Goodness of God Revisited Again

From the time I started this blog, discussions on the question of God’s goodness have been of primary prevalence. Therefore I find myself thinking and writing on this topic far more often than any other topic.

The most common objections to God’s goodness are the actions recorded in the Old Testament, the existence of evil, and the doctrine of hell. The problem anyone encounters with the first two is that one has to have a different point of reference for good outside of God in order support an argument that God’s actions are not good. Not to mention, if God does not exist, and is not available as the point of reference for goodness, then there is nothing to contend in the first place, for there were no such actions by the hand of God.

To argue against His goodness rather than His existence allows, for the sake of argument, for Him to indeed exist. Now if the Bible God exists, the Bible God has certain attributes that describe His nature. God, being one, rather than a sum of parts, is not a collection of His attributes. We speak of His attributes separately at times, but they are one, just as He is one.

As discussed in the previous post, God is not just in one situation and merciful in another. He at all times is doing or saying the just and merciful thing. At the same time, His goodness is one with His justice and mercy. His actions come from His nature. They cannot be different than who He is. God is not like us in that He chooses to respond differently than He wants to. He always does that which He wants for His will is one with His nature. To use His doing all that He wants as a refutation that He is good is illogical. For His want is one with His nature which is good. Doing whatever He wants, is precisely doing that which is good. In contrast, we have a duplicitous nature and we often do the things we ought not to do because we want to do that rather than what we know is good and at times we do the good thing by choice even when we want something we ought not want. This is not so with God. He always does according to His nature which is good. There is nothing external governing Him. There is no authority greater than Him.

To move from the philosophical to the illustrative, the next common contention against the goodness of God is to point out particular actions of God as evidence that He is not really good for a good being would never do such and such. The problem in this is that we ourselves are not infinitely good and so we cannot be the point of reference for goodness. Thus we have nothing outside of God to declare something He did as wrong. If the Bible God is real, and the Old Testament records are true, we were created by this God. Thus our idea of what is good cannot supercede His.

Now as to the question of evil, if there is evil then there must be good. And if there is both good and evil then there must be a way to differentiate between the two. That way cannot come from those who are doing the evil and the good; it has to come from a good source that is not corrupted by evil. A source that is good infinitely or eternally. The evil then is that which is different from that good and the only way anyone can call something evil is to have some idea of something else being good and knowing that this evil thing is not that good thing. Hence, a point of reference outside of us is required. Now, that point of reference does not need a point of reference. Nor can that point of reference be an abstract theory of man or an abstract form in the cosmos, it needs being to have realness. A supernatural eternal being that is absolutely good and gains His existence from none outside of Himself is necessary to support a worldview that says there is good and evil.

However, if one is not maintaining such a worldview and there is no evil and no good, things only are amorally then this view would not need such a foundation. Naturalism will do nicely to support this view of things, but few are willing to abandon certain actions as being amoral rather than down right wrong, unjust, or evil. Such a worldview is difficult to live out for as soon as someone does something “wrong” to you the view ought to be quickly abandoned and a call of injustice issued.

Lastly, there is the doctrine of hell. The argument is that a good God with such infinite power and love ought to have come up with something less revolting than an eternity in torment for those who do not have relationship with Him. However, God is the source of eternal life. Being outside of Him is being outside of that eternal good life. That is a tormenting existence when all is said and done and one has passed on into eternity. It cannot be otherwise, God’s life isn’t in that existence. His Presence is not manifested there. Therefore, it is tormenting, it is destructive, it is horrid. This is not a place where God wants any of us. He sent Jesus so that all would have the opportunity to be pulled out of the existence that leads to such perishing. The door to the good eternal life—the heavenly reality—is Jesus. It is in Jesus therefore He is the only way. Hell is then not something God is doing to us, but something He has made the way for us to avoid for it was never a place meant for mankind, but a place created for Satan and his demons to be bound for eternity. God does not send anyone to hell. He opens His to us to find life in Him as we are designed to, but gives us the freedom to continue in our own ways apart from Him which will sadly separate us forever from His life.

God’s goodness cannot be proven by weighing God’s actions and commands and finding them to fall short of Himself. There is not another standard worthy of being an instrument of measurement against God. He is the good authority. There is no authority greater than Him. God is always Himself. If He is, then He is good. If He is not, then the entire discussion is irrelevant for there is no one to judge.

