Can God be Good?

[Syrokal]

What are the symptoms of a morally wrong act, what do we look for in an act so that we may diagnose it as wrong, or as something that we ought, or ought not do?

For if we are unable to tell how a given thing is morally wrong, how do we know it is morally wrong in the first place?

Now weather we admit to it or not, the majority if not "all" right minded people define Morality as such.

"A particular action or choice is Moral or Right when it somehow promotes happiness well being or health or it somehow minimizes harm or suffering or does both.
A particular action or choice is Immoral or wrong when it somehow diminishes happiness well being or health or it somehow causes unneeded harm or suffering or does both."

Notice how nothing about this is Subjective or relativistic? The fact that Murder causes harm, or that saving a life minimizes it, is not a personal opinion that is only true for me. Harm , health, well being, happiness, sorrow, these are real thing's they are not contingent on my mind, I don't have to agree that you are dieing, for you to actually be dieing.
Bodies live and they die, brains experience pain and suffering and experience happiness and joy, this is objectively measurable even with our limited technology, you can hook someone up to a EEG and see which parts of the brain are being stimulated and how much, when you subject them to certain experiences.

Now it may be a subjective experience for them, but it's objectively happing.

Of course do we really need state of the art technology, to determine that raping someone will cause them to suffer?

Now most Theists will come up with the response
"While it is true that rape causes objective suffering, it is merely "your personal subjective opinion" that morally wrong be defined as something that causes unsesserecery suffering

To which I say
"Well yes" there is no such thing as a correct or incorrect definition, the meanings we ascribe to certain combinations of letters and sounds are always arbitrary and subjective, however what is not arbitrary or subjective is which phenomena fit those definitions once there established

So given this definition ,is rape wrong?

Well... Yes because it diminished happiness health and well being.
Under this definition of Morally Right and Wrong many thing's which Theists define as morally wrong, are no longer wrong, Homosexuality (since it's just a shock and awe topic) as a passing example.

Now what most Theists determine as Morally Wrong is
"Something that deviates from God's commands or nature"

By this definition , yes, homosexuality(or a host of other thing's) is morally wrong.
Now while there are no such thing's as correct or incorrect definitions, there are such thing's as Meaningful Definitions, Useful or Useless definitions, consistent and inconsistent definitions and with this in mind, words like Moral and Immoral , right and wrong in a Theistic world-view encounter problems.

So we encounter the Euriphoyro dilemma

A)Is something Moral because God commanded it,
or
B)Did God command it because it is Moral

It pushes us into a Dichtonomy, if the Former (a)is true then Morality becomes arbitrary and no matter what God commands, it will become Moral simply by definition, even if the act caused suffering , or harm (As many of God's commands have).
This is a problem because it renders it a meaningless Tautology to say that God or God's commands are "Good" simply because anything he would do or command would be morally correct no matter how much suffering it caused.

Now on the other hand if the latter (b) is true it means that God is appealing to some moral standard external to Himself making him in effect just the messenger as opposed to the actual source of Morality as Theists claim him to be.

A typical response to this is
"It's neither, something is Good because it reflects God's eternal unchanging nature"

This has a number of problems of which I will address two, one in practice, one in principle

1) Is Murder, wrong?

Yes, murder is wrong, I think we would all agree?

Well what is murder and why is it wrong? Many Theists state that God Cannot Murder because God’s punishments are justified, but since not everyone believes in God we can’t use this as base technical definition for everyday use, so to summarise a broad range of legal definitions from culture to culture faith to faith murder is "Intentionally terminating the life of a human being without there consent" well why is Intentionally terminating the life of a human being without there consent wrong?
Most Theists would answer, "Because it is inconsistent with God's eternal nature".....oh
Here we may insert any number of Qur'anic/Biblical/Other Text Verses were God, terminates the life of a human being without there consent..and there are a lot of them, we cannot deny
.
We cant have it both ways, if standards of Morality I.E what is right and what is wrong are based on what is consistent with God's nature then the intentional termination of the life of a human being without there consent, must be morally right , since doing so is consistent with God's nature.

To put it into a Syologysm

1) Actions consistent with God's nature are moral and actions inconsistent with God's nature are immoral

2)God's Actions are always consistent with God's nature

3) (from 1 and 2) God's actions are always moral

4)God performs the act of intentionally terminating the life of a human being without there consent

C)From 3 and 4) It is Moral to intentionally terminate the life of a human being without there consent.

A Theist may be tempted to give the following response
"Morality as such is that intentionally taking the life of a human being without there consent is moral when performed by God, but Immoral when performed by man"

However what "must" follow from this statement is that then neither God's nature nor his actions are "truly" the standard of what is right and wrong for Human Beings, since God's actions must be in line with his nature, and that his actions (in this case murder) cannot be replicated by Humans but yet remain moral.

