God is Good

[GoldenBoy89]

I have a problem with the phrase, "God is good."

If God is good, then goodness must be greater than God. Or at the very least, it must be external to God.

If you make the claim that God is good, then you must be comparing Him to some standard of goodness that is beyond Him. A set of moral attributes that can be objectively looked at and said to be good without an appeal to God for what is good or right or wrong. Otherwise you are judging God by His own standards that He made up, and let's be honest, anyone can pass their own standards of what's right and wrong, especially if you made them up.

I guess my main point is: Is goodness good because it is inherently good, or is it good because God says (or make it) so? If it is because God said so, then what standard is God using to determine right and wrong? Himself? Then the question becomes, how would we know if what God is doing is actually good?

Thoughts?

 

[Dave-W]

OR - it is just enumerating one of HIS attributes.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

OR - it is just enumerating one of HIS attributes.

But that just leads to the question of what "good" is. If good is just what God decides is good then how are we to know if it is actually a good thing? If you can judge God's actions and determine they are good, then you just used an external source of morality (your own opinion, I would say) to make that judgment.

If good things are good on their own, then that must be something even greater than God, since that is what He deferred to for morality.

 

[Dave-W]

I do not need something bigger than or external to the Universe to determine it is BIG.

Similarly we do not need something bigger than or external to God to determine He is good.

Big is an attribute of the universe. Good is an attribute of God.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

Good is an attribute of God.

What does God do that can be called "good" and how are you determining what is good about what He does? What is your moral standard for good that you use to determine God is in fact a good being?

Specifically, what does He do that is good and how do you know it is a good thing?

 

[TheyCallMeDave]

I have a problem with the phrase, "God is good."

If God is good, then goodness must be greater than God. Or at the very least, it must be external to God.

If you make the claim that God is good, then you must be comparing Him to some standard of goodness that is beyond Him. A set of moral attributes that can be objectively looked at and said to be good without an appeal to God for what is good or right or wrong. Otherwise you are judging God by His own standards that He made up, and let's be honest, anyone can pass their own standards of what's right and wrong, especially if you made them up.

I guess my main point is: Is goodness good because it is inherently good, or is it good because God says (or make it) so? If it is because God said so, then what standard is God using to determine right and wrong? Himself? Then the question becomes, how would we know if what God is doing is actually good?

Thoughts?

Where you err, is saying that there must be some standard above God. God IS the standard because he is the first cause of the Universe coming into existence along with his prescription of absolute moral laws inscribed on our very fibre. When you talk about anything ethical or moral, you are deciding on which is right from wrong based on the very person of Gods character and makeup --- there is none higher or beyond God. Where the Unbeliever shows hypocrisy on the matter of morals is : The person says there are no absolute moral laws to live by , yet, the same person expects and demands absolute moral laws be shown him by Others concerning interaction . So, we can sum up all of this accordingly : Truth means fidelity to the original (according to Websters) , and, the original is God himself because he existed before anything else did.

 

[Strathos]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma#Responses_to_the_dilemma

 

[GoldenBoy89]

Where you err, is saying that there must be some standard above God.

Maybe not above but certainly apart from Him. If you claim absolute morals, then they must be objective and unchanging even to God, Himself. Otherwise it becomes a meaningless statement. God can easily match His own standard of right and wrong if He's the one who decides what is right and wrong. Where is the objectivity in that? And how do we know He is doing good if all we have is to take His word for it? If that's the case, then you cannot say that God is good because you have no external standard of good to judge His actions by.

God IS the standard because he is the first cause of the Universe

Might makes right, is what this means. If God gets to determine what is right and wrong because He is God and no one can challenge Him on it, then He will always come out as 'good' even if He does something we might consider 'bad'.

When you talk about anything ethical or moral, you are deciding on which is right from wrong based on the very person of Gods character and makeup --- there is none higher or beyond God.

Exactly what you just said above. God decides what is right and wrong and then calls Himself good. We can't judge Him as good or bad because our standards aren't good enough and you can't use God's standards because He made them up. So we are back to the OP. You can't say God is good because you have no standard to judge His actions by other than your own sense of right and wrong.

Where the Unbeliever shows hypocrisy on the matter of morals is : The person says there are no absolute moral laws to live by ,

Clearly there aren't or we'd all agree on them like we do the color of the sky. No one believes the sky is green, we can all agree on the color of the sky. We can't all agree on right and wrong. It is not objective.

yet, the same person expects and demands absolute moral laws be shown him by Others concerning interaction .

Because they claim morals are absolute and objective but never show any evidence to suggest that assertion is true. That's how it works. If you make a claim, you must back it up somehow or no one has to accept your claim as fact.

So, we can sum up all of this accordingly : Truth means fidelity to the original (according to Websters) , and, the original is God himself because he existed before anything else did.