Square One: Goodness & God

Now that the tests of a worldview have been somewhat agreed upon, I will attempt to address the main topic of the comments in this post. The topic of discussion has revolved around the goodness of God.

My position is that if God exist, He is necessarily good. God being the greatest of all possible entities would necessitate His being the greatest good. Also, God being the greatest, hence the perfect absolute eternal being, would necessitate an unchanging nature for perfection doesn’t get more or less perfect.

Moreover, if goodness exists it needs an ontological form. It necessitates an eternal absolute being to even be a meaningful concept. It must be more than an abstract concept, such as Plato’s forms. The alternative argument is that goodness as such does not exist and all good and evil constructs are culturally determined and do not correspond to any greater concept of “good.” One culture’s assertion of good cannot be any better or worse than another culture by any outside standard that can be appealed to by both cultures. If the competing standards lead to war, the winning nation sets the standard because they have the power to do so, not because there standard is more right, just more powerful.

Now the tendency of those who disagree with the philosophy above is to retort with instances of the Bible God’s actions recorded in the Old Testament as evidence of His not being good. The actions of God brought into the argument are third level (see last post) evidence without regard to the first level philosophy. I would like to see a philosophical – non anecdotal – response to the above philosophical position before bringing the discussion to the third level. In so doing, let us suppose no actions of said God have been recorded and we are only looking at the philosophical.

The question of where “good” is rooted and what “good” means must first be established before judging any practical data as good or evil. The above is both an argument for God’s goodness, and for His existence because whether we start with the existence of a real “goodness” rather then the existence of God my argument shows that this leads to the necessity of an eternal being where that good is rooted. If however, you are a proponent of the view that “good” is culturally determined and does not line up with an idea of “good” itself then it will not lead you to the conclusion of God’s existence. In that event we would have to examine the later view of good in greater depth to see if that lines up with reality and works in the practical level just as we would have to then look and see of God being good measures itself out in the practical. But let us start in level one before illustrating in level three if possible.

Furthermore, some discussion has revolved around this topic in the comments in the first level with discussion of whether a God that can be only good can be all powerful. For would not all powerful necessitate the ability to do something not good. To that I respond that if the greatest state of existence -- perfection -- is goodness than God being fully good and incapable of being less than good, would not be a limitation but an attribute of perfection.

A Standard For Knowledge and Morality

Note: This post began as a comment to respond to cyber kitten's comment to my last post. Due to the length I am posting it here. Please note that I am addressing the perspective shared as quoted and not suggesting it is representative of all atheists.

Cyber kitten: “I'm not sure if there is such a thing as a representative atheist just as there is no such thing as a representative theist. Personally I'm on the subjective end of the spectrum.”

I can certainly accept that there are differing perspectives within the broader atheists’ category. I try to address the main ones I have encountered. I was hoping to see what Kevin’s response was to your response before responding, but he has not weighed in yet. When I address subjectivism I am not saying that all atheists think this way, but I am addressing those who do. I am not trying to claim that all atheists think the same way. All theists are not the same. I hope everyone can understand that simply because I address a way of thinking that I am not trying to set up a straw man for all who claim to be atheists. Moreover as Quixote pointed out we may mean different things by our word choices and need to look at that before assuming what we mean.

Cyber Kitten: “I think he's right when he says that if you're not a Christian you can't really have Christian values - but of course many of the values claimed as Christian are pretty universal (the Golden rule for example).”

There are ethics that are specific to Christian teaching. I think though what I gathered from what Nietzsche was saying wasn’t simply a certain kind of morality, but the base for morality itself was nonexistent if there is no God. Again I am no authority on Nietzsche, so if anyone reading this is better acquainted with him please correct me if I err. I think he did indeed struggle with the conclusion for he saw that such a world without moral adherence would be unlivable. I think this bothered him greatly. I also see that “new atheists” do not agree with Nietzsche because morality is so widely adhered to regardless of belief in God. (see next paragraph for qualification)

However, I contend that it’s not ones belief in God or lack of belief in God which creates the need to be moral, but that we are designed by God with the moral knowledge irrespective of our environment or culture unless some stimuli robs us of our moral sense. Just the same, due to our fallen nature we often do the things we know we ought not to do even while we understand we “ought not to.” That moral awareness is a God given protection to keep us physically, emotionally, and spiritually from the consequences of living outside our created order and to draw us to Him who can supernaturally enable us to live life to the utmost – the fullest available to us which is beyond our imagination, but can be found in Him.

