Christians, Prove Your God Is Good

[watchamadoodle]

@Ignorant, I'm gathering your posts together, so anybody interested can see them easily. I see some problems with this definition, but maybe I just don't get it. I'm going to read this again later and then I will probably ask you my questions.

Goodness is the aspect under which we judge things to be more or less able to fulfill our human desires or appetites. As such, calling something good implicitly includes the understanding "good FOR". For example, we eat food because we judge that it will satisfy hunger (i.e. it is good for satisfying hunger), but we satisfy hunger FOR the sake of nourishment and growth (which are both sought under the aspect of goodness). The appetite/desire is "directed" toward fulfilling our humanity. Another example is more abstract: We punish criminals because it satisfies a desire for justice, and we satisfy the desire of justice FOR the sake of social order (which is sought under the aspect of goodness). All of these goods are sought in an order and for the sake of different goods judged subjectively by individuals for one common reason: happiness/human fulfillment. Goodness is the aspect by which we arrange and order our actions for the sake of happiness which is human satisfaction or fulfillment.

IF god IS the thing that, once obtained, completely fulfills our humanity, then he is goodness itself, and therefore, God is good. But only IF.

If god is not the thing that fulfills our humanity completely, then he is not goodness itself, even if he is good under some particular aspect.

This sounds very similar to what I saw in the Catholic Encyclopedia. How do you define "happiness/human fulfillment"? If we can't define those terms then we haven't defined "good".

Happiness/human fulfillment is the satisfaction of all human desire.

What if one human's desires are in conflict with the desires of others (humans, animals, plants)? For example, most people would agree that fulfilling Hitler's desires were not good. I suppose a Christian might argue that Hitler did not understand his true desire to know God and was pursuing the wrong desires.

According to your example, Hitler was simply wrong about what he thought was good. Therefore, any of us can simply be wrong about what we think is good. Welcome to the struggle to live a truly happy and fulfilled human life according to reason.