Christians, Prove Your God Is Good

[The Reality Salesman01]

---

And a human would not be on the scale of human-ness, but THE standard by which all humanly things might be measured. He's saying that if an equal standard to goodness DID exist, then we might just call that "God". But it's not necessarily true that such a thing does. Make sense? It's some old Plato stuff. Here's some more info. Hope that helped!

---

Thanks for helping out! This is certainly Platonic, but it isn't exactly my position. The "standard" of goodness is any given thing's ACTUAL ability to satisfy the desires of a human being. There is no single object that we encounter in our universe that satisfies all of these desires, but some objects satisfy, either more or less, particular desires individually and sometimes collectively. We must, therefore, try and obtain goods at the right times and in the right ways which actually satisfy the desires which cause us to seek them in the first place. My position, therefore, while similar to Plato, accepts Aristotle's contribution to his teacher's position, as well as the development of Thomas Aquinas, with a working development that I am currently trying to workout for myself so I can understand it in today's terminology. That said...

IF there were some thing that, when we encountered it, was considered good from every possible view/aspect, and upon obtaining it we found that it satisfied all of our desires, that would be, at the very least, the human good. Admittedly, my quick conditional statement went the extra steps and called that human good, God, but it wasn't being proposed as an actual proof. Thanks again!

No problem, and I'm with ya so far. It just seemed like there was some confusion after you mentioned highest forms of Good. I wasn't sure whether or not whatchamadoidle was familiar with the concepts of "forms" that you were making reference to higher and lesser degrees. You said "IF God then..." and it seemed to derail from there. Thought I'd throw in a Minute-Philosophy bullet in the mix. Cheers!

---

---

Because the nature of this conversation is about varying degrees of a commonly used sentiment, such as "good", it's important to be particular with the words used to describe each degree that separates them. Sounds confusing but consider how you might rank things that are good on a scale of 1-10. 1 being a buy one get one half-off coupon on hemorrhoid ointment, a 10 being the highest example of things that qualify as the word. But what is the ultimate standard by which all things are determined to be "good". Just as a shadow of a person shares the characteristics of human shape, it is not human. And so on a scale of 1-10 with regard to human-ness, a shadow could rank somewhere on the list, but it would be lower than a reflection since a reflection shares more of the human-like qualities. And a human would not be on the scale of human-ness, but THE standard by which all humanly things might be measured. He's saying that if an equal standard to goodness DID exist, then we might just call that "God". But it's not necessarily true that such a thing does. Make sense? It's some old Plato stuff. Here's some more info. Hope that helped!

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_of_the_Good

---

Thanks, that is easier for me to follow. I'll read that link and see if it resonates with me.

Essentially this seems to be a roundabout way of saying that God is good because we define him that way. Why don't we imagine an ultimate standard of evil and call that God? That would be more consistent with the Bible narratives in many cases.

I'm gonna try not to put words in anyone's mouth here, but I don't think that it's being implied that God "is" anything. As far as I can tell, Ignorant is using God as a hypothetical reference point. It's more of an "if God" thought, and not so much an "is God" statement. You're on a valid path with your ultimate form of evil, you should tease that out and see where it goes. It's an equally valid concept worth considering as it seems that in order to feel that something g is good, you kinda need a scale, huh? So without bad, what meaning could good have? I just think the word "evil" muddies up the water because it usually carries a supernatural connotation. Fun talk though, enjoy the link!