Cyber Kitten: “I think that largely Secular societies are 'going through the motions' where morality is concerned. Few people have any ethical training and I don't think that most people really give it much thought. Of course this doesn't mean that its either Christianity (or theism) or nothing (or nihilism). There's lots of ethical thinking out there that can be accessed by anyone with an interest in the subject.”

Small children know right from wrong even before they are taught. They will cry out “I had it first.” or “He can’t take it from me.” or “She shouldn’t hit me.” They know from a young age what’s right and wrong. All cultures have a sense of right and wrong even if they disagree on the code of ethics. Yes, much of the world simply goes through the motions. Even Christians in churches are merely trying to follow a moral code because they think they ought to, to earn favor with God. Jesus, however, came to change our nature to ones who live lives of love from a place of knowing Him and pouring out to others selflessly. Not because we follow a code of morality to earn righteousness, but because righteousness was given freely to us by God and it is He who enables us to love in a way that is impossible without being united with Him the way we were created to be. It is through that relationship with Him that we can become people who start to love like God does.

karla said: The only way to be certain is to find a stable eternal foundation for all knowledge/truth. If such a foundation doesn't exist there can be no certainty.

cyber kitten said: That pretty much is my position.

What is the point of knowing anything if it is all unknowable if there is no firm foundation? If all that you know is uncertainly known then it seems pointless to gain more knowledge. How can you trust anything you know even that there is no God? You may say given the lack of evidence it’s the surest place to be in, but if there was evidence you couldn’t trust it without believing He exist and is the eternal stable firm foundation of all truth.

Cyber Kitten said: But nothing is "wrong for all people in all times" is it?

I don’t see right and wrong as being solely culturally determined. Sure cultures create morality at times – certain dress codes or city laws etc. But over all things like child abuse, murder, rape, etc. are wrong for all times in all cultures and in all places. Even if we don’t talk specifics we know that all people (except a few with physiological disorders) have a sense of right and wrong even if the specifics are disagreed about. That knowledge of not living up to a standard of good is in all of us, we all fall short of it, every one of us.

cyber kitten said: I find it difficult to understand how anyone can say that morality is objective. There is nowhere outside of culture that we can stand to say such a thing.

Only if an eternal good God exists do we have a place to stand to know that there is objective morality and at the same time love those who fall short of the standard (which is all of us). If there is no objective standard, there is no wrong doing that means anything beyond the cultural level. Yet we all have this feeling of failure to live as “good” as we feel we ought to and yet we have no foundation to posit an “ought” without an objective standard. Otherwise we have no reason to feel we have missed the mark or to see anything another does as wrong no matter who is harmed. We have no call to claim an “ought:” without the firm foundation of an eternal good God.

If you have a piece of cloth that appears to be white and you place it up next to a piece of paper that is perfectly white you will see that the cloth looks rather dirty in contrast. The only way one could say that cloth isn’t white is in comparison to a greater standard than itself. If we look at ourselves in light of the rest of humanity we can say we are doing pretty well. We haven’t killed anyone or hurt anybody and we try to treat people well. Then we look at ourselves compared to a perfect standard, the living God, who created us and we see we aren’t so clean after all and yet there is hope for He offers to freely clean us from all unrighteousness and to show us how to live in a way that frees us from all bondages of sin. He can show us this because He sent Jesus to live the life of a man stripped of His divinity yet still being God to show us how to live a life rightly related to God. Moreover, He doesn’t ask us to live that life on our own strength, but by His strength which enables us to live like never before. Jesus took upon himself our debt to sin so that we could live a heavenly reality.

I think atheists want a solution to the evil in the world just as much as everyone else. However, if God is denied, not only is the solution denied, but also the problem. For if there is no standard then all the “evil” in the world isn’t really evil for there is no standard to judge between good and evil.

Also I have heard some say that if God exist, He is to blame for the evil because He is all powerful and hasn’t ended it. G.K. Chesterton once responded to an editorial question “What is wrong with the world?” with two words, “I am.” He knew the evil starts in our hearts and minds before it is actualized in the world. If God eradicated evil from the planet, who would be left standing? Is any heart perfectly free from evil? Is any mind perfectly good? Is any person perfectly good? God doesn’t end evil the way we want Him to because He loves us and has a better way of bringing about our redemption. The Bible says that God isn’t slow in keeping his promises as some understand slowness, but he is patient wanting none to perish. He is working in this world through those who have joined Him in Christ and through His Holy Spirit. He doesn’t force us by His omnipotence to come to Him, but He does pursue us with His love.

