RE: Can God be objectively good despite criticism against Him/Her/It?
May 6, 2022 at 3:02 am
(This post was last modified: May 6, 2022 at 3:03 am by Belacqua.)
(May 4, 2022 at 1:48 pm)Ahriman Wrote: Can God be objectively good despite criticism against Him/Her/It?
The answer is "yes."
Here I'm going by classical theology, not Bible literalism. Some people on this forum don't like me to do this; they only want to talk about the God of Ken Ham, not the God of Dante. But the God of Dante makes sense, whereas the God of Ken Ham doesn't.
This is according to classical theology:
God is the good. God is not a physical object, a changing entity, or an emotional sky-daddy. God is the good itself. God is an idea, in the way that Plato's Forms are ideas.
The universe is moved by God, though God takes no action. This is because all of us wish to move toward the good. God causes the world to move because he is an object of desire -- in the end, the only real object of desire.
We may not be aware of what the good is. This is because the good is not something we can perceive with the senses. Good is intelligible, not sensible. And many things which are intelligible are difficult, at first, to grasp.
So, what is good for you? We could make a list: health, happiness, peace, etc. All of these are portions of the good which we can experience in our lives, and form a portion of, or reflection of, or emanation of, God.
Take health as an example. It is good for you to live in a way that leads to the best health possible. Why would anyone not do this? Because they are misled by poor advice, or because their love of the unhealthy is too strong, or because their love of the healthy is too weak. God "wants" you to do what is most healthy for you, because God is the good, and aiming toward the good is aiming toward God. In every case, God's "desire" is what is best for you. (These words are in scare quotes because God's "wants" or "desires" are not like people's. Since God lacks nothing, he himself wants nothing. When we say God "wants" X, it means that X is the best thing for you to do, to aim at the good.)
It may be that your love of what is unhealthy is too strong -- say you are addicted to cigarettes. Then you would criticize the best way of living, and say it's boring or lacks pleasure. But it's still the best way of living, even if you criticize it, even if you, at the moment, hate it.