Unsubstantiated claim.

 

[brinny]

I have a problem with the phrase, "God is good."

If God is good, then goodness must be greater than God. Or at the very least, it must be external to God.

If you make the claim that God is good, then you must be comparing Him to some standard of goodness that is beyond Him. A set of moral attributes that can be objectively looked at and said to be good without an appeal to God for what is good or right or wrong. Otherwise you are judging God by His own standards that He made up, and let's be honest, anyone can pass their own standards of what's right and wrong, especially if you made them up.

I guess my main point is: Is goodness good because it is inherently good, or is it good because God says (or make it) so? If it is because God said so, then what standard is God using to determine right and wrong? Himself? Then the question becomes, how would we know if what God is doing is actually good?

Thoughts?

i say this a lot.

It's expression from my grateful heart for what He does for me (and others)

It's a valid question, though. It's just hard to explain.

 

[Strathos]

Clearly there aren't or we'd all agree on them like we do the color of the sky. No one believes the sky is green, we can all agree on the color of the sky. We can't all agree on right and wrong. It is not objective.

There are lots of objectively verifiable things that many people don't agree on. Go look in any thread about evolution or climate change for instance.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

i say this a lot.

It's expression from my grateful heart for what He does for me (and others)

This is a fair answer. Thank you for your reply.

But let me point something out, if I may... You say that you are grateful for all that He has done but how do you measure what God does as either good or bad? Do you get what I'm saying? What standard do you use when you see what God has done for you that makes you so sure it was good? If you can experience something that you determine was "good" and that you should be grateful for it, then you are using your own sense of morality to determine that.

I hope I'm not coming off as saying God isn't good. That's not my point with this thread. Whether He's good or not, the measure we use to determine what is good or bad is our own. And if we determine that God is good, then we must be basing that on a preconceived notion of what is good. Or goodness must be greater than God for even Him to determine what is right and wrong must be based on something other than just His Holy Opinion.

It's a valid question, though. It's just hard to explain.

Thank you! I really hope this thread lasts. I'm not trying to be confrontational or antagonistic with my question. I just don't think much thought has been given to this particular phrase that seems to come up a lot.

Thanks again for your reply!

 

[brinny]

This is a fair answer. Thank you for your reply.

But let me point something out, if I may... You say that you are grateful for all that He has done but how do you measure what God does as either good or bad? Do you get what I'm saying? What standard do you use when you see what God has done for you that makes you so sure it was good? If you can experience something that you determine was "good" and that you should be grateful for it, then you are using your own sense of morality to determine that.

I hope I'm not coming off as saying God isn't good. That's not my point with this thread. Whether He's good or not, the measure we use to determine what is good or bad is our own. And if we determine that God is good, then we must be basing that on a preconceived notion of what is good. Or goodness must be greater than God for even Him to determine what is right and wrong must be based on something other than just His Holy Opinion.

Thank you! I really hope this thread lasts. I'm not trying to be confrontational or antagonistic with my question. I just don't think much thought has been given to this particular phrase that seems to come up a lot.

Thanks again for your reply!

I understand.

When i say God is GOOD. i mean what has happened in my own life that would never and could never come from me, like grace and forfgiveness and reconciliation of what just would've been impossible without His intervention.

It's a long story, but a major major example of this is my forgiveness of my own mother.

I didn't realize it till later, but in the forgiveness, there was healing for both my mother and for me.

That was, and there is no other way to put this, but it was literally a miracle that it happened.

What the miracle is, is how my heart changed towards her.

 

[lisah]

I have a problem with the phrase, "God is good."

If God is good, then goodness must be greater than God. Or at the very least, it must be external to God.

If you make the claim that God is good, then you must be comparing Him to some standard of goodness that is beyond Him. A set of moral attributes that can be objectively looked at and said to be good without an appeal to God for what is good or right or wrong. Otherwise you are judging God by His own standards that He made up, and let's be honest, anyone can pass their own standards of what's right and wrong, especially if you made them up.

I guess my main point is: Is goodness good because it is inherently good, or is it good because God says (or make it) so? If it is because God said so, then what standard is God using to determine right and wrong? Himself? Then the question becomes, how would we know if what God is doing is actually good?

Thoughts?

I have difficulty thinking of it as an external comparative statement. I can conceive of it as an internal statement in relationship to self and the ideal.

 

[quatona]

I have a problem with the phrase, "God is good."

If God is good, then goodness must be greater than God. Or at the very least, it must be external to God.

If you make the claim that God is good, then you must be comparing Him to some standard of goodness that is beyond Him. A set of moral attributes that can be objectively looked at and said to be good without an appeal to God for what is good or right or wrong. Otherwise you are judging God by His own standards that He made up, and let's be honest, anyone can pass their own standards of what's right and wrong, especially if you made them up.