The Validity of the Moral "Ought"

Are there moral absolutes? Or does morality change over time? I’ve been contemplating these questions and how best to articulate my thoughts concerning them. If morality changes over time and something becomes wrong that was not wrong in the past, then we give up the right to judge the past. For instance, when slavery was a normal part of society in Europe and the Americas for many years was it right then and now wrong because we have evolved to know it is inhumane? If it was not wrong then, but became wrong we diminish the injustice done to the African people by our philosophy. It either has always been wrong, or slavery is only wrong subjectively in the communities and individuals who believe it to be wrong. Hence one community has no right to impose it’s morality on another. Essentially in this line of reasoning our hands are tied when it comes to present day Sudanese slavery we have no voice to proclaim slavery in their community as wrong. Unless, of course, morality is the same for all people, places, and times.

I enjoy history and minored in history in college. I sat through many a discussion concerning Christopher Columbus. I have read documents where he called Native American’s “savage” and spoke derogatorily of this “uncivilized” people group so foreign to him and his culture. The cultural mindset he carried saw them as less than human and often took advantage of them as our history so sadly reports. Professors like to use Columbus as a good example of how he ought not to be declared a hero of American history, but ought to be despised for his contempt of the Indian people. However, if his ethics concerning them were culturally based and right in his day by all cultural standards, we have no reason to sit in judgment that he ought to have treated them as equal human beings. However, we do know that despite his ignorance of the truth, the Native Americans ought not to have been treated thusly and we have apologized to them as a nation and have rendered financial retribution for our horrific treatment of them. Therefore we see the past actions as not those of a changing morality, but of an injustice done to them in that day. We see it was wrong then as much as it is wrong today to mistreat a fellow human being.

Either we confine morality to each community and time period or even to each family or individual and have no right to tell anyone what “ought” to be, or there is an objective morality to which we appeal throughout the generations cross cultures. However, believing the latter creates a necessity for a giver of that objective morality. If morality is not a product of our own invention and is instead objective and true to all people, then we enter into the Christian worldview. Now, I know here is where people are beginning to object and say that I am inferring connections between objective morality and God that cannot exist and cannot be proven. Maybe I cannot scientifically prove God’s existence. However, if we want to continue to dispense with the idea of God we must dispense with the idea of an objective morality for all people irrespective of community, culture, and time. If it was wrong for the European colonies to participate in slavery and to mistreat the Native Americans even though most of them thought it acceptable and right behavior, then right and wrong exist objectively outside of human construct. If instead, one wants to believe that morality changes, and slavery became wrong then they can only say it is wrong for them or their culture, if their culture agrees, and not for those cultures of old or modern ones still practicing slavery. One cannot have it both ways. And if there is an objective moral standard not created by humanity then where would it have come from?

My answer from the Christian perspective is that God is the giver of this knowledge and the standard of goodness by which all things are measured. And with all things being equal, morality is absolute. If humans are to treat other humans with value simply because they are created as valuable then any action that demeans the value of a person whether it be slavery, murder, abuse, rape, etc. is wrong for all people in all times regardless of culture.

Something is less than good when it fails to keep with God’s good nature. Sin literally means “missing the mark” thus not lining up with the standard. The Bible says that all have sinned. We have all missed the mark, because none of us can be holy without God by His grace and mercy making us righteous through Jesus Christ. If we persist in moral relativity we ignore the standard and make ourselves the giver of morality and I think we all know that we are not good and we do things that break our own standards so how can we be a standard giver? The only one qualified to give a standard is one who doesn’t break it, one who is perfect in goodness. The only one who can sacrifice himself for those who break the standard is one who is perfect and without blemish being sinless himself. The only way we find mercy is through the cross of Christ because He breaks us free from the law of sin and death cleansing us from our unrighteousness and empowering us to live righteously.

