What is good?

Winman · Mar 23, 2014

In another thread, Luke made these statements;

Luke said:

And I believe God gets to do whatever he wants to do and worms like you and I would be fools to question him on it.

I don't believe God has to abide by my standards of fairness. And God does not believe he has to abide by them either.

God is God and you are not. God does as he pleases with his creatures and that is his divine prerogative.

Anybody who has a problem with that is wicked down in his core.

All godly people are glad to have God do as he pleases.
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It just so happens that Roger Olson recently wrote an article that seems to directly answer what Luke said here;

Why (High) Calvinism Is Impossible

March 16, 2014 By Roger E. Olson

By “impossible” I don’t mean, of course, “doesn’t exist.” I mean “exists but doesn’t work.” By “doesn’t work” I mean “cannot be believed consistently and coherently.”

In brief, my argument is that belief in the Bible as God’s Word and motivation to engage in its exegesis presupposes belief that God is trustworthy, that God cannot deceive. But this assumes that God has a stable, enduring, eternal character that is “good” in a way analogous to our highest and best intuitions of “goodness”—whatever their source may be.

Put another way, negatively, if one believes that God’s goodness is nothing like our best intuitions of goodness, that God’s goodness is possibly compatible with anything capable of being put into words (i.e., ultimately and finally mysterious), then there is no good reason to trust him. Trust in a person, even God, necessarily requires belief that the person is good and belief that the person is good necessarily requires some content and not “good” as a cipher for something totally beyond comprehension and unlike anything else we call “good.”

Put in technical language, if “good” applied to God is equivocal and not even analogical, then it is useless for describing God. If “God is good” is qualified with “but his goodness is completely different from ours” (meaning our highest and best ideas of goodness), then it is meaningless.

Not all Calvinists say that God’s goodness is completely different from ours. Paul Helm, for example, in The Providence of God, argues that “goodness” attributed to God cannot be totally other than goodness attributed to human beings (even as an impossible ideal). Unfortunately for him, I believe, he does not follow that insight through consistently but undermines it by attempting to combine assertion of God’s essential goodness with belief in double predestination.

I argue that belief in double predestination is simply logically incompatible with the claim that God is good—unless “good” is emptied of all meaning so that it is a useless cipher for something we don’t know.

But if God is not good in some way analogous to our highest and best intuitions, insights, into “goodness,” then there is no reason to trust the Bible. And if there is no reason to trust the Bible (because God, being not good in any sense meaningful to us, might be deceiving us), then there is no clear motive for intense biblical exegesis.

Every devout, evangelical Christian believer I have ever met or heard of approaches Bible reading and study (including exegesis) with the assumption that the Bible is true (even if not strictly inerrant)—that it does not misidentify God and God’s will for us. But built into that assumption is that God, the Bible’s author (by inspiration of the human authors) is good (which is why he is trustworthy and cannot deceive). But belief that God “designs, foreordains, and governs” hell for the reprobate who are chosen by God for hell for his glory without regard to any truly free choices they make undermines belief in God’s goodness. So does belief that God “passes over” some he could easily save (because election to salvation is unconditional and saving grace is irresistible), damning them to hell, for his glory.

There is no conceivable analogous human behavior that we would call “good.” The very concept of “good” rules out such behavior. (To say nothing of Jesus’ own goodness and the New Testament’s commands for us to love our enemies and do good to them.)

My point is, of course, that there exists a contradiction between two Calvinist beliefs: 1) that the Bible is inherently and unconditionally trustworthy, and 2) that God, its author, is not good in any sense meaningful to us. Belief “1″ assumes that God is good in a sense meaningful to us—comparable with our highest and best intuitions of goodness. Belief “2″ (necessarily implied by double predestination) empties belief “1″ of foundation.

Therefore, any exegesis of the Bible that ends up portraying God as not good, which high Calvinism (belief in double predestination) inexorably does, cannot be believed because it self-referentially turns back against the very reason for believing the Bible. In order to be consistent one must choose between belief in the Bible as God’s Word and belief in double predestination.

This is why I say with John Wesley about the Calvinist interpretation of Romans 9 “Whatever it means it cannot mean that.”
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http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2014/03/why-high-calvinism-is-impossible/

What say you? Is everything God does "good" simply because God does them? Or do we hold God to a standard of "good" that men understand and can define?

Benjamin · Mar 23, 2014

Winman said: ↑

What say you? Is everything God does "good" simply because God does them? Or do we hold God to a standard of "good" that men understand and can define?
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I would vote true on both your questions as I interpret them.

I'd say we know that God is Good in truth and this divine truth should logically be maintained. It is an attribute by which if one forfeits it, to logically hold to hard deterministic theology, they unavoidably reach theological fatalism.

