How do we know that God is good?

[ThinkingSapien]

But for an infinite being it’s not much of a gesture really. What is the span of a human life to an infinite omnipotent being. A human life isn’t even significant on a planetary time level. Also, although painful the passion wasn’t the worst fate a human ever has suffered.

That’s something that used to bother me. Makes the suffering sound more like a bad weekend.

 

[tonyrey]

I often get letters, quite frequently, from people who say how they like the programmes a lot, but I never give credit to the almighty power that created nature. To which I reply and say, “Well, it’s funny that the people, when they say that this is evidence of the Almighty, always quote beautiful things. They always quote orchids and hummingbirds and butterflies and roses.” But I always have to think too of a little boy sitting on the banks of a river in west Africa who has a worm boring through his eyeball, turning him blind before he’s five years old. And I reply and say, “Well, presumably the God you speak about created the worm as well,” and now, I find that baffling to credit a merciful God with that action. And therefore it seems to me safer to show things that I know to be truth, truthful and factual, and allow people to make up their own minds about the moralities of this thing, or indeed the theology of this thing. – Sir David Attenborough

 

[Benadam]

I don’t know what you mean by “absolutely free”.

 

[tonyrey]

But for an infinite being it’s not much of a gesture really.

What more do you expect?

What is the span of a human life to an infinite omnipotent being.

The relative brevity of life is insignificant compared to the absolute significance of love.

A human life isn’t even significant on a planetary time level.

Quantitative considerations are irrelevant to the value and insignificance of life. You are also ignoring the possibility that there is an afterlife…

Also, although painful the passion wasn’t the worst fate a human ever has suffered.

Why should it have to be the worst when it is motivated by divine love?
Do you think Jesus should have gone out of His way to inflict the greatest suffering on Himself to convince us that He is the Son of God?

 

[jonfawkes]

What more do you expect?
The relative brevity of life is insignificant compared to the absolute significance of love.
Quantitative considerations are irrelevant to the value and insignificance of life. You are also ignoring the possibility that there is an afterlife…
Why should it have to be the worst when it is motivated by divine love?
Do you think Jesus should have gone out of His way to inflict the greatest suffering on Himself to convince us that He is the Son of God?

I don’t think you get what I’m saying. God is infinite, omnipotent, omniscient. Why should we be impressed that He incarnated and died and resurrected. He created the Universe, He is capable of all things. Suffering as a human would be like having a bad dream. Dying isn’t a big deal, He’s infinite.

Taking the assumption that He is God. I just don’t know why I should be impressed at this particular feat of incarnation and resurrection. Creating the sun is much more impressive.

 

[Oreoracle]

The issue is how virtue originated in an impersonal, purposeless universe.

How does the universe being purposeless and impersonal make virtue absurd? You have never once shown that this is the case in all the time I’ve known you on this site. I don’t see how the lack of a divine plan makes morality impossible.

Your reluctance to give an explanation puts you in a very weak position.

I’m not “reluctant” to explain myself, I just don’t want to do it first. This is how it always works: 1) A Christian claims morality without God is impossible; 2) An atheist asks why this is so; 3) The Christian dodges the question and asks for an alternative view from the atheist; 4) The atheist plays along and gives his explanation; 5) The Christian focuses the debate on attacking the atheist’s viewpoint and never gives their own even though the initial burden of proof was on them since they made the first claim–that is, that morality without God is impossible.

You aren’t going to weasel out of the burden of proof that is currently on you by trying to distract me. I ask again for your justification for your as of yet unsubstantiated claim: Why is morality impossible without God?

To ask questions without giving any answers leads nowhere and makes others wonder whether you really have any…

Why should the person asking the questions have to supply the answers? That’s nonsense. Does that mean students should have to answer their own questions instead of teachers, or that lawyers should answer their own questions instead of their witnesses?

Look, in an honest debate, you can ask questions, or you can answer them. But to force one person to do both all of the time is suffocating and dishonest. It allows you to make claims without supporting arguments and then force others to rebut your non-arguments.

Once again you are putting God into a human category which does not apply to the Creator of everything.

One wonders how Christians conjure up these “commonsense” rules that only apply to one being in the universe that has never been observed by a living human. For a person who isn’t one and hasn’t actually meant one, you seem to know a lot about the nature of divine beings. Either that, or Christians have just tweaked their conception of God so he’s exempt from any criticism. I find the latter far more likely.