For the Christian, doing “good” is not means to earn favor with God. It is because of the favor of God that we love to do what is right. Even Christians forget this and sometimes get into a pattern of trying to earn favor with God and to impose this idea on others that their actions gain them favor or take away God’s favor. In actuality, our actions do not merit us salvation for we cannot save ourselves. We strive in Christ to live lives pleasing to God because we love God and not because we are working for something from God.

Answers From the Christian WorldView Perspective

What is evil? Evil is not really the existence of something as much as it is the absence of something. Evil is the absence of good. It is a result of man living for himself instead of in the righteous way he was designed to live. It is, thus, a product of the God given free-will of man. God could have created men as robots with no freedom. They could then be “good” and love Him because He makes them do that, but would that be love? Would love keep us from harm so much so that it suffocates us into mindless obedience to a Will more powerful than our own to which we have no choice, but to serve? I think we can emphatically answer no. Therefore, the way of love is for God to create humans who can chose to love Him and live ensconced in His love or they can reject Him and live as they please.



Now living contrary to our created purpose will be harmful and against what is good, pure, and holy. It will have consequences because the way of sin leads to death. That is the natural order of things. If something leaves its natural habitat where it belongs and enters an unnatural habitat there will be a significant depletion of its vitality. It is the same for humans. If we live contrary to our created habitat of existence, which is in communion with our life source, God, then we begin to lose the fullness of life and we live in a counterfeit reality. We need our roots to be in God to have the fullness of life. When our roots are in this world instead we do not obtain enough sustenance to be complete. When our nature took on sin when Adam chose to go his own way, humanity was altered, depleted in a sense from our intended nature. Adam spiritually and physically caused a change of events in all humanity. But God is a loving and good God and despite our digging our roots into nature instead of His Super-nature, He in His grace and mercy provided a way to protect us from the consequences of sin. He did this by the most loving act of sacrifice of His own Son who is of His substance, God. This redemption provided by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was not just for those who trust in Jesus after this event, but for all those who looked forward to the promise of redemption before this event. All of creation climaxed and culminates in the redemptive act of Christ. All that was depleted can find restoration in Christ because of His sacrifice.



Why did God have to do it this way? Why not just forgive all our sins with no sacrifice? Or why not just let us do as we please and give us all eternal bliss anyway? The wages of sin is death. Death, physically and spiritually, is the result of sin in the natural order of things. So either we continue in that death—that separation from the life source of God or He dies in our place and substitutes Himself to pay the price that we would have had to pay to protect us and restore us by His works and not by ours. So while all men sin and none are good by themselves. He paid our debt of sin. He suffered so we wouldn’t have to. What greater love can there be? What greater goodness?



You see, eternal life is more than heaven. Heaven is a place where our life continues after the natural body dies, but it is an extension of our source of life while we are living on the earth. If we are in God on earth, we continue the same way upon natural death. We continue that life with God. If we reject God on earth we continue in that place of rejection after death. It’s the state we exist in by our choice, not by His punishment. Eternal life happens when we accept the free gift of the forgiveness of God through Jesus. He promises that He will dwell within us, and commune with us, changing our nature to a redeemed nature versus our nature that is tied to death and the earth due to sin.



I was asked in a comment that if a Christian’s nature is changed why are some atheists more moral than some Christians? It would appear there is nothing to this whole idea that somehow Christians are changed for they are not better in their actions than anyone else who strives to be moral.



The answer is that while spiritually we are made new, sometimes it takes some time for that to mature in outward changes. It is a process of growth in Christ. Some Christians are in a place where they accepted His forgiveness and they have His eternal life, but they never left infancy in their relationship with Him. Sometimes it’s because they held on to some parts of their lives that they did not want to surrender to God and God’s still working out a process of redemption in those areas. Each person’s relationship with God is different and its own journey. There are not to be cookie cutter Christians who are all in the same robotic state of maturity in Christ because they said some prayer and now everything in their life is all-good. Upon accepting God’s forgiveness and coming into relationship with Him, you are at that moment under His grace and mercy and His justice justifies you as holy and pure in His sight. But in the natural there are things that still persist from the old life that often times can take time to work out. You do not suddenly loose your will and become a perfect moral puppet serving God’s every whim. You still have control of your mind, will, and emotions and you still are in a learning process of what it means to know and trust God. God is patient with us and He is kind. Our struggles or our doubts do not offend Him. So you’ll find Christians at all different places in their walk with God.