I know what you mean, but I wouldn't put it that we "hold God to a standard" because that'll just be twisted into a judgment over God, which I know you didn't mean. Again, I" simply say we logically maintain that God is Good in Truth, He is both (good and truth) or one has no real truth to reason for the existence for a Holy God...

I believe God allows us to understand the truth of that He is Good by our terms of what is by human reasoning as "true"...

preacher4truth · Mar 23, 2014

So we have role reversal here. Not remotely surprised as this type of thinking stems from faulty theological views such as Arminianism and other anti-cal theologies. It's the logical (illogical?) outcome of error.

From this thinking we see God is to be judged by finite man and the judgment must be determined by the same as to whether or not God is then 'good'. God must meet man the creatures criteria. God, transcendent above all must succumb to what man thinks of Him. God is no longer Judge, man is. If the true God of Scripture is determined as not good then He is fashioned by mans mind into what man decides He should be.

Some people are in for a rude awakening.

Winman · Mar 23, 2014

preacher4truth said: ↑

So we have role reversal here. Not remotely surprised as this type of thinking stems from faulty theological views such as Arminianism and other anti-cal theologies. It's the logical (illogical?) outcome of error.

From this thinking we see God is to be judged by finite man and the judgment must be determined by the same as to whether or not God is then 'good'. God must meet man the creatures criteria. God, transcendent above all must succumb to what man thinks of Him. God is no longer Judge, man is. If the true God of Scripture is determined as not good then He is fashioned by mans mind into what man decides He should be.

Some people are in for a rude awakening.
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I simply agree with Olson, if we cannot know what "good" is concerning God, how can we possibly trust him?

Not only that, but I believe scripture shows that "good" concerning God can be understood by man. A great example is Abraham when God was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham appealed to God several times, finally getting God to agree he would not destroy the city if there were 10 righteous people there.

Gen 18:25 That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

Abraham certainly held God to a standard of "good" here, that he should not destroy the righteous because of the wicked man's sins. And in fact, we know that God sent two angels to bring out Lot, his wife, and two of his daughters before he destroyed the city.

But the point of the OP is this, if God can just do "anything" as Luke asserts, and this alone being the criteria of what is good, then how can any man trust God?

psalms109:31 · Mar 23, 2014

If anyone claiming to be God does evil (anything against His word) and says it is good because I am God is the anti-christ.

Man who is not God does evil, because simply they are not God and only God is good. Evil came in through what God created, because He did not create man to be God. We are missing God to be complete only in Him we are. Our sin shows we need Him to be good. It is there for us to turn to Him, not away from Him.

This is why man like us sin and God the reflection of Him Christ is God is good and does not sin.

Saying God can do evil and we shouldn't question him, don't see God through Christ. Who never sinned.

What we know of who God is, without looking at Him through Christ does not know God at all.

Lamentations 3:
22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”
25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
26 it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke
while he is young.
28 Let him sit alone in silence,
for the Lord has laid it on him.
29 Let him bury his face in the dust—
there may yet be hope.
30 Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him,
and let him be filled with disgrace.
31 For no one is cast off
by the Lord forever.
32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,
so great is his unfailing love.
33 For he does not willingly bring affliction
or grief to anyone.

Ezekiel 18:32
For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!

OldRegular · Mar 23, 2014

Seems to mer that the following Scripture provides the answer regardless of what sinful man may think!

Matthew 19:17. And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

Winman · Mar 24, 2014

OldRegular said: ↑

Seems to mer that the following Scripture provides the answer regardless of what sinful man may think!

Matthew 19:17. And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
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Agreed, but what does that mean if we do not know the definition of the word "good" as used here?

Bro. James · Mar 24, 2014

None good, not one

"None good"--But I am not so bad--look at that fellow over there.

We are all a bunch of self-righteous pharisees, hypocrites, blind guides and lawyers. Will we ever come to the point where we realize the totality of our depravity?

It is long past time to repent.
There is only One Righteous--we crucified Him.:tonofbricks:

Oh, what a Savior!!

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Bro. James

psalms109:31 · Mar 24, 2014

Our parents, society, laws and our conscience teaches us what is good and evil. When we are born again our new parents teaches us what is good and evil. We who are born again is to spread the word of the new life, our new creation through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. We are all without out an excuse God has revealed Himself through what He has made. Our parents, our conscience, the law.

Romans 2:15
They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)

psalms109:31 · Mar 25, 2014

We have a standard to go by to judge what is good to God His word. Human standard is a wrong word to use but there is a standard for us humans. Jesus is the standard to know what is good and who God is.

If we have no standard then we can be following the anti-christ and many will who hold no standard for what is good.

God does as He pleases for His sake. That means that for His sake He will not go against His own word that last for eternity for His sake not ours

What is good?

When it comes to God, what is "good"?

God's "good" cannot be held to any human standard or definition

God's "good" must be defined by a human standard or definition

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