God is motivated by love - which is not capricious but consistent and compassionate.

I think your answer to this question will be enlightening: Would God be loving even if he hadn’t created anything? Is the Christian definition of love so vacuous that it applies even if nothing existed for God to love? That would be a strange conception of love, don’t you agree?

God is the Creator by definition…

Hold up a moment. So we can agree that there would have to have been a time before God had created anything, right? At that time, God wouldn’t have been a creator, and so he wouldn’t have been God because your definition requires that he be a creator. I know the whole notion of time in the absence of the universe is supposed to be perplexing, but time is simply the measure of the succession of events and God planning and creating count as “events” in my book.

So you finally agreed that God is good without the act of creation? Splendid. Now whenever you say that God is good because he created life, I can say that you believe he would be good even if he didn’t, and so his creation of life isn’t actually what makes him good at all.

 

[mistfall]

Kreeft and Tacelli in Handbook of Christian Apologetics make an argument that seems to go like this:

-An evil is properly understood in terms of what should be there, but is not. A thing is good (in its kind) if it succeeds in being the kind of thing it is to its fullest. It is bad if it fails to do so.

-God, as the Supreme Being and source of existence cannot fail to be God to the fullest. Since He is the bottom-line, ultimate “is”, so to speak, an absence cannot be one of His attributes.

I don’t think this argument holds water. It seems to me to be a tautology.

So as applied to God it seems to say:
We know that the Ultimate Existence (=God) succeeds in being Ultimate Existence to the fullest - i.e., to the Ultimate.
Therefore, God succeeds in being God.

I’m not sure a tautology can be considered a logical proof.

It also seems to involve an assumption that we can know what “should be there” for a given thing i.e. that we know what is Good as far as that thing is concerned (the Platonic Ideal of the thing). I would think that itself requires proof.

It also seems use equivocal definitions. (Changing terms from evil to bad, implying they are synonyms. Are they?)

Consider some examples: it is the nature of a tiger to be promiscuous in its mating habits. A completely monogamous tiger would not be thoroughly tiger-like, and therefore a Bad (Evil?) tiger. A rabbit is a kind of thing that is fearful of predators. Humans have bred rabbits that are tame and not fearful of predators. Humans have therefore bred Bad (Evil?) rabbits.

I think we don’t have any means of knowing God is good apart from revelation. It seems to me that a big part of what Jesus came here to do was to settle that question. So believing that God is good depends a great deal on how much you trust Jesus’ word about Him.

 

[I_love_rocks]

You make it sound as though he’s considered good for that reason. But remember that God was not obligated to create us, and therefore Christianity would consider him good even if he created nothing.

You can’t have it both ways. If God is good for a particular reason, he wouldn’t be good if that reason weren’t the case, and Christianity does not support that reasoning. God is good for no reasons, and so he doesn’t have to do anything to gain that status.

I would have to respectfully disagree. It’s not that God is good for some specific reason… Ergo… if the reason fails to exist, so does His goodness. This is highy subjective, and false. God is the source of goodness, and the fountain from which goodness springs. His essence is goodness. His being is goodness. He is eternal, so He cannot fail to be. His actions are altogether good, and His thoughts are altogether good, without spot or blemish. He desires only that which is good, and hates that which is not good. God’s substance is good. His Will is good. His purposes are good. There’s absolutely nothing not-good about God. He’s not only good… He is goodness itself. And He HAS to swear by Himself. He looked around and there was no one higher. He is the highest. The Almighty and ever-living God. He is the only living God and besides him there can be no other. He is Truth and His word and His revelation of Himself are fully Truth. He is perfect, so He cannot fail to be good, to be perfect, and to be Truth. His Word is trustworthy and His testimony, even and especially about Himself, is perfect. There’s nothing about God that fails to be good. Ask HIm. He’ll show you, but you need to be willing to look. God Bless you with His goodness.

 

[shoe]

I think that God is good, not because of any goodness that may exist apart from God’s nature; rather, God is good because goodness is one of His attributes and a fundamental part of His nature. And because God cannot act or exist apart from His attributes, His goodness makes it impossible for Him to either commit or be tempted by anything evil. If God existed but did not have His attribute of goodness, or one of His other attributes, then He would not be the God that Christians worship. And since God is “from everlasting to everlasting,” all goodness in the world is be examined in relation to Him.

