How do you know God is good?

stevil

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There could be a fourth possibility - that God is good... perhaps based on God's definition of morality...
In that way lying to Adam and Even about "you will die if you eat the fruit of that tree"
Or in the way the god said, well I'm going now, not watching, while you ponder this tree over there.

Or when the god drowned all those "wicked" babies and puppies and kittens in the great flood

Or set she bears onto children for calling a man baldy.

Or turned a woman into salt for just looking at a town and townspeople that the god was burning to the ground.

Or perhaps when the god had a wager with the devil about how loyal one of his most trusted followers were.

All good, perfectly good and just.

Good it seems is "do as I say, not as I do"
 
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Amoranemix

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Moral Orel 256 said:
Everyone that God creates can have free will and sin never needs to exist, so why does God want sin to exist at all?!
You describe a non-free will situation but call it free will...you are having me on aren't you? GOD can't do logical inconsistencies. 2+2≠7. Water is wet and the results of a free will decision must be chosen, not created or it is not free will.

He does not want sin to exist [55]- HE wants everyone to choose the life they want to live: Our free will decision to live with HIM in heaven is a much more important than actually living there with HIM because, as I have repeatedly said, love and marriage are only real from a free will acceptance of the proposal.
[55] Then why does he let sin exist ?

TedT 260 said:
Bradskii said:
[Romans 1:29]'...filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.'

Do you think a reasonable person would accept that as a valid proposal?
I think your willingness to gaslight folk who do believe this as unreasonable or worse is par for the atheist course who has run out of reasons for his morality except personal preference. If you have that right, why do I not?
Most Christians think their morality is better because it supposedly is not a preference. Apparently you don't share that delusion.
That you twice omitted to quote your alleged preference, suggests you are embarrassed about it. Perhaps deep down it is not your preference.

TedT 263 said:
Moral Orel said:
This is why we established that it is not a logical inconsistency for God to have free will and it be a 100% guarantee that He will always choose the Good.
...and you ignore my protestations that the guarantee is not found in our creation (or GOD's because HE was not created) but in our commitment to our decision to be morally good in accord with YHWH's nature as morally good.
Aha. So God's love is conditional. He only loves those who do as he pleases. That dispells the myth that God all loving.
There are people who love God even though he doesn't do as they please.

TedT said:
Amoranemix 268 said:
[32] I mistakingly assumed that what you said was relevant and speculated what the relevance could be.
OK, so these false gods do not help marriages being free. In order to explain why God would allow them, we have to look elsewhere.
[33] I expected there would be a reason for your claim from post 156 to be true, but apparently not. Can you at least demonstrate it ?
[34] Can you at least demonstrate the absolute necessity of the others to be able to respond freely to God's loving proposal of marriage ?
[no response]
[33] I thought so.
[34] What a surprise.
The most simple explanation for the existence of all those false gods is that people invent them and Yahweh is unable to destroy them because he himself is false.

TedT said:
Amoranemix 268 said:
[50] How is sin supposed to make the best parts of people's lives filthy ?
[no response]
Maybe none of us know how sin is supposed to make people's lives filthy because it doesn't.

TedT said:
Amoranemix 268 said:
[52] That is a good realization. In their zeal to innocentiate God from everything reprehensible Christians often ignore that decisions of humans more than decisions of God are uninformed.
[53] So it is the knowledge that robs one of one's free will, not the proof. Hence, those who know they will go to Hell if they sin, are not free to sin.
[54] Why is that ?
[no response]
You forgot to answer my question.

[discourse in language resembling English]
If your English skill is poor, try using short sentences. Also consider using assistance fom online automatic translation. Use it as an opportunity to practice.
For some reason in another thread you manage to write less bad English.


It looks like Christians have given up.

In conclusion : we don't know that God is good, but those who do know that do so because they define God that way. It would be like neonazis knowing Adolf Hitler was good because they defined him that way. “If he weren't good, then he would not have been Adolf Hitler.”
God's goodness is definition-based, not evidence-based.
 