2) The Second problem to this response is that saying "Morals reflect God's eternal unchanging nature" merely rewords the question, infact it makes the Dillema deeper.

"Is God's nature one of honesty" (for example) just because it is right? or is it right because Honesty is part of God's nature

To say that God's nature is one of honesty because honesty is morally better than Dis-honesty is circular, and a four year old could obliterate it merely by asking "Why?"

"Why is honesty morally better than dishonesty?"
"Well because Honesty reflects God's immutable nature whereas dishonsty does not"
"Why is God's immutable nature one of Honesty instead of dishonesty?"
"Oh because Honesty is morally better than dishonesty" and round and round we go.


The standard we use to asses God's moral perfection, is....God, which renders the assessment of Morality meaningless
So to say God is Perfect, says nothing more than "God is himself"
To say "God reveals what is good" is nothing more than "God reveals what God chooses to reveal"

These can be applied to anything "Randy is morally perfect" well why?" Because Randy has the characteristics of Randy!"

Does this mean that God's is concerned , no it just means he is himself
Does it mean his commands minimized harm or suffering , no it means God is himself.
Does it mean his commands promote justice and equality, no it means God is himself.
Could God's commands spawn unfathomable harm and suffering , and still be good by definition .
Yes
Could they eradicate justice and equality and still be good by definition.
Yes

We are then forced to realise that from a Theistic perspective "Good" has no meaning aside from "What God's character happens to be" it could be harmful, violent, cruel, apathetic and it would still be considered "Good" by the fact, that Morally Right and Wrong is
"Reflective of Gods nature"


TLDR
God is not Good, indeed he cannot be Good.

He can only be God and use the threat of his unfathamoble power to cajole and force people into accepting what he says as correct
"It's good because I say it's good..." *Points menacingly to a pit of burning fire*
"We clear?"

What do you think, is God Good and why?

 

[dumpsterdiver45]

My personal theology runs similar to what you've attributed to theists, that morality must be consistent with God's nature. I'd put it this way...

Truth is the the essence of God's nature, all that is false is obviously in opposition to the true and leads to sin. From this base, morality from a human perspective can be defined as the pressure (tension and resistance) experienced in the mind as a response to falsity in opposition to the true.

So we encounter the Euriphoyro dilemma

A)Is something Moral because God commanded it,
or
B)Did God command it because it is Moral

It pushes us into a Dichtonomy, if the Former (a)is true then Morality becomes arbitrary and no matter what God commands, it will become Moral simply by definition, even if the act caused suffering , or harm (As many of God's commands have).
This is a problem because it renders it a meaningless Tautology to say that God or God's commands are "Good" simply because anything he would do or command would be morally correct no matter how much suffering it caused.

According to what I posted above, the dilemma vanishes. Something is moral to the degree it's true. God need not command anything. His commands are simply an admonition to us to seek the true and avoid the false. The intuition of common sense [in those adequately truth-oriented to perceive it] suggests that all movement toward the true is automatically and unequivocally good and correct to do. All wrongs are by definition constitutive of the false. This brings things like homosexuality back into the moral picture because homosexuality is an obvious anomaly from the natural order; it falsifies the true. Falsification denies a thing its perfection, which I take to be the best definition of the moral...the degree to which a thing is falsified is identical to the degree that thing is unable to achieve its perfection. The male-male and female-female relationships deny the design of procreation its perfection among other goods. The design argument, when this perspective is added, shows far more consistency than the materialist worldview btw.

Faulting God for killing places His "killing" on the same level as a human taking another human life, an absurdity. Humans have power only to kill (falsifying the physical life of another by denying it the perfection of life). God shows He is good in Scripture by controlling the death and resurrection of the real person--one's spirit. This is an action unseen by the material eye going on behind the realm of the physical. All humans can see is the material, in which bringing forth death is bad as the life of another is a good that doesn't belong to the killer. But if in the taking of a human life he previously gave, God brings forth the perfection of the spirit of the individual by destroying its false parts and restoring it to a wholly true [perfect] state in the midst of that individual's physical death (physical suffering and affliction are always concurrent with spiritual birth), then those who accuse God of "murder" stand guilty of perpetrating a falsehood, even if only unintentionally.

"Is God's nature one of honesty" (for example) just because it is right? or is it right because Honesty is part of God's nature

God's nature is Truth. Honest is simply a good derived--like all other goods--from the true.

To say that God's nature is one of honesty because honesty is morally better than Dis-honesty is circular, and a four year old could obliterate it merely by asking "Why?"

You've placed yourself on at least equal footing with the four year old you posited. God's nature is Truth; the true is truthfully better than the false, which is a more correct way of saying honesty is morally better than dishonesty.

"Why is honesty morally better than dishonesty?"

Because the truth is better than falsity. Anyone with at least average conceptual abilities can understand this.

You're the "Is God good" virus who posts on theology boards all over the planet, aren't you?