Prove that God is good

[RDKirk]

The Incarnation.

-CryptoLutheran

Yes.

Answering the question of "Is God good?" requires anthropomorphizing God, which is the only way to assign human characteristics to a non-human entity.

But God has already performed that anthropomorphism, which is Jesus. For the answers to all such questions, the point of reference is Jesus.

 

[Albion]

According to the Bible, nature reveals that God is good

In other words, the Bible, if believed, teaches that nature testifies to his goodness. But if you aren't first persuaded that the Bible is to be believed, you're not likely to conclude that God is good simply because of its contents.

 

[RDKirk]

I'll actually disagree with this: I think that slavery was a totally different institution in ancient Israel, and that some people might actually want to become slaves. I don't think there was any oppression or abuse as the word "slavery" has come to connote.

I guess my point was that anything God commands is good. I was wondering if anyone on this thread disagreed with anything that God commanded anywhere in Scripture.

bling is correct in his implication that in slavery--as in divorce--God was permitting with strict limitations a moral compromise because of the sheer inability of that Bronze Age rabble to be any better.

The cultures surrounding Israel had a concept of a "slave class"--persons who by their nature and/or the design of the gods were destined and intended to be slaves. God did not, however, create any of the descendants of Israel to be slaves, nor did He create a "slave class." The Mosaic limitations on slavery were designed to prevent the establishment and even the concept of "slave class." Note that in the surrounding cultures--even into the 1800s in America--clung to the notion of "slave class" by identifying manumitted slaves as "freedmen" rather than "citizens"--always making a lifelong distinction between the slave class and the freeborn. This is shown carrying forward in Acts, with Stephen being a member of the "synagogue of the freedmen"--showing this was a Hellenist congregation, because Judaism had no such concept of "freedman" as did Greece and Rome.

As noted by Jesus, they failed to get the message of God's true intentions that were implicit in the Mosaic Law, which is why He essentially replaced it in the Sermon on the Mount.

 

[RDKirk]

In other words, the Bible, if believed, teaches that nature testifies to his goodness. But if you aren't first persuaded that the Bible is to be believed, you're not likely to conclude that God is good simply because of its contents.

According to the verse I quoted, the bible is not necessary to see and acknowledge the existence and essential characteristics of God. Observation of nature is sufficient. If scripture were necessary, Psalm 19 would be obviated and according to Paul, those men would have an excuse.

 

[Achilles6129]

bling is correct in his implication that in slavery--as in divorce--God was permitting with strict limitations a moral compromise because of the sheer inability of that Bronze Age rabble to be any better.

I don't agree with you. The Torah is the immutable and inviolable law of God, and everything in it reflects the nature of God. I don't think that God is going to give in to cultural "peer pressure" when it comes to good and evil.

 

[RDKirk]

I don't agree with you. The Torah is the immutable and inviolable law of God, and everything in it reflects the nature of God. I don't think that God is going to give in to cultural "peer pressure" when it comes to good and evil.

It has nothing to do with "peer pressure" and I don't even know where you got that idea from what I said.

Jesus is the one who said, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard."

And it was Jesus who told the parable in which He said,"....To one he gave five talents,to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability."

God certainly did make His demands and requirements with consideration to what those people were actually capable of doing.

 

[Phantasman]

There is a perfect God, and good is not used to define perfection. To know what is good, one can only know by how it compares to bad (or evil). A mistake can be good.

"Light and Darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers of one another. They are inseparable. Because of this neither are the good good, nor evil evil, nor is life life, nor death death. For this reason each one will dissolve into its earliest origin. But those who are exalted above the world are indissoluble, eternal."-Philip

In the world, the adversary can do good things to attract followers of those seeking good.

 

[Revealing Times]

What would you say if someone asked you to prove that God is good?

Two things, one I would point out that no one should tempt the Lord God with these type of questions, but since they asked it of me, it is my duty as a Christian to engage and offer a witness. So secondly I would tell this person that God desires us to seek him with all of our hearts and then we will find Him, and that a requirement of our righteousness is to believe God, as he told Abraham, because you believed in me I account it unto you as righteousness. So why would God "prove Himself" or allow anyone else to prove God exists, when that (faith) is what God has chosen as a vehicle to come unto Him by. W can only give our witness of God in our lives. Each person has to come to God through faith.

 

[Achilles6129]

It has nothing to do with "peer pressure" and I don't even know where you got that idea from what I said.

I got that idea from your remarks about the surrounding cultures.

Jesus is the one who said, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard."

So Christ abrogated one part of the Torah and so that means that it's all abrogated? Or rather that the parts you want to abrogate are abrogated? I don't think so. God gave the Torah; therefore only God can abrogate it.

And it was Jesus who told the parable in which He said,"....To one he gave five talents,to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability."
God certainly did make His demands and requirements with consideration to what those people were actually capable of doing.

I think that this is a very weak explanation. Certainly his people were capable of not enslaving others?

 

[Lazarus Short]

God made everything that is, and called it very good in Genesis. Jesus asked rhetorically, : ''Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.'' implying that bad does not come from good.

 

[Achilles6129]

God made everything that is, and called it very good in Genesis. Jesus asked rhetorically, : ''Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.'' implying that bad does not come from good.

Yes! Isn't it interesting how he used the word "cannot" in that passage? Almost as though the nature of something is uncontrollable?

 

[Lazarus Short]

Yes! Isn't it interesting how he used the word "cannot" in that passage? Almost as though the nature of something is uncontrollable?

It is what it is.