 

[MarcoPolo]

But for an infinite being it’s not much of a gesture really. What is the span of a human life to an infinite omnipotent being. A human life isn’t even significant on a planetary time level. Also, although painful the passion wasn’t the worst fate a human ever has suffered.

I also used to look at it as you describe here. But I’ve since gathered more on the theology on the matter. First, why should He do anything at all? He doesn’t need us. And for an infinite being to confine Himself to a finite bodily form is the ultimate in self-condescension. It is infinite humility. It is the “Creator” allowing Himself to be “destroyed” by the “creatures.” Plus, His innocence was infinite, so His suffering necessarily surpasses any mortal’s. And His sacrifice is eternal, not just temporal as you describe. Because of His gesture, our suffering also will be temporal, not eternal. Christ’s work is not confined to a particular time and place only. Not only do we suffer with Him as extensions of the Body on the Cross, but our faith teaches that His sacrifice was indeed “eternal”:*Jesus’ act belongs to human history, for he is truly human and has entered into history. At the same time, however, Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity; he is the eternal Son, who is not confined within time or history. His actions transcend time, which is part of creation. “Passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation” (Heb 9:11), Jesus the eternal Son of God made his act of sacrifice in the presence of his Father, who lives in eternity. Jesus’ one perfect sacrifice is thus eternally present before the Father, who eternally accepts it. This means that in the Eucharist, Jesus does not sacrifice himself again and again. Rather, by the power of the Holy Spirit his one eternal sacrifice is made present once again, represented, so that we may share in it. (USCCB, The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, 2.2, 2001) *No act of temporal human suffering can be compared to that.

 

[Benadam]

Our late Great Pope John Paul II expressed the the unbound humility of God with these simple words " could God stoop any lower?"

God. The Creator of all that is, The One who always was, entered time and history in the form of a creature among His creatures, a hominid, So we could know Him as fully as possible God stooped so low as to become a primate. God could not stoop any lower.

 

[tonyrey]

The issue is how virtue originated in an impersonal, purposeless universe.

If the universe exists for no reason or purpose nothing in the universe exists for a reason or purpose. Virtue and morality are meaningless without reason or purpose.

Once again you are putting God into a human category which does not apply to the Creator of everything.

One wonders how Christians conjure up these “commonsense” rules that only apply to one being in the universe that has never been observed by a living human.

It doesn’t require much intelligence to realise that Ultimate Reality does not fall into any human category. Have you ever observed your mind?

God is motivated by love - which is not capricious but consistent and compassionate.

I think your answer to this question will be enlightening: Would God be loving even if he hadn’t created anything?

God **is **Love - the greatest Power that exists.

God is the Creator by definition…

So we can agree that there would have to have been a time before God had created anything, right?

There was no such time because time and space co-exist with the universe.

At that time, God wouldn’t have been a creator, and so he wouldn’t have been God because your definition requires that he be a creator.

Even if God created nothing His own existence is due to creative activity.

I know the whole notion of time in the absence of the universe is supposed to be perplexing, but time is simply the measure of the succession of events and God planning and creating count as “events” in my book.

Divine events are unlike physical events because they do not occur in time and space.

Now whenever you say that God is good because he created life, I can say that you believe he would be good even if he didn’t, and so his creation of life isn’t actually what makes him good at all.

God’s goodness is manifested in all created things as well as in His own existence.

 

[jonfawkes]

I also used to look at it as you describe here. But I’ve since gathered more on the theology on the matter. First, why should He do anything at all? He doesn’t need us.

Because He made us, He is responsible for us. Just as I am responsible for my children.

And for an infinite being to confine Himself to a finite bodily form is the ultimate in self-condescension. It is infinite humility.

If we are made in God’s image by Him how is that humbling to Him.

It is the “Creator” allowing Himself to be “destroyed” by the “creatures.”

But He had to be destroyed to pay Himself a debt, that He alone could pay.

Plus, His innocence was infinite, so His suffering necessarily surpasses any mortal’s.

By extension wouldn’t His endurance for pain also be infinite.

And His sacrifice is eternal, not just temporal as you describe. Because of His gesture, our suffering also will be temporal, not eternal. Christ’s work is not confined to a particular time and place only. Not only do we suffer with Him as extensions of the Body on the Cross, but our faith teaches that His sacrifice was indeed “eternal”

But if His sacrifice is eternal (outside of time) He has always suffered the incarnation is incidental. Eternal has no beginning or end. We have little to do with it.

