More on God's Goodness

I was recently asked to expound on the nature of the goodness of God in a manner that describes what is meant by goodness, rather than what is not meant.

There is nothing one can point to other than God to illustrate what is absolutely good.  The reason stating what is not meant is easier than stating what is meant, is that we can point to things that are not God for an example, but to speak of what is meant, I can only point to God. 

Many would dismiss this as circular reasoning. What is good? God.  How do we know God is good? God.  To be true, it is something that cannot be proven by another measure. If God were not the supreme good, then if there is such a thing, something else would have to be that self-referencing standard. 

Humans certainly aren’t absolute references for ultimate good. This is a fact we know too well. And yet, if we know it, how do we explain that we know it? How do we have a sense that we aren’t doing what is right all the time? And yet, we do know this. We know we fail to be good even though most of us want to be good and beat ourselves up internally when we are not.  If we reject the Biblical reason for this conflict between our desire to be good and our failure to be thus, what are we left with?

Of course, there are many postulations by many different belief systems, but all religion puts forth the need for striving to be more moral, better people.  Prayers, petitions, penance, and priest are all a part of our attempt to be better than we are and to somehow qualify for something greater than we deserve.  Christianity is not exempt. In many people, churches, and cultures, Christianity is about doing the same thing – striving to be better on their own merit to earn God’s acceptance. 

It’s not really debatable any longer that across the board we know we fail to be what we feel we ought to be.  But where is this invisible standard that makes it impossible to do whatever we want without any guilt? Why are we guilt ridden?  Why do we call those who cannot distinguish right from wrong, insane?

The Bible says the truth of God is written all around us in nature so that we are without excuse. We all know we have fallen short. We all know there is a good that we do not measure up to.  Jesus came to show us the way out of our sins and guilt.  He came not to condemn us for we were in that place of condemnation already. We knew full well the guilt and He came not to heap more rules and condemnation upon us, but to remove it. He came to do all the “work” to qualify for us, because work would never get us there.  But He can get us there and He who was pure because impure (became sin) for us and took the wages of sin upon Himself.  He took it all to the grave and He rose again leaving it all buried so that we no longer have to strive to burry our sins, for He came to bring life to whosoever will step into Him and experience His life. 

The reason we fail to be good, is because we are separated from the good God.  Jesus dealt with the sin so that we could be transformed in Him and know the Father just as we know Him. For if we have seen Jesus we have seen the Father.  The good life is not something we can work for, but something we can be given by the good Father. 

This is the essence of the goodness of God.  His heart is turned towards us while we were yet sinners. We were unable to make ourselves good, because goodness was not something that is separate from God. So the only way to become good is for God to take us into Himself again and He did this through Jesus.  There is no other name, no other way, and no other life that will do it for us.  We have a full history from the beginning of time of man trying and failing to be good on their own.  We know this full well. 

Goodness is not definable because a definition denotes limitation and His goodness knows no bounds.  Goodness can only be known by personal experiential connection with God directly or indirectly. Sometimes the indirect experience precedes the direct. We see the goodness of God by seeing a supernatural love demonstrated by a follower of Jesus, or we hear testimony of a miracle that opens our heart towards Him.  Sometimes it is a direct experience where God covers us in His presence and we feel and know His amazing goodness and love.  There are many ways to witness the goodness of God, and once our eyes are open to recognize Him we see that He was there all along and His goodness never failed us.  

Righteousness

This post is to clarify the last post and to answer comment responses given to that post.

God does not wish anyone to do wrong/bad/sinful things. Doing these things harms the person and other people.

We all do these wrong/bad/sinful things. We have all sinned. God takes this seriously, He even equates thinking murderous thoughts as being as bad as doing the deed. Naturally, it’s not as bad for the victim if it wasn’t carried out, but to the person doing the thinking it is harmful to them to have such malice in them.

However, we sin because our nature is sinful and we are bound to that nature by birth since the first sinners sinned because something changed in the very core of humanity and the world when evil was actualized.

Now the way to doing righteous things is to have a righteous nature. But we don’t have a righteous nature in our fallen state, we have a sinful nature. God makes possible for each and every person to have a new nature given as a gift and that gift is Jesus. That new nature is the eternal life of Jesus. This isn’t something bestowed to us from Jesus, this is something Jesus is in His being and when we are in Him we have this new nature too. So from this new nature, righteousness is our being, and when we act according to our new nature righteous good acts are the result.

