In which case would God not be good?

[PumpkinCookie]

I’ve been thinking: in what world would God not** be able to be called “good” in a meaningful sense?

Consider a world where every single human being who has ever existed ends up in an eternal hell of torment and separation from God. Can we still call God “good” in this world? Why or why not? What would “good” refer to in that case?

What about a world where only one person (let’s say Mary for the sake of argument) goes to heaven and everyone else goes to hell? Would God still be described as “good” in that world?

Or, what if God chose not to reveal himself at all, and then punished everyone in an eternal hell for failing to live up to a moral code that was not obvious or rational.

What if God demanded child sacrifice? Or ritual prostitution? What if these things were “good and noble sacrifices?”

Can you think of a state of affairs such that it would be possible to show that “God is good” is either false, meaningless, or so radically alters the conception of “good” as to be essentially meaningless?

If we can’t come up with an example of a world where we can confidently say that God is not “good” then haven’t we shown that our conception of “good” when applied to God is totally bankrupt? If we aren’t able to discern that which would be “not good” then can’t we say we have no ability to distinguish good from evil and thus when we say “God is good” we communicate absolutely nothing?

Thoughts?

 

[heidi_storage]

Sorry, I can’t even imagine a universe that does not operate according to physics as we know them; much less am I able to speculate on an alternate “God.”

 

[VesselofMercy]

I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying perfectly, but it’s my impression that you’re looking at God and good the wrong way.

We don’t define God by what is good, we define good by what God says is good. In Mark 10:18 Jesus says, “no one is good except God”.

We define good, and justice, and love by who God has revealed Himself to be and what He does, we don’t define God by our human ideas of good, justice, or love. He is a person, not a concept.

 

[John_Martin]

Good in a synonym is “desirable”, Evil is a deficiency or defect in desirability.
God is supremely desirable to be united to.

This doesn’t sound like a bankrupt conception to me.

Because people who prefer to call sin good or desirable then call God not good or not desirable, this does not mean the term good is misunderstood.

When we call God “good” or “desirable”, we are seeking to evoke an appetite or hunger for union with God in others, we are not trying to write a dictionary for them.

 

[v21337304]

God is Love. As such He can do no wrong. God does not condemn anyone to hell. That is done by the person on his own volition. Hell was created for Satan and his followers. And so you end up there if you are his follower.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I’ve been thinking: in what world would God not** be able to be called “good” in a meaningful sense?

Consider a world where every single human being who has ever existed ends up in an eternal hell of torment and separation from God. Can we still call God “good” in this world? Why or why not? What would “good” refer to in that case?

What about a world where only one person (let’s say Mary for the sake of argument) goes to heaven and everyone else goes to hell? Would God still be described as “good” in that world?

Thoughts?

Hypotheticals always bore me.

Why not stick with the facts? God created the world and calls all of us to be with Him in eternity, if we so choose to accept his call. Some do. Some don’t. There may well be more souls in hell than in heaven. God’s goodness is not defined by how many of us choose hell over heaven. God’s goodness is defined by his infinite love for his creation, to the point of dying on the cross to save those he created.

 

[Rhubarb]

The OP reminds me of the Euthyphro Dilemma. Is goodness good because God loves it, or does God love things that are good? The former seems to suggest that God could arbitrarily decide what counts as good - it would be possible then to live in a world where, by divine fiat, clubbing baby puppies is a good act. The latter suggests that what is good depends on something other than God.

It seems strange to me to think that heinous acts could be deemed good by God, and thus be good. I doubt I could ever conceive of a torturous murder as being good. But at the same time, if what is good is so beyond God’s decree, it clashes with the general understanding of God’s power.

 

[tonyrey]

The OP reminds me of the Euthyphro Dilemma. Is goodness good because God loves it, or does God love things that are good? The former seems to suggest that God could arbitrarily decide what counts as good - it would be possible then to live in a world where, by divine fiat, clubbing baby puppies is a good act. The latter suggests that what is good depends on something other than God.

It seems strange to me to think that heinous acts could be deemed good by God, and thus be good. I doubt I could ever conceive of a torturous murder as being good. But at the same time, if what is good is so beyond God’s decree, it clashes with the general understanding of God’s power.

A false dilemma! What is good stems from God’s nature. The Creator is the source of truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love. Nothing exists without His sustaining power.

 

[tonyrey]

I’ve been thinking: in what world would God not be able to be called “good” in a meaningful sense?

Consider a world where every single human being who has ever existed ends up in an eternal hell of torment and separation from God. Can we still call God “good” in this world? Why or why not? What would “good” refer to in that case?

What about a world where only one person (let’s say Mary for the sake of argument) goes to heaven and everyone else goes to hell? Would God still be described as “good” in that world?

Or, what if God chose not to reveal himself at all, and then punished everyone in an eternal hell for failing to live up to a moral code that was not obvious or rational.

What if God demanded child sacrifice? Or ritual prostitution? What if these things were “good and noble sacrifices?”

Can you think of a state of affairs such that it would be possible to show that “God is good” is either false, meaningless, or so radically alters the conception of “good” as to be essentially meaningless?

If we can’t come up with an example of a world where we can confidently say that God is not “good” then haven’t we shown that our conception of “good” when applied to God is totally bankrupt? If we aren’t able to discern that which would be “not good” then can’t we say we have no ability to distinguish good from evil and thus when we say “God is good” we communicate absolutely nothing?

Thoughts?

Hypothetical worlds tell us nothing about God’s nature. Our only guide is reality as we know it.

 

[ChainBreaker]

Hypotheticals always bore me.

Why not stick with the facts? God created the world and calls all of us to be with Him in eternity, if we so choose to accept his call. Some do. Some don’t.

If you don’t love me I will punish you.

That sounds like an obsessive psychotic control freak drunk on power.

 

[ChainBreaker]

The OP reminds me of the Euthyphro Dilemma. Is goodness good because God loves it, or does God love things that are good? The former seems to suggest that God could arbitrarily decide what counts as good - it would be possible then to live in a world where, by divine fiat, clubbing baby puppies is a good act. The latter suggests that what is good depends on something other than God.

It seems strange to me to think that heinous acts could be deemed good by God, and thus be good. I doubt I could ever conceive of a torturous murder as being good. But at the same time, if what is good is so beyond God’s decree, it clashes with the general understanding of God’s power.

Euthyphro Dilemma goes down the toilet with rest of the **** as soon as you realise that love is a nature. God doesn’t just do good, he is goodness itself, and we exist inside of that nature, and so it makes sense that our actions are measured and defined by that nature since it is the very nature through which we exist.

 

[Rhubarb]

“What is good stems from God’s nature. The Creator is the source of truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love. Nothing exists without His sustaining power”

If good is dependent on God’s nature, then a hypothetical change in that nature would change what it good, right? Then, for the sake of argument, if God’s nature were something that allowed for stomping puppies - then it would by necessity be good?

I’m not opposed to this solution to the dilemma - another poster made an appeal to God’s nature too. But what does that mean, and how does it relate to the acts of people? There’s two sort of hand wave-y explanations but it doesn’t say much to me.