Jesus’ act belongs to human history, for he is truly human and has entered into history. At the same time, however, Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity; he is the eternal Son, who is not confined within time or history. His actions transcend time, which is part of creation. “Passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation” (Heb 9:11), Jesus the eternal Son of God made his act of sacrifice in the presence of his Father, who lives in eternity. Jesus’ one perfect sacrifice is thus eternally present before the Father, who eternally accepts it. This means that in the Eucharist, Jesus does not sacrifice himself again and again. Rather, by the power of the Holy Spirit his one eternal sacrifice is made present once again, represented, so that we may share in it. (USCCB, The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, 2.2, 2001) [/INDENT]

No act of temporal human suffering can be compared to that.

Again it being eternal we as humans have little to do with it. It was happening when Abraham started worshiping YHWH.

 

[unleash97]

is God good? do we not see evil in the world? then how can we say that God is good?

there are many senses a thing can be said to be good, and following st. thomas of aquinas’

explanation, God is said to be good because He is the Ipsum Esse Subsistens and Actus Purus.

now, what do these imply? something is good insofar as it IS, that is existing, in act,

while evil is the privation of existence, of something that is perfective, hence of

goodness. further, a thing is said to be good in two ways, that is, according to its

entitative perfections and perfective acts (which is then either immanent or transcendental)

. God’s entitative perfection surpasses everything inasmuch as He is Pure Act, His very

nature is actuality itself unlike in created nature whose actuality is limited by their

essence -He is therefore the subsistent Perfection and hence Goodness with out equal.
that is in philosophy, and dont get me wrong, we are in phlosophy forums. but I guess, you

dont really need a philosophical answer as the motives behind your counter-arguments are

more on the level of psychological and moral bias. to say that God is not good merely

because there are evil things in the world is pleading with ad misericordiam.
on the more sentimental level, perceptions are more or less influenced by emotions, blurring

one’s mind with subjective sentiments. it is indeed quite abhorable, mind-shattering, to

think that a child rotting while still alive is left by an all-good and almighty God to

suffer. and yes, there are probably thousands of them suffering out there. as you continue

to think of these enourmous injustices and tragedies that other humans have fallen into, you

are probably in the comforts of your home doing nothing but just to voice your sentiments.

you better stop complaining on this supposed all-good God’s indifference to human sufferings

and instead start to make a difference. ease the world of its pains, diffuse kindness. do

whatever is in your power to enlighten and save as much as you can. dont wait for miracles

to happen, and please stop treating God as if He is our garbageman for you know not how

great is the pain that He endures as He sees the afflictions of men.
with the current rate of catastrophies in our world, it is now the perfect time for us to

stand and do whatever we can to assuage the sufferings of our unfortunate fellow men. only

by doing something can we eradicate that gloomy cloud of injustice in our world, and only

then can you realize the real goodness of God for He is operative in the hearts of men, from

you suffering humanity will be able to see the goodness of God clothed in flesh.
yeah, He is good, He moves us to the aid of others, letting us to participate in His

boundless goodness so that we may be like Him, His sons and daughters.

 

[MarcoPolo]

Because He made us, He is responsible for us. Just as I am responsible for my children.

God does take care of His children. So that qualifies for love.

If we are made in God’s image by Him how is that humbling to Him.

God’s image does not mean a duplicate of divinity, so this argument doesn’t apply. God is not a created being. He condescended to creaturehood in the Second Person.

But He had to be destroyed to pay Himself a debt, that He alone could pay.

He wasn’t “required” to pay anything. Again, He died out of love for man.

By extension wouldn’t His endurance for pain also be infinite.

Since the account has Him crying out in pain, the answer is no. Again, He condescended to creaturehood.

But if His sacrifice is eternal (outside of time) He has always suffered the incarnation is incidental. Eternal has no beginning or end. We have little to do with it.

The suffering has no eternity if it did not occur in time. The work extends in both directions. I don’t follow where the lack of love comes in from your statement here. It just sounds like belligerence.

Again it being eternal we as humans have little to do with it. It was happening when Abraham started worshiping YHWH.

Again, not following your proof of God’s lack of love in this statement. It sounds like you think a being that is both infinite and loving is a contradiction and I can’t really respond to the sense in that.

 

[jonfawkes]

How is incarnating condescending? He is still God.

If His suffering is our salvation, and His suffering is eternal, He was suffering before we needed salvation. We are irrelevant to the scenario. Jesus was already suffering before man was created.

