Is the God of the Bible Good?

[Aloysium]

Aha! I think I understand what the problem is. I have a direct experience with a independently-purposeful life (i.e. my own) while you do not. Your only experience with purpose and meaning is when they are dictated to you by others; thus you can not imagine what it is like to make them for yourself. We have meaning precisely because we are capable reflecting on our actions and circumstances and ascribing meanings and purposes to them, while other forms of matter cannot. I will ask you this, therefore: If you think that we can not create purpose on our own because we are formed from purposeless things, then what is God’s own ? I expect a direct answer to this question. After all, if God himself has no purpose, then your assertion that we can’t have a purpose if the things that form us lack a purpose cuts both ways. . .

Aha! I think I understand what the problem is. I have a direct experience with a dependently-purposeful life (ie my own in relation to the universe in which I participate and to God, from whom my existence derives) while you do not.
Your experience of purpose and meaning has been picked and chosen from a selection of views inculcated in you from the time of your birth by family and society in general. You cannot imagine what possibilities exist for one’s relationships with Reality outside what life has offered you thus far. (The final chapter’s not been written.)
Matter, in the same way that the paint does not contain the beauty and meaning of the work of art, does not provide purpose. Purpose is to be found in our relationships. God who is perfect relation, Love, is the Source of ultimate meaning.