When a person with this new nature does something sinful they are acting according to a false reality – their old self. It is not who they are anymore, but learning about our new selves is a process that is worked out in time and as we grow in that new reality we grow in external expression of that goodness which is within us.

So it isn’t that God isn’t concerned about our actions. The truth is our actions are a result of our living life from the fallen nature. Our only resource in that situation is to adhere to moral laws of goodness – laws we gain from society, from our conscious, from religion, from culture, etc. But this moral knowledge can point us to the real Answer and are not the Answer in and of themselves. They are a tool to point to Him who can provide a real change in our nature, which will fulfill the law better than any human effort can before redemption.

Paul wrote in Romans that our newfound righteousness does not give us licensee to go on sinning as we please. Quite the contrary, our job as new creations is to make manifest the true reality of our new identity in Christ. We are called to live from that place of righteousness and bear the fruit of such living. This means that others, by watching our lives, ought to see this righteousness that is on the inside flowing forth on the outside.


Thus, what I am speaking of here is very contrary to the idea that God does not care about us not harming ourselves and sinning as we please because He cares very much. So much so that He provided us the ultimate solution to this problem of sin, His own Son.

Also, the reality of heaven isn’t just some place we go to when we die. It is a current reality from which we live as we gain access to the fullness of heaven when we come into God’s Kingdom. Again while it is a reality we have such full access, we are all learning to what that means and how to walk that out in this world.

There is far more available in the Kingdom than finding forgiveness of sins and freedom from our sinful nature. There is a whole new world available that only starts with redemption and salvation. Salvation is not the end of the Christian life, but the beginning.

Good Being v. Good Actions

The word “good” seems to be an ambiguous term at times especially when it is used without reference to a constant anchor. When we speak of the “good” or “right” with regard to morality there are multiple levels of discussion that can ensue. I will not be covering them all in this post. We could discuss how we can know the good, or how we can’t, or how we decide that in each society, or how it is artificially created versus being discovered and uncreated by humans. . . Even then we could discuss the reality of some of what we consider moral as being artificial and some as being discovered and how to unravel what are cultural mores and what are timeless truths.

Most debate for any of these discussions will have some truth. One can’t say that all rules of living were discovered, because we have obviously as humans invented prudish or practical rules of living that have been abandoned by other generations. However, we also have true good principals for living that have been abandoned at times and rediscovered. Thus, abandoning them doesn’t equate with their artificiality.

It is human to be moral beings concerned with right and wrong in some form or fashion whether in extreme or in balance. Thus, we transfer our desire to “be a good person” to a God who we extrapolate to think like we do who equates goodness with moral actions. In reality, God does not equate goodness with good actions. He equates goodness with His life and He gives us that goodness so that we can live a new life from righteousness instead of as slaves to unrighteousness. So we no longer have to pattern our lives trying to figure out whose rules to follow to be good, but we begin a life learning how to live from the goodness of the life within us. We learn to live from His life rather then by rules. That doesn’t exempt a person from the goodness of the rules; it just means the person goes about it by a different method. Good actions become a by product of knowing the Lord rather than the moral goal of life.

Now this is why there is not much use in morally condemning people because of their sinful actions. A person is not morally “bad” or “good” based on their actions. Goodness doesn’t come from “good actions” it comes from a good God. Bear with me for a minute, I know this has not been proven to you and that many of you do not believe it is possible, but I am trying to help you understand the Christian position before you argue against it, or for the sake of argument, my Christian position. We need not divert on debating whether or not every Christian sees it this way.

Now, like I indicated above, the discussion of the good is multifaceted. There is a difference between not condemning and not helping a person doing something that is not good for them or others. For example, a friend of yours is cheating on all of his college exams. If you condemn him you may say something like, “Frank you are a despicable person cheating like that you should be ashamed of yourself—you are so stupid.” Then think to yourself how much better you are because you don’t participate in such sinful things. Of course, most who think this way are doing a plethora of their own “bad” things they fail to see. However, the non-condemning, but helpful option might be to talk to him about how he is hurting himself by not learning the material legitimately and offer to help him study. The second option is out of love and concern for your friend where the first would be an indignant tongue lashing that only leaves him feeling terrible and worthless. The first response might cause him to continue his behavior, where the second might set him on a new course of life that validates his learning ability and keeps him from a life of cheating.