 

[Benadam]

How is incarnating condescending? He is still God.

If His suffering is our salvation, and His suffering is eternal, He was suffering before we needed salvation. We are irrelevant to the scenario. Jesus was already suffering before man was created.

He suffered as a human being. He now sits at the right hand of the Father. Seated because He has accomplished on earth the will of His Father. His work on earth is done. Now He sits as judge.

Jesus’ divine nature was the reason His acts are eternal. The experience of suffering isn’t eternal because the experience is human and subject to change.

In Revelation St John writes; Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord. From henceforth now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; for their works follow them. Their acts are changeless realities but the labour, or suffering involved in doing them is finished. Their acts are not like Jesus’ acts in that Jesus’ is an eternal being but their acts enter into eternity by participation in the eternal acts of Jesus.They are works that bless them when they enter into eternity.

The lamb is sacrificed from the foundation of the world because the sacrificial act is a divine act. The act is also the act of a human so, though the act is a changeless eternal reality, it is also a human experience subject to time.

 

[Oreoracle]

If the universe exists for no reason or purpose nothing in the universe exists for a reason or purpose.

It may be true that we did not come about for the sake of a purpose, but that doesn’t mean we can’t create a purpose for ourselves and be driven toward it. Humans are obviously creative–we don’t need God to do it for us. Think about the atheists who lead purpose-driven lives. Would you insist that they’re lying to themselves?

Virtue and morality are meaningless without reason or purpose.

Sure, but you haven’t addressed why humans themselves can’t supply the reason and purpose for morality. What’s stopping us? Even before the conception of God, morality served the purpose of preventing human society from collapsing. That morality was created by us, for a purpose, and without God’s help.

It doesn’t require much intelligence to realise that Ultimate Reality does not fall into any human category.

I didn’t say God fell into a “human category”. But even being separate categorically doesn’t guarantee that every argument that applies to humans and other objects/subjects won’t apply to God, and yet Christians claim to know this. It should be obvious what’s going on here. If I claimed the universe were hatched from a giant chicken named Lord Big-Beak, you would think I were a moron, and you would try to contradict me immediately. If I proceeded to state that you were trying to put Lord Big-Beak in a “human category” and that our Lord would be exempt from such arguments, you would roll on the floor laughing.

Placing God in a different “category” than everything else is just a transparent attempt to make him unfalsifiable and above criticism and questioning.

God **is **Love - the greatest Power that exists.

Oh, this looks like the beginning of a math proof!

God = Love

And Christians also assert that:

God = Existence

Therefore:

Love = Existence

Wait, that doesn’t seem right.

See what happens when you equate God to abstractions?

There was no such time because time and space co-exist with the universe.

If God carried out an action, and actions require time, time must have existed for God to act. Or are you going to try and weasel out of this by categorically separating God’s actions from any other actions? How utterly convenient for your entire belief system. It’s almost like your religion was intentionally tweaked to prevent this point from being raised…

And if you think I’m wrong about my friend Lord Big-Beak up there, I can use similar arguments to defend him. All you’re doing is giving God special treatment over everything else, and we can do the same for any entity, whether it be God or Lord Big-Beak. That’s the defining characteristic of special treatment, after all: it separates something from a group without providing a reason (in other words, arbitrarily), and because we don’t have to provide a reason, it can be used with anything, whether we’re talking about your god or my satirical god.

Even if God created nothing His own existence is due to creative activity.

That makes no sense. How can you have creative activity without creation?! :banghead:

Divine events are unlike physical events because they do not occur in time and space.

Two words: Special. Treatment.

Why should some events, namely “divine” ones, be exempt from the rules of non-divine ones?

God’s goodness is manifested in all created things as well as in His own existence.

I’m pretty sure saying that God’s existence is a manifestation of his own goodness is a tautology. If you believe someone’s good then yes, of course their own existence will make their own good manifest. They wouldn’t be good otherwise because they wouldn’t exist.

 

[jonfawkes]

The lamb is sacrificed from the foundation of the world because the sacrificial act is a divine act. The act is also the act of a human so, though the act is a changeless eternal reality, it is also a human experience subject to time.

If the sacrifice happened before it happened temporally why did it even have to take place temporally.

Before the World was created the sacrifice had been made. Before man fell the sacrifice had been made. Before He died and was resurrected the sacrifice had been made.

