When we rely on our judgment to implicate God, we are relying on the very ability He gave us to imitate Him!" you also imply this same kind of logic as above with the apple.
When it comes to judging between good and evil, we rely on a knowledge that we have 'within', we ***recognize*** something as either good or evil -- it is just that sometimes our perception is blurred by "wrong generalizations", "misintrepretations" and such.

But when did we gain that first knowledge from Him?

What an apple is, we learn here, you may argue. But what good/evil is, we know due to the ability He gave us to imitate Him, you say.
And then, on seeing that many people construe good/evil to be very relative abstracts, it is said that we are simply deaf for what God is telling us or that we deliberately shut ourselves away from Him and don't go by that ability He gave us.

From a more scientifical POV, this is a mystification of the human ability to think. And this mystification is there to prevent humans going too far, it is there to prevent imbalance in society. Taboo the ability of thinking, and society will not be endangered. Namely, if the ability of thinking is not tabooed, thinking goes in all sorts of directions, many of them harmful -- exactly what is happening today.

Note that this is an *external* observation of the phenomena of a "God-given ability"; I'm not making claims about the content of this ability. I'm only making external observations of the effect of the thought that the human ability to judge between good and evil is God-given.

 

[Jenyar]

And then, on seeing that many people construe good/evil to be very relative abstracts, it is said that we are simply deaf for what God is telling us or that we deliberately shut ourselves away from Him and don't go by that ability He gave us.

That's true. Everybody has the ability to recognize good (just like they recognize and respond to love), but not everybody takes that recognition seriously. In other words, it doesn't pass Go and collect $200. If your conscience (we can have a whole discussion on where conscience comes in and what it is) is the ultimate authority on what is right or wrong, then it must be truly relative and law enforcement can't be justified. Many people manage to hotwire their conscience, or it simply becomes seared. What a relationship with God does is keep us sensitive love's requirements. Many people experience this as a life of guilt because they've become so used to suppressing or denying guilt, but it isn't.

1 Corinthians 4:4
My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.​

From a more scientifical POV, this is a mystification of the human ability to think. And this mystification is there to prevent humans going too far, it is there to prevent imbalance in society. Taboo the ability of thinking, and society will not be endangered. Namely, if the ability of thinking is not tabooed, thinking goes in all sorts of directions, many of them harmful -- exactly what is happening today.

That's what happens when conscience becomes corrupted. Religion doesn't gloss over or "mystify" reason, it demystifies evil. That's also what laws do. And without God religion is also just another system of laws - and equally powerless. The difference is that God judges the exposed evil, and can release us from the guilt by forgiving us. A law can't forgive, it can only remind us of the wrong and judge it.

Hebrews 10:22
let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.​

That means harmful thinking is tabooed - more than that, it is condemned. Just recognizing it isn't enough to free us from it, and without forgiveness the only other option is a life of guilt in some form or another.

 

[water]

Jenyar,

That's true. Everybody has the ability to recognize good (just like they recognize and respond to love), but not everybody takes that recognition seriously.

That's interesting that you think of that God-given ability to know good from evil to be of the same kind like the ability to recognize love.
I'll go by my standard and say the recognition of good/evil is there, and it is fundamental, and it is originally there as a means to achieve (social) stability. As everything, this ability too can get clouded.

In other words, it doesn't pass Go and collect $200. If your conscience (we can have a whole discussion on where conscience comes in and what it is) is the ultimate authority on what is right or wrong, then it must be truly relative and law enforcement can't be justified.

That's a spin, that thing with conscience. I bet they invented that, because they didn't know the term social stability. Or because it was too neutral.

That's what happens when conscience becomes corrupted. Religion doesn't gloss over or "mystify" reason, it demystifies evil.

Huh, yes ... "because the greatest trick that the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he doesn't exist."

That's also what laws do. And without God religion is also just another system of laws - and equally powerless.

That's because people like to be irrational and unreasonable and refuse to think in terms of social stability and such.

The difference is that God judges the exposed evil, and can release us from the guilt by forgiving us.

Yes, if you believe in forgiveness. Many Christians I know don't believe in forgiveness. Or, they take it so lightly, that it is mind-boggling: go and do something, who cares, you can repent and everything will be ok. The institute of forgiveness breeded out into an institute that entices and allows to sin. Hah! Some see this bastardization, but then don't seem to come further, and hence the guilt. Anyhow, it is good they feel guilty. It's the next best thing to accountability.