So while cheating or not cheating doesn’t make people more “good” in their being, there are life problems that are caused by making bad choices and doing bad things. So it wouldn’t be love to ignore a loved ones bad choices or to keep them from consequences of them by enabling them. This is to say that there are times where consequences for actions that harm others or oneself is necessary especially in a society where laws are established to protect the society and enforce obedience to those laws. However, laws are not always matters of right and wrong, but matters of legality as we have agreed. Sometimes they correspond to something really wrong, but most of the time they are a matter of safety of the individual or group rather than ethics. Love isn’t blind to a person’s faults, but loves despite of them.

RECAP:

God isn’t after us to earn moral goodness

We become righteous when His life merges with ours

God gave external laws and wrote them into our consciousness so that those who did not know Him could keep from doing things that harmed them – not as a rule book for gaining goodness. This was for our well-being.

We don’t have to live by laws when we know Him for He promises to show us how to live from our new identity as righteous beings which will manifest externally as we grow

It’s not necessary to condemn someone who lives in sin (at any level of sin). This does not mean a person who harms another should be brought to justice according the laws of the land. But it means our heart attitude is forgiving despite the necessity of the person enduring consequences for the sake of justice, for the good of the society, and for their own good.

Many of these things I am talking about may be foreign concepts and some may seem preposterous. I am not asking for you to believe this is true, but to understand this in the way you would seek to understand a view point on a topic for a college essay. It doesn’t mean you agree with the view, but you would be seeking to explain it fairly. Once I see there is understanding, then it is much easier for you to give a counter argument. Please ask questions so I can clarify anything that needs to be explained more fully.

Responding To Sin

Sin literally means, “to miss the mark.” Sometimes it is referred to as “falling short of the glory of God.” Sin is a corrupted or distorted reality; it runs amuck of goodness and righteousness. Sin is thus anything that does not align with God’s goodness by any degree. The problem is that today, many see application of the term “sin” as a pious religious condemnation of the one doing the sinning. This happens precisely because this is often true. Christians have thrown around the word “sin” with disgusting venom of condemnation that people feel slighted, jilted, rejected, and ridiculed by the use of the term. The recipients of such terminology rightly feel like defending themselves and others join in to support their cause.


The truth is that Christians have done the world an injustice in producing such negative connotation of this word. The truth is everyone misses the mark. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God and those who believe they have found forgiveness so quickly have forgotten that they are no different in worth to the Father than those who have not. In fact, Jesus said he would leave the 99 to go after the 1 that is lost.

The reality of sin is that it is a cancer to our physical, emotional, and spiritual selves. Love does not rejoice in wrong doing, but in the truth. Love keeps no records of wrongs. A person who loves doesn’t relish pointing out another’s faults, but always hopes and preservers along side a person struggling in sin no matter the sin and no matter how long that road last even if they never change. Love always forgives. If someone is stuck in a muck of sin, love helps pull them out rather than point fingers at their dirt. However, if that person is content in their muck, maybe because they can’t see it, or does not have hope for freedom, love sits with them and shows them grace and compassion.


The only time Jesus rebuked someone was when he was talking to religious leaders who acted piously like they had it all together. When he came across a woman caught in adultery, he protected her from being stoned and said that he who was without sin was the only one who could cast stones at her, and He being that One extended mercy and grace to her.


This does not mean that God is complacent about our sin, for it concerns Him greatly, not because it hurts Him, but because it hurts us. That cancerous sin distorts our being and it weighs us down unnecessarily with baggage and bondage. Have you ever been really angry at someone who did something wrong to you and that anger just grew and caused a huge rift in the friendship and weighed you down? Have you ever experienced that freedom that comes when you forgive and release that anger? It’s a freeing lightness that most describe upon forgiving someone. It is like this with other sins, when they pile up and are continually happening in our lives they bind us and often times we don’t even realize how bound we are until we find release and then we feel like we can fly.

