Rational Agnostic
Well-Known Member
If one states that "God is good," there are two possible meanings. Either 1) "good" is some quality outside of God, and thus, one is implying that a morality greater than God exists outside of God itself, or 2) "Good" is simply, by definition, part of God's nature, and thus, the statement is trivial. God is "good" is equivalent to stating "God is God." In other words, either God's goodness is defined by some standard of morality that is outside of God, or "goodness" itself is simply defined as being an attribute of God, that is, whatever God does is good. In this case, God is amoral, because by this definition, God can do whatever God wants, and no matter what it is, it is good, because whatever God does is good.
Put another way, we can either decide that good and evil are outside of God and subject God to a standard of morality outside of himself, or we can define good as being part of God's nature and thus, in essence good = "whatever God does." In this case, as I said before God would be amoral, since "goodness" is simply derived from his actions, whatever they may be. I see this as a problem. If goodness is nothing more than an attribute of God, why should we consider God to be morally good if he never has the choice between good and evil, since whatever he does is good by default? And furthermore, if goodness is outside of God, then what's the point of appealing to God for moral standards?
Put another way, we can either decide that good and evil are outside of God and subject God to a standard of morality outside of himself, or we can define good as being part of God's nature and thus, in essence good = "whatever God does." In this case, as I said before God would be amoral, since "goodness" is simply derived from his actions, whatever they may be. I see this as a problem. If goodness is nothing more than an attribute of God, why should we consider God to be morally good if he never has the choice between good and evil, since whatever he does is good by default? And furthermore, if goodness is outside of God, then what's the point of appealing to God for moral standards?