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dóxatotheó

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If your English skill is poor, try using short sentences. Also consider using assistance fom online automatic translation. Use it as an opportunity to practice.
For some reason in another thread you manage to write less bad English.
ad hom and i literally had 0 grammatical errors in the sentence as many of the replies weren't entirely mines some had quotes others didn't either way you never responded to my rebuttals.
It looks like Christians have given up.

In conclusion : we don't know that God is good, but those who do know that do so because they define God that way. It would be like neonazis knowing Adolf Hitler was good because they defined him that way. “If he weren't good, then he would not have been Adolf Hitler.”
God's goodness is definition-based, not evidence-based.
Like i said God doesn't do anything ethically wrong so he isn't good by definition but rather by evidence if you can provide proof God is ethically immoral than your grounds wouldn't be baseless.
 
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TedT

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[55] Then why does he let sin exist ?
To achieve HIS purpose of a true marriage with HIS creation, we had to be able to accept HIS marriage proposal by our free will with no coercion or constraint put upon us by HIM. For a will to be free of all coercions from HIM, it has to be be free to reject HIM and HIS purposes. To go against HIM is to become evil, addicted to sin and unable to anymore choose righteousness. Without our ability to choose by our free will to become evil and to sin HE couldn't have fulfilled HIS purpose for our creation, ie, a true marriage with HIM.

Aha. So God's love is conditional. He only loves those who do as he pleases. That dispells the myth that God all loving.
GOD is all loving in HIS creation, creating everyone with and equal ability and opportunity to choose to be in accord with HIM and HIS purpose of marriage, being chosen to be HIS elect, or to reject HIM and HIS purpose, becoming eternally evil.

It is not the fact that they displeased HIM that turned HIM against them but the fact that they became evil in their core nature and addicted to always choosing the evil choice when their evil matures. How could HE have them live with HIM whom they hated in HIS heaven with HIS people whom they hated? A little leaven (sin) leavens (crrupts) the whole lump (person, city, nation) means that if HE allowed the reprobate to live with HIM in HIS heaven alongside HIS people that their war against us and HIS righteousness would never end and heaven would never know peace.

They can't be changed and made righteous because they rebuked HIM from ever interfering with their free will decision to reject HIM. For our free will to mean anything, our choices must be sacrosanct, ie, outside of HIS interference.
 
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ChetSinger

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Other than having faith in the Bible, and religious tradition, is there any way to know that the biblical God is morally good? Based solely on observation, it’s far more logical to believe that God—if one even exists—is one of 3 possibilities:

1) Dualistic. Sometimes good, sometimes evil. Or possibly 2 gods—one good, and one evil, in constant struggle with each other.
2) Morally neutral and uninvolved.
3) Morally evil and deceptive.
Jesus is a reason I believe God is good. Because Jesus is good and he is God incarnate.
 
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Bob Crowley

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As humans, where do we get our concepts of good and evil from?

Atheists sometimes reject the Christian God on account of the evil that occurs, and they don't need me to give them a list. They're well aware of them as this is one of their main reasons for rejecting the label "God is good".

Which means that atheists (and people generally) have some concept of what is right behaviour and wrong behaviour. They get upset and are offended by moral and natural evil.

Christians believe we are made in God's image, so we have a concern with right and wrong. We also believe there's a spiritual world out there peopled by spiritual beings, who also can be good or evil.

Many of us would have had experiences which clearly did not originate in this world. I've often claimed that the night my father died he appeared in my bedroom in the unit where I was living at the time. That was over 40 years ago - 11th January 1979 to be exact, and I still remember most of what we said to each other.

I don't remember dreams - in fact at one stage I blurted out "What is this!! A dream or something??" He looked a bit bemused, and replied, "No, it's not a dream. I died tonight", and his tone of voice was almost normal when he said it.

