Featured What does it mean to say God is "Good"?

On the thread about Ravi Zacharias and Sovereignty, Luke began discussing with various people what the definition of "Goodness" is: I felt that discussion meritted further vetting:

 

True. But, you will notice there are limits to these attributes, God cannot be self-contradictory... and still be called "logical". God could not be non-sensical and still be rightly called "logical".
Similarly, God could not, for instance, torture small infants for mere sadistic pleasure and still be considered "good".

"Goodness" just like faithfulness is recognizable and self-evident. Your definition of "good" has essentially no objective definition. Someone who is capricious is not "faithful"...similarly, one who is unnecessarily cruel or dishonest, is not "good". By your definition, God could act any given way he desired and still be defined as "good". He could, for all intents and purposes be simply Feindish and "evil"...and your definition would require us to still define him as "good". This is erroneous IMO.

No, it isn't...and thus, I have not, and will not ever say so.

"Good" is not essentially any different for God than it is for us. Fundamentally, I believe it is self-evident what "goodness" is. But, if you want, I will attempt to come up with something a little more tangilble later.

If, say, his highest honor and glory were those things which were duplicitious, cruel, sadistic, dishonest etc....than, he would only be Omnipotent...but he would not also be "Good". This is the issue I have with how you define "good".
God can indeed be brutish and "evil" and maintain his Omnipotence, he can also be "good" and of course maintain his Omnipotence...He also could be either "good" or "bad" and also be Omniscient, Omni-present, logical and every other knowable attribute...whether he be "good" or "evil".
What he CANNOT be, is capricious, duplicitious, dishonest, cruel etc...and also be good.

Yes, he had knowledge of them...but he did not purpose for them to be. The wicked things did not originate in HIS mind. He is aware of them, and he could not accomplish his purposes except they be. But, the evils of the world were, in my schema, un-avoidable. I do not believe that God could have created a Universe sufficient to accomplish his ends which would have been devoid of evil.

I do not believe this is the world he intended to create. I believe the world he intended to create had a total and temporary population of two....and the world he intended could no longer be after those individuals gained knowledge of good and evil.
Knowing that these things would be, God planned aforetime....before the creative act, to remedy that situation, thus he "KNEW" it would occur and he planned accordingly. I do not believe he conceived the scenario initially in his mind and then purposed all things to occur, to include the fall.
Your, view, has God PURPOSING for evil to occur, mine has God being aware of it, and choosing to create anyway.

I believe God is Omniscient. And I am I an Open-Theist.

Yes, God sustains natural law....I don't see how this is relevant. God is not required to interfere with natural law to prevent all evil acts from occuring in order have morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil to occur. And, I think we would both agree that the Spirit does indeed restrain evil even now.

True

Yes, but you can't purpose it, and not also be evil. Neither can God.

In part, yes....but it is "mankind" towards whom he acts, not simply "sinners"...Me-thinks you want turn this into a discussion which wraps his "justice" and his "goodness" into the same definition. They are different. "Justice" doesn't require that God do anything in particular WHATSOEVER for sinners...but his "GOODNESS" does.

Or, at least, in concert with his being also a God of "Love"...he would at minimum desire to be. To allow sin, however, to remain un-punished, would be neither "good" nor "just". But that is why (due to his love in concert with his goodness) it DOES constrain him to seek how he might bear the punishment for sin upon himself!

I disagree.

I don't think so...but we can talk more about that later.

 

Miss-type....I mean to say I am NOT an Open-Theist.

 

No, I am not saying that, nor is it the logical conclusion of my argument. Your statement is a non-sequitor.
God and his character are the very definition of what "Good" is. I do not believe that "Goodness" is a property that exists abstractly. I do not believe in the existence of abstract properties with no source.
I am saying that we can know what "Good" is and that it has been revealed to us at least in Divine Revelation, Natural Theology and intuition. And that we cannot believe certain things such as:
God can be capricious and pointlessly cruel for no reason and still be called "Good"
God can be dis-honest and also be called "Good"
God can be un-just and un-faithful and also be called "Good"
But, we know what "Goodness" is because we know God, and God is also none of those things.

 

:thumbs:correct...but his "goodness" will be revealed in his conduct. We know his character, because we know his conduct.:wavey: He has shown us who he is, and he has defined that as "goodness" he could not subsequently act completely fiendishly, and then also be known as "Good"...the word would have lost all meaning. To then say that God is "good" would be to simply say "God is, _____ we know not what".