How do we know goodness exists objectively?

[Milestone]

How do we know goodness exists objectively? I’m not talking about moral goodness specifically, I mean goodness in general. Did any of the classical or scholastic philosophers say anything about this?

 

[Wesrock]

Yes, definitely. Saint Augustine himself declared that ‘everything is good in so far as it exists,’ and Saint Thomas Aquinas defended this extensively throughout his work. To Saint Thomas, our being (as an act and as the positive elements of what it is to exist) is entirely convertible with good. So to objectively exist is to objectively be good (at least in so far as existence is good).

Here is a link to Saint Thomas’ Summa Theologica on the topic. It’s just a quick overview.

newadvent.org/summa/1005.htm

 

[psalm90]

The atheist, scientific explanation of the universe is that it is largely rocks smashing into rocks or gas clouds forming stars and galaxies, with a lot of black holes thrown in for good measure.

The Bible takes over and tells us what God did with all of that, and when it was finished, He declared that it was very good.

The word for God there in Genesis is elohim which is plural, and has the meaning elsewhere in scripture as merely spirits. But, there it is specifically referring to God, one God. God creates order out of chaos, no matter what St. Thomas Aquinas says.

 

[Wesrock]

The atheist, scientific explanation of the universe is that it is largely rocks smashing into rocks or gas clouds forming stars and galaxies, with a lot of black holes thrown in for good measure.

The Bible takes over and tells us what God did with all of that, and when it was finished, He declared that it was very good.

The word for God there in Genesis is elohim which is plural, and has the meaning elsewhere in scripture as merely spirits. But, there it is specifically referring to God, one God. God creates order out of chaos, no matter what St. Thomas Aquinas says.

Are you saying that God molded out of pre-existing matter that He does not create?

 

[bardegaulois]

How do we know goodness exists objectively? I’m not talking about moral goodness specifically, I mean goodness in general. Did any of the classical or scholastic philosophers say anything about this?

How do you differentiate “moral goodness” from “goodness in general?” Is goodness not a specifically moral quality? If it is not, then what would you say that it is?

 

[Milestone]

I was reading the Monologion by Saint Anselm of Canterbury, and in it he tries to prove the existence of God by appealing to the goodness inherent in all thing. I don’t want to accidentally misrepresent him, so I won’t try to explain it here, but I definitely recommend checking it out for those of you who haven’t read it. I found it pretty convincing, but his argument relies on the assumption that goodness is actually inherent in all things. That’s the context of my question.

 

[hicetnunc]

I was reading the Monologion by Saint Anselm of Canterbury, and in it he tries to prove the existence of God by appealing to the goodness inherent in all thing. I don’t want to accidentally misrepresent him, so I won’t try to explain it here, but I definitely recommend checking it out for those of you who haven’t read it. I found it pretty convincing, but his argument relies on the assumption that goodness is actually inherent in all things. That’s the context of my question.

In the Catholic philosophical tradition (especially Anselm, Aquinas, etc), goodness and being are “convertible” terms. In other words, they are two different ways of talking about the same thing. All being by nature is good; anything which is good is being. Being is something as logical; good is something as desirable. All being, at some level, is desirable: we desire being rather than non being.

Here’s an analogy based on Boethius on the matter of the convertibility of goodness and being: consider an apple, for example. A big, red, juicy apple is both (a) full of “appleness” (that is, it represents everything we’d expect an apple to be); and (b) appetizing and appealing. As the apple decays and rots, it loses–simultaneously–both (a) its being and (b) its goodness.

One other thing to keep in mind (from an Aristotelian point of view): there could be no discussion of “good” unless there was such a thing as good in the first place. Take for example, the case of two people discussing a painting in an art gallery: the first viewer says, “This Caravaggio is not very good.” The second says, “No, I think it is really good, perhaps his best piece of work ever.”

Often, people will take disagreements like this (whether over the nature of good or beauty) as evidence that there is nothing objective about goodness and beauty. But it proves the opposite: we could not have disagreements with someone about whether or not something is good and beautiful, unless there was some objective “good” or “beauty” that we appealed to in our disagreement.

Hope this sheds at least some light on your question. Happy to discuss further if you like.

Pax