He started with an apology for the way he'd treated me (cruelly), we argued and talked, and at the very end of the episode he turned to his right, my left. It was obvious he could see something coming for him and it terrified him to the core. He screamed. The terror was so contagious I started to scream, and all I could see was him - not what was coming for him.

Then he just disappeared.

Four days later one of my uncles turned up to tell me he'd died, but it was a mess as his body hadn't been found for four days. When the penny dropped, I counted back four nights, and thought to myself "Then what the hell was that the other night!"

Now something or someone sent him to apologise, and for a reason. Something also terrified him to the core at the end of the proceedings. As far as I'm concerned, God sent him to apologise for his evil behaviour, and something demonic was coming towards him at the end.

I can't prove God is "Good". I think it would be more accurate to say He's "Holy", and we may well find it will be quite uncomfortable to face an absolutely Good God who tolerates not the least stain of evil, hence the Catholic claim for the necessity of Purgatory.

We will definitely find it uncomfortable to face an absolutely evil devil, who hates us to the core.

We're caught in the middle between these two opposing powers, both of whom are hidden from us, and we are therefore left with reasonable faith to persevere in our belief that "God is good", despite all the challenges that moral and natural evil pose to our faith.

Our job is to make an eternal choice.
 
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klutedavid

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Other than having faith in the Bible, and religious tradition, is there any way to know that the biblical God is morally good? Based solely on observation, it’s far more logical to believe that God—if one even exists—is one of 3 possibilities:

1) Dualistic. Sometimes good, sometimes evil. Or possibly 2 gods—one good, and one evil, in constant struggle with each other.
2) Morally neutral and uninvolved.
3) Morally evil and deceptive.
God is love.
 
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jayem

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We're caught in the middle between these two opposing powers, both of whom are hidden from us, and we are therefore left with reasonable faith to persevere in our belief that "God is good", despite all the challenges that moral and natural evil pose to our faith.

Yes, that’s my point. God’s moral goodness must be believed as an article of faith. As I’ve said, the operation of the world, as we objectively observe it, could be explained a number of ways:

1) A god who is fundamentally good, but allows evil as part of his plan.
2) A god who is fundamentally evil, but allows good as part of his plan.
3) A god who is morally dualistic—sometimes good, sometimes evil. Another version of this would be 2 gods—one good and one evil—in constant struggle with each other.
4) A god who has no moral nature, and allows the world operate on its own.

Any of these options could explain the world as we see it. Apart from faith, there’s no way to determine which is correct.
 
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Bob Crowley

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I suppose I'd have to pick Option 1 - A God who is good, but allows evil as part of His plan.

A God who is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient would have known that He would face rebellion in both the spiritual and temporal worlds. He'd have foreseen quite clearly before He made anything that God the Son would have to put in the appearance He did.

He foreknew that evil would occur. But He also gave us the ability to discern right from wrong, and He'll hold us responsible for our choices. Animals don't have that ability, but we do.

The spiritual world certainly has that gift, as their chief interest is thinking.

I find natural evil more puzzling than moral evil. Moral evil involves a wilful choice by intelligent beings who have a conscience.

The natural world seems to have been set up so that one form of life feeds on another, with some exceptions eg. most plants get their sustenance from the sun, water, carbon dioxide and some trace elements. But that's not the case for most life forms.

When I see a photograph of a Great White shark leaping up to take a seal for dinner, I am forced to admit that the God of Love set up this unsympathetic biological system.

When a tidal wave roars in from the ocean and kills nearly 300,000 (mostly poor) people almost overnight I find myself wondering - is this the result of Man's sinful rebellion (ie. the curse) or is it due to nature's design which God intended from the beginning?

I find that more of a puzzle than moral evil, which, as I said, is the wilful choice of intelligent beings who know good from evil.

You could say I agree with the insurance companies when they describe it as "An act of God".

Either way it demonstrates God's not soft.
 
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