I guess my main point is: Is goodness good because it is inherently good, or is it good because God says (or make it) so? If it is because God said so, then what standard is God using to determine right and wrong? Himself? Then the question becomes, how would we know if what God is doing is actually good?

Thoughts?

I have my problems with this statement, as well - but different ones than you have.
It seems to me that your argument rests on the idea that "X is good" must be a conclusion or the result of (possibly comparative) experience or investigation. This, however, is not necessarily so: As far as I can tell, believers typically declare this as a premise. IOW: they determine what´s good by what God is, does or says. They simply declare God the standard of "good". This is - linguistically and semantically - possible. "God is good" then is not a description of God (nor a description of good) - it´s more like two terms mutually defining each other.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I have a problem with the phrase, "God is good."

If God is good, then goodness must be greater than God. Or at the very least, it must be external to God.

If you make the claim that God is good, then you must be comparing Him to some standard of goodness that is beyond Him. A set of moral attributes that can be objectively looked at and said to be good without an appeal to God for what is good or right or wrong. Otherwise you are judging God by His own standards that He made up, and let's be honest, anyone can pass their own standards of what's right and wrong, especially if you made them up.

I guess my main point is: Is goodness good because it is inherently good, or is it good because God says (or make it) so? If it is because God said so, then what standard is God using to determine right and wrong? Himself? Then the question becomes, how would we know if what God is doing is actually good?

Thoughts?

I have a problem with this phrase as well. Mainly because it is semantically different than saying, "the God of the Jews is good." On top of this Wittgenstein type consideration, we may also want to consider if Kant would view this statement as Analytic, or instead, as Synthetic. It might make a difference, Goldenboy.

Peace
2PhiloVoid

 

[JonFromMinnesota]

The problem I have with the phrase "God is Good" is when it's used for such petty things like finding your lost keys or making it to work on time despite traffic. But then when I bring up the suffering and death of children I get "God is mysterious". It so easily rationalizes tragedy. It annoys me.

 

[GillDouglas]

I have a problem with the phrase, "God is good."

If God is good, then goodness must be greater than God. Or at the very least, it must be external to God.

If you make the claim that God is good, then you must be comparing Him to some standard of goodness that is beyond Him. A set of moral attributes that can be objectively looked at and said to be good without an appeal to God for what is good or right or wrong. Otherwise you are judging God by His own standards that He made up, and let's be honest, anyone can pass their own standards of what's right and wrong, especially if you made them up.

I guess my main point is: Is goodness good because it is inherently good, or is it good because God says (or make it) so? If it is because God said so, then what standard is God using to determine right and wrong? Himself? Then the question becomes, how would we know if what God is doing is actually good?

Thoughts?

God is good because out of the sum who deserve nothing He gives much. He has provided the means of redemption to a fallen race of disobedient and ungrateful men.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

God is good because out of the sum who deserve nothing He gives much. He has provided the means of redemption to a fallen race of disobedient and ungrateful men.

Question: Why would you say these things He does (gives much to those who deserve nothing, provides a means of redemption... etc.) are good? Are these things "good things" on their own? Let's say those things could be provided without God. Would they still be "good things"?

Sorry, that's a more than one question! But I think this gets to the point I'm trying to make.

 

[Redac]

I do not need something bigger than or external to the Universe to determine it is BIG.

But you do need some kind of standard or other frame of reference to make that judgment. Something can only really be said to be big or small in relation to something else. They're relative terms. If your entire experience consists of knowledge of a single object or a single space, you would have absolutely no way of determining whether it's BIG unless you had a frame of reference (be it yourself, another object, etc.).

Similarly we do not need something bigger than or external to God to determine He is good.

If you're going to use it as a relative term like "big" then yes you do.

 

[SteveB28]

I have a problem with the phrase, "God is good."

If God is good, then goodness must be greater than God. Or at the very least, it must be external to God.

If you make the claim that God is good, then you must be comparing Him to some standard of goodness that is beyond Him. A set of moral attributes that can be objectively looked at and said to be good without an appeal to God for what is good or right or wrong. Otherwise you are judging God by His own standards that He made up, and let's be honest, anyone can pass their own standards of what's right and wrong, especially if you made them up.

I guess my main point is: Is goodness good because it is inherently good, or is it good because God says (or make it) so? If it is because God said so, then what standard is God using to determine right and wrong? Himself? Then the question becomes, how would we know if what God is doing is actually good?

Thoughts?

Euthyphro's famous dilemma has persisted for thousands of years and, while philosophers and theologians have made attempts at disentangling God from either of its horns, they have been largely unsuccessful. The only rebuttals that have been constructed have relied upon reducing the claimed powers of God - making God much 'smaller'.