The good response to sin is compassion. It’s realizing that sin entangles and binds a person. It’s realizing that sin isn’t something to be scoffed at or offended by, but something to be saddened by and angry for the person not at the person. I sometimes get angry when I see someone trapped in sin, and it’s not anger at the person, but at the entanglement. It’s like finding a person tied to a tree with a gag in their mouth and being angry that they were hurt that way. We can’t turn things that are sin into non-sin because the person is more hurt by calling bad good and good bad then they are by correctly identifying the source of their pain and helping them free of it without any condemnation.


I think Christians have a lot to apologize to people for due to our unjust handling of sin. And I apologize as a Christian to anyone who has been hurt by Christians not showing them love. I have been such a Christian who has not responded with love where I should have. God has broken my heart for people trapped in sin. He has shown me through a very personal encounter with someone struggling in sin that broke me forever to be for people and not against them. He gave me compassion and love for those entrapped in vices that so easily entangle. Sure I don’t do this perfectly, none of us can, but I aim for this. As a Christian, I choose to stand along side those so ensnared and to never be against them.

The Existence of Evil

If God did not create then there would be no evil. But He is a Creator by nature and His plan for all creation is greater than the existence of evil that comes from His creation rejecting Him and being separated from Him. He did not create evil. He said all He created was good. Sin entered into all creation by Adam’s sin. But even before that happened in our time, God had already purposed Jesus’ redemption in time for all mankind. He already saw the beginning from the end. It wasn’t a huge “oh, no, what have I done.” He knew all that would happen before He spoke a single thing into existence. And He sees the glory of all creation that comes through Christ and is being revealed in time. The glory of creation and of the Church being made ready as heir with Christ for all eternity far exceeds anything evil that can be brought about in this earth before evil is banished from creation.

Now is it evil for God who created a life to take a life? Life belongs to Him. He’s the author and giver of life. Life does not belong to us. It is wrong for us to take a life. It is not the same thing for God to do it. God sees the beginning from the end. He is God. Do we have cause to judge God as doing something wrong in bringing the Flood to wipe out a perverse generation and saving Noah and His family who serve Him? God’s justice was brought forth with the Flood. God’s justice was also brought forth by saving Noah.

If God does not exist, the whole discussion about good and evil and if God is good is a moot point. But if He does then the only way we know what good and evil are is because He revealed that knowledge to us and the self-sustaining self-evident God is the only standard of all holiness and righteousness.

Good and evil exist and we know the difference between them because there exists a Good God.

Also regarding suffering: see Peter Kreeft's essay.

Goodness Derives From God

I would like to address the matter of humanities knowledge of good and evil from the Christian worldview. At this point, I am going to deal with the topic in a foundational philosophical manner that would be agreed upon by all theists. While theism is broader than Christianity, Christianity has the foundational adherence to the position I am herein presenting. Therefore I am not delving into Scripture nor Christian doctrine to address this topic at this point. In future posts, I will develop it out and provide a more detailed response as prompted by questions this post will undoubtedly produce.

As far as I have deduced, my audience accepts that there are good actions and behaviors as well as bad ones and that humans for the most part know the difference between the two. Further, I think all cultures no matter how remote have a system of right and wrong even if their standard of moral judgment is different than the next culture. So where does that idea come from? How did we gain a moral construct of right and wrong? Is it mere social conditioning? Is it merely instinctual impulses of survival? Is something wrong because society says it’s wrong? Can one culture condemn the actions of another as wrong? If so, by what standard?

Theists maintain that we have knowledge of the difference between good and evil (even if we disagree sometimes on specifics) because there is a standard of good outside of nature because a good God exists. When we break from that standard we have the conscious to know something doesn’t line up with the way we are created to live. We know when something is foreign to goodness.

From what has been presented to me thus far, atheists maintain that because they know right from wrong without believing in or fearing God that is proof that moral knowledge is not something related to knowing God. However, Christians maintain that we have a moral compass even if we are not brought up in Christianity or in religion. A person in the most remote village of Africa with no contact to the outside world would have a moral compass even if some of his actions were barbaric to the civilized world. His village would still have a system of right and wrong because they are humans living in reality. Thus, atheists will have just as much knowledge of the existence of good and evil and the desire to be moral people as anyone else.

