Why is God Good?

[Dunecat]

I tried a search but it said I entered an invalid query.

[Mythre]

By definition He is good.

God by definition must be infinite in every way. If He was not, He would not be God. By his actions He also proves His goodness.
I also must point to the Bible, but you would discount that argument as ridiculous if you are a Atheist...

[Dunecat]

God by definition must be infinite in every way.

But he is not ultimate evil, immorality, or amorality though, correct?

If He was not, He would not be God. By his actions He also proves His goodness.

But those actions do not qualify him good, right? The common argument is that he defines goodness, that everything he is is good. But I am asking, why is he good? I know that if he defines good, then he could not deny himself. But why is he good? Is he just as he is, for no purpose? "He is who he is?" so to speak.

I also must point to the Bible, but you would discount that argument as ridiculous if you are a Atheist...

Sure, Bible is probably a preferred source.

[Mythre]

But he is not ultimate evil, immorality, or amorality though, correct?


But those actions do not qualify him good, right? The common argument is that he defines goodness, that everything he is is good. But I am asking, why is he good? I know that if he is good, then he could not deny himself. But why is he good? Is he just as he is, for no purpose? "He is who he is?" so to speak.


Sure, Bible is probably a preferred source.

To your first,
True he is not. He does have Wrath and Anger, but they are used with the context of His goodness, Righteousness, and Justice. So when he does use His Wrath, it punishes justly.

Why is he good? Well, simply put, He is God. He created everything and thus He gets to define everything. By His own definition and by our definition. He is Good. Yes, it is somewhat of a "God is who He is" type argument and without accepting Biblical proofs of His goodness, it is tough to get beyond that. Although if for the sake of argument we accept the existence of God, He is showing His goodness right now. He has allows you life, food, and joy, even as you question His very goodness and existence now. What human would do a similar thing if I might ask?

Indeed. If you would agree to accept it, I can illuminate this issue more I think.

[Claudius Gothicus]

Good question, I think he's not good a all, he either loves to see us killing each other and committing horrendous acts of carnage or he doesn't give a about what we do.

Now the boring christian aswer: God is Good becuas ehe's the source of infinite Love.

[Mythre]

Good question, I think he's not good a all, he either loves to see us killing each other and committing horrendous acts of carnage or he doesn't give a about what we do.

Now the boring christian aswer: God is Good becuas ehe's the source of infinite Love.

Now you are forgetting Free Will. God does not force us to kill each other. We choose to do that. If God forced us to be good... it really would only be forced obedience or worse... no free will at all (which then leads on to God sinning) Read the Bible and you will see His goodness and Grace. He wants willing and joyful obedience.

[Dunecat]

To your first,
True he is not. He does have Wrath and Anger, but they are used with the context of His goodness, Righteousness, and Justice. So when he does use His Wrath, it punishes justly.

So wrath is the ability for God to do bad actions in a good way?

Although if for the sake of argument we accept the existence of God, He is showing His goodness right now. He has allows you life, food, and joy, even as you question His very goodness and existence now.

What if I do not have those things? What if I had never become aware of those things and died as an infant? When he intervenes and takes those things away from people, denies them those things? Finally, if he only does good, either by his quality of definition or by truly free choice (a neutral being choosing good action, de facto good)- why is there a corrupted existence? Why was there the fall? How could we fall?

What human would do a similar thing if I might ask?

Many I would guess. You value his patient and benevolent sustaining of our existence, wouldn't you do the same as God does if you had the power?

[Sigurðir]

I believe Mythre coined it.

God is perfectly merciful, but at the same time perfectly just. These two attributes will clash when His creation disobey His laws. A perfectly merciful Father would not punish His children, but at the same time He must execute perfect justice which demands punishment/enforce consequences.
This is where the Saviour comes in as an universal payment to meet the demands of justice. It is the Grand loophole where He can be both merciful and just.

And as others said: He is the Creator and has defined what is evil and what is good. I guess he defined Himself as the ultimate good and the patsy Lucifer as the ultimate evil. As long as you do what God said (laws) you are good - if not you are evilz.

[magpie]

God is omnipitent. neither Good Or Evil. The diety is above those petty things.

[Hiero of Syracuse]

Well I respect your right to do so.
Though I'm not sure why he's credit to doing only good things but, if we take him out of intervention he must be neutral.

[Hiero of Syracuse]

Not to say he doesn't care but he's pretty much asleep or an inactive sentient being. Sort of like how Futurama potrays him.

[webMaster412160]

God is how you name it. You call him good or bad is both wrong. We can't say what he is. We can only juge him on the way we think he acts and looks down on us.

[Tigrul]

God is good as a result of natural selection. Just as with life forms, so did various religious beliefs have strengths and weaknesses. There were evil gods and good gods, and with time, the populations exposed to benevolent gods abandoned belief in malevolent gods OR, as with the god of the bible, found various excuses why to make it so that even when god is a murderous bastard, they can say that god is good, no matter what he does.