The important thing is looking at ourselves and our own distance from God. We can’t get to God by being good or being religious or any other way we can come up with by our own ideas. The only way to God, is God coming to us. He has done that through Jesus opening the door for anyone who wants to step through and walk a new walk by His loving strength; therefore entering a new supernatural reality that is more real than our counterfeit realities we derive by our unaided reason. He is the reason we can reason and yet we use it to deny Him instead of to come to Him for even our reason has been adversely affected by the sinful nature. When we use it without Him being our source of truth, we use it in a limited fashion and not in its fullness.

The Reality of Goodness

God is good. For God, to be God, He has to be eternally good. He can’t change back and forth from bad to good because that would make Him less than perfect. And if He is not eternally perfect, He is less than God, and not God at all.

All of humanity, granting a few exceptions, despite our failures, adheres to a standard of goodness versus badness. No one, in his right mind, sets up evil as the preferable standard of living.

Some are of the opinion that the dichotomy of valuing good over evil is a product of evolution and not of God’s design. It must be one or the other, for most people will attest to the existence of good and bad with the understanding of good being the standard by which we must live.

Atheist argue that being good of their own accord and not because God is going to punish them for being otherwise or reward them for their goodness is more admirable than one who desires to be good because God decrees it. However, there in lies a faulty view of God which is not based on real Christianity. Jesus did not come to make mankind more moral, but to transform mankind to a supernatural way of living empowered by Jesus which enables us to live as we were created to live which is not a life bond by sin. It is much more than freedom from bondage to sin, but to focus on the morality issue, we become free from sin, not out of religious compulsion to be good, but out of a changed nature that has been delivered from living in the bondage of sin.

Goodness, thus, is a byproduct of a relationship with Jesus, and not the result of religious compulsion. Thus, we love, not because we “ought to” but because tangible love bubbles up from within us out of our relationship with Christ and it becomes a natural expression by which we live and not something we work at to please a vindictive God. More accurately, it is a supernatural express for it comes not from our heart alone, but from God’s heart through us.

In fact, I think that this argument of the atheist lends itself more to religion than the authentic Christianity I am explaining. Let me expound on this idea. For the atheist to adhere to being good because they are evolved to prefer a standard of good over evil, they are still following rules of goodness. The atheist either follows society’s rules of goodness or their own rules of goodness or some combination of the two. The Christian, on the other hand, does not follow rules of goodness, but is transformed to do what is good as a byproduct of their relationship with Jesus. So “goodness” comes from being connected to God who is good and who transforms our nature versus “goodness” coming from a mere adherence to rules and law. Morality, then, is authentic of who we are in God and who God is in us.

People have a desire to live good lives, while, at the same time, often failing to keep our own standards of goodness, because we were created in God’s image and His stamp of the way things ought to be is ingrained in our very DNA. However, because we have the freedom to choice to follow God’s way of living or our way of living we also have the stamp of a fallen human nature produced when the first man chose his way instead of God’s way. We, thus, struggle between the two natures and when we come to Christ, our fallen nature is replaced by our redeemed nature and through this real tangible relationship with Jesus we become more and more like Him.

This is authentic Christianity. No one by their own efforts can ever perfectly live up to even their own standard of goodness, much less the perfect goodness of God. We all fail. However, God in His perfect goodness and love provided a way to redeem us, making us holy by fellowship with His holiness through the finished work of the cross of Jesus Christ.

Now, of course, if God doesn’t exist and this worldview is merely the creative imagination of a bunch of first century fisherman who miraculously created the best selling book of all time and died torturous deaths for their belief in this reality, then this is all rubbish. Christians are, therefore, mistaking God for what is really the work of an evolutionary process which amazingly created in all mankind a desire to do good even if it is self-sacrificing to do so. Moreover, even though evil still exist in this world, it’s merely a product of evolution as well and yet the entire history of humanity judges evil actions as bad. It’s all a matter of chance as to whether our DNA leads us to good or evil. Or maybe evil is what Christianity claims, a product of man living apart from the way God designed life and man left to his own nature produces evil in some form or another because it is impossible to live up to even our own standards without being connected and redeemed by God.

Life as a Christian is exciting. Real Christianity doesn’t look like religion. It has a taste of heaven, a substance of glory, a freedom of Christ. It is a wondrous reality. The Gospel of Christ is good news about a good God. G.K. Chesterton famously wrote that “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and untried.”