Hello,
I'm looking for an explanation as to why is God good. In Christianity God is basically good by definition. There isn't a possible world in which God isn't God. Goodness in essential to God. God's nature doesn't just happen to be "good", it's that goodness is inherent to God.
But what I ask is what reasoning is used to arrive at the conclusion that God is good? In other words, why is God good? Also, I'm looking for a more of a philosophical argument, not direct-revelation based one.
God bless,
Emanuel
To me, this question seems nonsensical (I don't mean that as an insult).
It's like asking, "Why is God all-powerful?", or "Why is God all-knowing?".
Let's say for the sake of discussion that God does indeed exist and He is indeed all-powerful, to name one attribute. At that point, asking why God is all-powerful becomes an irrelevant question, doesn't it? To use another example, it's like asking why does God exist? One could respond by saying because He's a necessary being, but that doesn't answer the question, because then somebody could ask, "Why is God a necessary being?" See, eventually, the questions become nonsensical. There comes a point when you just need to accept God and His nature.
However, I have pondered your question before and can give you a sketch of what I think. When I imagine a necessary sentient being (a being who cannot fail to exist) who created all of reality outside of Himself, I quickly realize that such a being couldn't be evil in any objective sense. God is either objectively good and I'm objectively evil, or God is objectively good and I'm objectively good too, but God could never be objectively evil, since moral values are grounded in the very nature of God. Put another way, God is the cosmic measuring stick by which everything else is measured, so how could He evil? Even if you yourself thought God were evil, all that would mean is you think God is evil relative to your own moral opinion. However, your moral opinion is based on your contingent and limited mind, which is the creation of God who is a perfect being, and thus doesn't carry much weight. Moreover, it's downright foolish to believe that you can derive a morality or rationality that is superior to God's using your God-given morality and rationality! That'd be like sawing off the branch that you're standing on.
I'm going to go back to the ontology of moral values for a moment because I need to clarify something. Moral values are grounded in the nature of God. So when people speak of objective evil and good, what they mean is moral conduct relative to God's nature. And since "good" is what ought to be done, it makes absolutely no sense to say God, the basis of moral values, is evil. You could say, however, that you disagree with God's values (or nature), but that would translates to you being objectively evil--or your behavior being objectively evil (scary stuff...).
I apologize if I wasn't very articulate. I tried.