It makes the fall of man an illusion. The “cure” was already in place. Nothing happened when man fell. It was already resolved before it happened. The temporal aspect is just smoke and mirrors.

It also seems to be like Munchhausen by proxy. We are told we are sick when we are not.

 

[tonyrey]

If the universe exists for no reason or purpose nothing in the universe exists for a reason or purpose.

You are assuming that we have free will - which in your materialistic scheme of things infringes the law of conservation of energy.

Humans are obviously creative–we don’t need God to do it for us. Think about the atheists who lead purpose-driven lives. Would you insist that they’re lying to themselves?

They’re deceiving themselves if everything has physical causes which are purposeless.

Virtue and morality are meaningless without reason or purpose.

Sure, but you haven’t addressed why humans themselves can’t supply the reason and purpose for morality. What’s stopping us?

Nothing! But then morality is merely an arbitrary set of rules that people can - and do - reject or ignore.

Even before the conception of God, morality served the purpose of preventing human society from collapsing. That morality was created by us, for a purpose, and without God’s help.

Is that the sole purpose of morality?

It doesn’t require much intelligence to realise that Ultimate Reality does not fall into any human category.

I didn’t say God fell into a “human category”. But even being separate categorically doesn’t guarantee that every argument that applies to humans and other objects/subjects won’t apply to God, and yet Christians claim to know this. It should be obvious what’s going on here.

It should be obvious that Ultimate Reality is unique, infinite and indefinable.

If I claimed the universe were hatched from a giant chicken named Lord Big-Beak, you would think I were a moron, and you would try to contradict me immediately. If I proceeded to state that you were trying to put Lord Big-Beak in a “human category” and that our Lord would be exempt from such arguments, you would roll on the floor laughing.

There is no correspondence between your fantasy and reality whereas human rationality is more adequately explained by divine rationality than irrational processes…

Placing God in a different “category” than everything else is just a transparent attempt to make him unfalsifiable and above criticism and questioning.

In that case atheists have been wasting their time for thousands of years in their attempts to falsify theism! Do you reckon the Problem of Evil is worthless?

God is Love - the greatest Power that exists.

Oh, this looks like the beginning of a math proof!

God = Love

And Christians also assert that:

God = Existence

Therefore:

Love = Existence

Wait, that doesn’t seem right.

What do you value more than love?

See what happens when you equate God to abstractions?

See what happens when you equate truth, freedom, justice and love with abstractions? What are you left with?

There was no such time because time and space co-exist with the universe.

If God carried out an action, and actions require time, time must have existed for God to act. Or are you going to try and weasel out of this by categorically separating God’s actions from any other actions? How utterly convenient for your entire belief system. It’s almost like your religion was intentionally tweaked to prevent this point from being raised…

You’re fond of the word “weasel” but it is not a term used in philosophical discussions. It reveals a lack of objectivity. You have also used an argumentum ad hominem. Please refrain from making all these irrelevant remarks which merely reveal your aggressive attitude to religion.

Time and space did **not **exist before the physical universe was created.

And if you think I’m wrong about my friend Lord Big-Beak up there, I can use similar arguments to defend him. All you’re doing is giving God special treatment over everything else, and we can do the same for any entity, whether it be God or Lord Big-Beak.

You can do the same but you have no **rational **basis for doing so.

That’s the defining characteristic of special treatment, after all: it separates something from a group without providing a reason (in other words, arbitrarily), and because we don’t have to provide a reason, it can be used with anything, whether we’re talking about your god or my satirical god.

Belief in God is based on the principle of adequate explanation. It is absurd to explain reason in terms of that which lacks reason.

Even if God created nothing His own existence is due to creative activity.

That makes no sense. How can you have creative activity without creation?!

What happens when you use your intelligence, imagination and make decisions? Are you being uncreative? Do you have to produce visible results?

Divine events are unlike physical events because they do not occur in time and space.

Two words: Special. Treatment.

Physical events: Special. Treatment.

Why should some events, namely “divine” ones, be exempt from the rules of non-divine ones?

Why should non-divine events be the only events? This is just an assumption made by materialists.

God’s goodness is manifested in all created things as well as in His own existence.

I’m pretty sure saying that God’s existence is a manifestation of his own goodness is a tautology. If you believe someone’s good then yes, of course their own existence will make their own good manifest. They wouldn’t be good otherwise because they wouldn’t exist.

Don’t you believe your existence is good? Don’t you believe you are good in any respect?