Natural selection, that's why god is "good". Evil gods died out, and the religions and gods left today are the result of religious evolution. The gods and religions of today are the ones best at surviving, and good gods are better fit to survive in the minds of humans clinging to emotions enough to abandon reason.

[Каие]

Who ever said God was good?

[Hippolord]

Who ever said God was good?

Many of those whom belive in it...
______________________________
God is good because in most cases, he is the reflection of everything that the universe could and should be. The ultimate manifistation of what man belives it is to trully "Be", to endow all other things within the context of his reality with the ability to be. So we want god to be good, because god is the universal moderator, he is the constant, therefore within the confine sof our hearts, we wish for good to be the constant, or at the least what we consider to be good. For if the god is the constant then that means that in the end it will outlast the varying evil of the universe.

But what is the evil? That is subjective unto the reality of every being in the universe. Thusly so in the end we do not trully view him as good, for there is no such thing, we view him as we want ourselves to be, or what we want it to be. We strive everyday to be more like gods, though we have yet to realize that in our own respect, we already are.

[MaximiIian]

I tried a search but it said I entered an invalid query.

It depends on the theology in question. The more Deist, monist, and monotheistic theological standpoints define God as the ultimate good, as a being for which "good" is an inherent attributes.
Though other theologies, like those of the ancient Greeks and Romans for example, held that the gods could and sometimes did slip up, make mistakes, and act badly.
And yet other theologies (like panentheism and some modern polytheistic thought) hold that the gods are neither good nor evil, that these are human attributes; and that the gods exist through or are spiritual present in nature, thus making their actions an ethically neutral function of nature.

God by definition must be infinite in every way. If He was not, He would not be God.

Speak for yourself.

[Mythre]

Speak for yourself.

I suppose I must. However, I would pose this to you:
If God was not perfect/infinite, He would not be worthy of praise. It would just be some really stinking powerful being. A lion amongst mice type of thing. If the God/gods were not perfect, one could rightly aspire to be more powerful.... which would make the worship of them pointless and moronic. I rightly would not worship a imperfect being. It would be pointless and a utter waste of time.


To some of the other points raised:

So wrath is the ability for God to do bad actions in a good way?

No, that is like saying sending a murderer to prison is doing something bad.
God pours out Righteous Wrath on the sinner. Never in excess and only to the amount needed. It is not a spiteful or vengeful wrath. It is akin to a judge handing out a sentence.

What if I do not have those things? What if I had never become aware of those things and died as an infant? When he intervenes and takes those things away from people, denies them those things? Finally, if he only does good, either by his quality of definition or by truly free choice (a neutral being choosing good action, de facto good)- why is there a corrupted existence? Why was there the fall? How could we fall?

I believe in God's Mercy on unborn infants. They never had a chance to sin or to realize anything effectively.
What do you mean, "takes them away"? Everyone has their appointed years and everyone has a place in God's plan. At times, God sometimes does punish in the temporal realm and sometimes he does take away good things. I might point out though, those events often times turn out to be very good experiences for the person in question. One must always realize God is Sovereign. You mean diddly squat in the long term. It is not about you. Get over it. God has the right to do whatever the heck He wants. If He takes away your job, it is for a reason or if He takes your health, the same. Your railing and hating of God (or denying of God) in effect is like a whiny toddler's tantrum when his parents take away a toy.... (a over simplification, but i think it gets the point of our selfishness and narcissism across.)
Why did we fall? 1. Satan 2. Free will. That is the extremely short answer there.

@Claudius

Why would such a powerful being want/need obedience form insignificant s like humans? Is his personality so vulnerable that his need constant praising?

He doesn't. Period. It is a show of His Mercy that you are still alive after insulting Him in such a way. Literally. (God does not take Blaspheming lightly. I would indeed take care.)
Why did God create? That is a question I do not think we will ever fully comprehend. What we do know is this: God created the world and humans to show His Glory. He does not need the worship by any means.
In the end it merely comes down to this: God did it and He has the right to do it.

[MaximiIian]

...I would pose this to you:
If God was not perfect/infinite, He would not be worthy of praise.

Well, that's quite arbitrary. The gods I believe in are very powerful divine beings worthy of respect, honour, and praise; infinite or not, they are divine. Now, Perfect/Infinite does describe The All, the Universal Good, but we do not worship that entity. My religion's rituals and mythology are centred around gods of nature, magic, and fertility, as well as tutelary spirits.

[Daeger]

@Claudius
He doesn't. Period. It is a show of His Mercy that you are still alive after insulting Him in such a way. Literally. (God does not take Blaspheming lightly. I would indeed take care.)
Why did God create? That is a question I do not think we will ever fully comprehend. What we do know is this: God created the world and humans to show His Glory. He does not need the worship by any means.
In the end it merely comes down to this: God did it and He has the right to do it.

