Does God have to be good?

[hansard]

Thanks for those recent replies. All very interesting.

I should point out that I’m not thinking about THE God (whom we all worship, or most of us, anyway) but A hypothetical god: you know, a god in a parallel universe or something.

Some of these responses have thrown up some interesting philosophical/theological ideas.

 

[Candelora]

God does not “HAVE” to be good because God doesn’t have to do anything. However God does “ONLY” good because He is goodness itself. He cannot be what He is not.

 

[liquidpele]

God does not “HAVE” to be good because God doesn’t have to do anything. However God does “ONLY” good because He is goodness itself. He cannot be what He is not.

So… is most of the old testament just metaphor then? He doesn’t seem to nice during that time.

 

[Candelora]

In reply to hansard:

This is a dangerous contemplation. Unless of course you are already sure of who the “TRUE” God is. If you already understand that God is goodness and love itself and that He created us out of that love and goodness than the grace of God will increase your faith and deepen your understanding.

However, if there is doubt as to who God truly is than contemplation in this direction will only lead to confusion and deepened uncertainty and likely result in a heretical perspective.

A god who was both evil and good could not in any way be a perfect god. For from the beginning God separated light from the darkness and He did not say that the darkness was good.

 

[Candelora]

Liquidpele:

Reading and understanding the Old Testament in its literal sense will only reveal the “TRUTH” which is the coming of Christ. Christ is truth, goodness and the ultimate mercy of God. The heart of God’s law was always mercy. It was man who made the original moral decision to bring evil into the world not God. He did give us the gift of free will thus making us in his image and likeness. And that free will was given the opportunity to be exercised by putting before us a potential evil, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God in his goodness told Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the tree or surly they would die. But through the assistance of the tempter they decided to disobey God and partake of the fruit of the tree. This resulted in bringing evil into the world and thus making it part of man’s reality. From this point on there was suffering, pain, disease and death, before this there was perfection, goodness and life. All this is covered in the first three chapters of Genesis.

Also in Genesis we have the Protoevangelium that is promised to us moments after the original fall (Gen 3:15). This is the first gospel and a promise of pure mercy. The catechism states, “After his fall, man was not abandoned by God. On the contrary, God calls him and in a mysterious way heralds the coming victory over evil and his restoration from the fall” [CCC-410]. God’s love and mercy is shown to us from the very beginning and being made in his image and likeness we are given the freedom to choose good or evil and if we were to choose only God than our choices would lead to “ONLY” good.