Am I good? / Are humans good?

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In Mark 10:17, it’s written: “Jesus answered him, ’Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.’”

I’m all on board with Jesus’s divinity. And I sort of get the argument here of how Christ confirms his divinity in this passage (although maybe clarifying that answer could help me clarify my main question). But I have a more pressing question that is really confusing to me:

If God alone is good, is nothing else good? At all?

For instance, the apologetics argument for affirming Christ’s divinity here is usually as follows:
  1. Nothing is good but God alone
  2. Jesus calls Himself good on several occasions (“good shepherd”, etc.)
  3. Therefore, Jesus is God
However, this sort of logical thought process can easily be used to turn everything that’s good into God.

Sunsets are good, so sunsets are God? Exercising is good, so exercising is God?

My main one: humans are good, therefore humans are God…?

I know this isn’t right, but someone help me out here.

It seems obvious to me that things are good without being God, and even good without God (as in, they’re good as a distinct entity on their own, apart from being any extension of God Himself. In other words, not pantheism/panentheism). Especially humans, made in the image and likeness of God.

But even saying something like “on their own, humans are not good” seems to deny the innate goodness of humanity. I can agree that on their own, humans are often left to their sinful nature, and the works of the flesh take precedent (lust, greed, all that not fun stuff). But, to assert that only God is good seems like a real sucker punch to the innate goodness of a lot of things, especially humanity (which Catholicism in particular greatly affirms).

Any help here?
 
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bfree1216 said:
My main one: humans are good, therefore humans are God…?
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Maybe not good, or God in the moment, but the potential to become good and become God (as the Saints, certainly must be)

Athanasius of Alexandria (referenced also in Catechism of the Catholic Church article 448):

“For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”
 
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bfree1216 said:
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God is the only absolutely perfect good.

Catechism
385 God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil. …

391 … The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: “The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing.” …

398 … Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God”.

302 Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created “in a state of journeying” ( in statu viae ) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. …

310 … But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world “in a state of journeying” towards its ultimate perfection. In God’s plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.175

311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. …
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God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good. Evening came, and morning followed—the sixth day. Gn 1:31

Peace!!!
 
God has put us somewhere between good and bad, and at every moment we can choose good.
 
It is clear that God has made us good, and we are pleasing in God’s eyes. We are in his image.
There is a difference between imaged in goodness, and being the source of good.

By analogy, when you look at the rose window at Notre Dame Cathedral you might say “that is very good. It is beautiful, see how the light brings it alive” etc.,…

Yet the window is not the light itself. We see the window because the sun shines on it and through it. The sun is the source of that light, not the window. Without the sun, there is no goodness to be seen.

Likewise our own goodness is sourced in God. Hence “no one is good but God alone”, and at the same time we are reflections of God’s goodness. (to the degree that we are “in love” with God)
 
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Googling this quote led me to the Catechism (obviously) but also to some articles about this topic on Catholic.com that I didn’t know existed. Thank you so much!
 
This analogy of a stained glass window. Wow. This makes soooo much sense to me. Thank you so much for this!
 
We were created “very good”, being the last of God’s creations and the only created things made in His image and likeness. Given the radical freedom to choose good or evil - to love and obey God or to rebel by loving the self - our ancestors fell and we suffer from that fall.

Yet, we were created so good that we are worth redeeming - at the price of Blood.
 
theorangeandblue said:
Depends on what you mean by good

As it is written

There is no one righteous not even one

Romans 3:10

If we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us

1 John 1:8
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That’s good meaning “self justified/sinless”. Different meaning of good in my opinion.
 
theorangeandblue said:
Depends on what you mean by good

As it is written

There is no one righteous not even one

Romans 3:10

If we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us

1 John 1:8
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hyperbole-

Lk 2:25
Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. NIV

Peace!!!
 
As with all God’s creatures, we are created good. That’s why despite sin, God saw it fit to redeem us because of that dignity.

However, with the exception of our Lady and our Lord, sin has made all of us “not good”. The first lie you told, the first paperclip you stole, and you became “not good.” The only real response to the typical “…but I/he/she is a good person!” is “no you/he/she’s not.”

The only goodness/righteousness we can ever bring before God that would be worthy of him is the goodness and righteousness of Christ himself, the God-Man Redeemer.
 
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