Atheists, from my rudimentary observations, maintain that Christians believe morality is connected to a system of punishment and rewards of a demanding judgmental invisible God. They believe, therefore, that Christianity is a manmade system of controlling people into an outdated conservative system of morality by manipulation and the promulgation of the fear of hell.

I can understand why it may look like this is a fair description of Christianity. If the only Christians I had ever met were the ones I encountered this summer at the beach holding signs listing sins God was going to judge people for and shouting about hell into a crowd of teenagers--I would run the other way too and declare it a barbaric brainless religion. I cannot say strongly enough that people like that are not representing true Christianity and are decidedly giving Jesus a bad name by their shameful actions. My husband, a pastor, spoke with these people when we came across them and asked that they cease antagonizing the crowd of angry youth. We emphatically urged the crowd to disperse, to no avail. They were having too much fun heckling the beach preachers. I don’t blame the young people for their responses. My husband and I were greatly disturbed by this misrepresentation of the heart of God towards people.

I would asks that people look past the extremist and religious nut cases to the real nature of truth and examine the truth claims themselves despite some of the misleading representations often depicted in the media and sometimes observed in real life. Please don’t let the attitude and actions of some keep you away from really examining the truth claims of the Christian worldview.

To touch briefly on a more specific Christian view of morality: it isn’t about adhering to rules out of fear of divine retribution or hope of divine rewards. For some, granted, it is thus. However, for many others it is simply this: that man is separated from God because of our sinful nature and consequently fails to live up to even his own standard of right and wrong perfectly. However, because Jesus paid the price of sin in our place we are freed from the bondage of sin and empowered by Christ to love and know God and love and live with our fellow humans the way we were created to do so.

What God asks from man, is not blind obedience, but a real tangible relationship that starts with accepting the free gift of salvation from sin and death offered through Jesus. Thus we become reconciled back to God, ensconced in His love, and we begin life anew learning from God how to be all he created us to be. The work Jesus did on the cross is not simply to redeem mankind, but to redeem all of creation back to its full glory.

Love v. Law

Jesus is the perfect example of what the Christian life is to look like. He not only preached the things of God, He lived as the perfect representation of the Kingdom of God. While not forsaking His divinity, He lived the life of a man in perfect relationship with God. Jesus claimed of Himself to be the Way the Truth and the Life. He is the perfect personification of Truth.

There seems to be constant tension between the law and love where there should be none. Some feel that if they cease seeing sin through the law they will some how give it permissive license. However, Jesus knew full well the death produced by sin for He came suffer in our place for our sins though he committed none. Just the same Jesus was sent to, “to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” He came to heal hearts and free and release those in bondage to darkness.

Only love can produce these results. Condemnation and invoking the law only serves to bring bondage not freedom. Every time Jesus refers to the Law and the Prophets he shows that they are fulfilled in love not abolished by love.

Consider the following passages.

Matthew 5: 17 –18 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”

Matthew 7:12 “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Matthew 22:36-40 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

The Law and the Prophets are fulfilled by Love. So why is that people think that responding to sin with love creates permissiveness and violates God’s law? By no means, the law exists because of God’s love and is therefore fulfilled by His love. Love fulfills the law because when you enter into God’s love through Jesus you are freed from the bondage of sin which was illuminated by the law. Morality becomes a byproduct of knowing Christ and not false righteousness of adhering to moral laws.

When sin is seen through love it is far darker and more real than when it is seen through legalism and the religious spirit. I used to think that compassion for the sinner excused the sin whereas condemnation of sorts would break them out of the sin. I didn’t think this consciously, but rather subconsciously. When God gripped my heart for the outcast and the sinners and replaced my judgmentalism with His compassion and love-- I started to see sin for what it really is: a dark bondage that destroys a person. I began to grieve in my heart when I saw people entangled in its web and I was then motivated by love to reach out showing them the love of Christ and the freedom from this disease in which they are so deeply entangled.

Love sees sin worse then legalism sees sin. Love seeks to restore, help, free, release the sinner from their bondages. Legalism seeks to condemn and bind the person to their bondage. The more like Jesus we become the more we should desire the restoration of the broken, the freedom of the captives, the healing of the hurting, etc. All of this will come out of our relationship with Him otherwise it is simply the works of religion. Religion is about law and Jesus is about love. The more we know Him the more love should abound.