Oh, golly gee, I sure am thankful that he created me, when he could've just NOT let me exist at all. It isn't mercy to create us, it's mercy to not create us. If we didn't exist, there would be no problems. I don't think the real god is anything like the douche bag in the bible, so I can mock the stupid god image of the bible for all I care. If bible god was true, it would be nothing, but ;wub: for the humanity, but thankfully, I know the real god is most likely something greater than something you write a book about.... or maybe it isn't... there might just as well be know god at all.. I just seriously doubt the real god is such a drama queen like the bible god.

This is what the real god and christian god have to say about blasphemy or, let's say, twisted god images.

Christian god: "HMPH! That lowly creature that I created for nothing, says I am a douche bag. I must throw him to hell because he thinks that way, even though his opinion doesn't matter. I must be totally awesome because I can blackmail worthless creatures to think Im cool."

The real god: "Whatever. I created the universe, I'm just awesome."

You guys should be careful with those twisted god images. The real god might not actually give a ;wub: about what comes from the worthless mouths of men, because we are all, after all, worthless. Deal with it. Christian god is for elitists who need to feel they're so awesome that the ultimate entity of the universe actually cares about them individually and actually has a plan for them.

Oh well.. that's all human.. I'm glad to have good morals so I DO NOT want the christian god to exist.

[Mythre]

Oh, golly gee, I sure am thankful that he created me, when he could've just NOT let me exist at all. It isn't mercy to create us, it's mercy to not create us. If we didn't exist, there would be no problems. I don't think the real god is anything like the douche bag in the bible, so I can mock the stupid god image of the bible for all I care. If bible god was true, it would be nothing, but ;wub: for the humanity, but thankfully, I know the real god is most likely something greater than something you write a book about.... or maybe it isn't... there might just as well be know god at all.. I just seriously doubt the real god is such a drama queen like the bible god.

This is what the real god and christian god have to say about blasphemy or, let's say, twisted god images.

Christian god: "HMPH! That lowly creature that I created for nothing, says I am a douche bag. I must throw him to hell because he thinks that way, even though his opinion doesn't matter. I must be totally awesome because I can blackmail worthless creatures to think Im cool."

The real god: "Whatever. I created the universe, I'm just awesome."

You guys should be careful with those twisted god images. The real god might not actually give a ;wub: about what comes from the worthless mouths of men, because we are all, after all, worthless. Deal with it. Christian god is for elitists who need to feel they're so awesome that the ultimate entity of the universe actually cares about them individually and actually has a plan for them.

Oh well.. that's all human.. I'm glad to have good morals so I DO NOT want the christian god to exist.

You are saying then that you wish you were never created? You wish you never had a chance to experience life? That is a very sad view of things. It is not like God put us here just to stomp on us. He created us for a purpose.In the beginning, He set down one law, one. We broke that law and because of that, we now have sin. Now your essential hating of God, is not a laughing matter. You say God would merely be fine with it? Wouldn't mind at all? Let us equate this to a human scenario for a moment then bring it back up to the scale of God. If humans built a robot, and (ignoring all morale or other debates in this scenario) that robot began to hate and insult you for no other reason then it did not want to be created and does not like the humans plan for it, what would you do as the creator? The first thought that might go through your head would be to destroy it. Now, take that thought and bring it up to the level of God. God created human beings to live in communion and harmony with him. Now we are separated because of sin and, instead of communion and worship, we give God our hate. We spit in God's face. What right do you have to spit in God's face? What makes you think your pitiful human brain can comprehend or even criticize God? What makes you a judge of God? You are raising your pathetically limited intellect to the level where you think YOU KNOW BETTER THEN GOD! The God that created everything, that built everything, that formulated the laws of physics and that created LIFE. That is staggering in the scope of arrogance. (I mean no insult to your intelligence but when you compare human intellects to God.. they are pathetic.)

In closing, I must say the same to you. Beware of your twisted God views. Beware of putting your intelligence and wants on God. God is not human. The human mind cannot be interposed onto God's and the human intellect cannot comprehend Him. That is putting God in a box and if God could be understood, He would not be God.

@MaximiIian

Well, that's quite arbitrary. The gods I believe in are very powerful divine beings worthy of respect, honour, and praise; infinite or not, they are divine. Now, Perfect/Infinite does describe The All, the Universal Good, but we do not worship that entity. My religion's rituals and mythology are centred around gods of nature, magic, and fertility, as well as tutelary spirits.

In the end though, what are they? They are fallible. Even if they are powerful demi gods as you put it, they still would just be like us, fallible and weak (if only in much smaller areas) and merely having amazing powers. Humans are not worthy of worship and your man created gods are not worthy of worship. In all honesty the only God I can truly say is God in all senses of the word is the God of the Bible.