Is God Good?
Reader MG asks an important question: Is God good?
Almost every theist believes not just that God is good, but that God is perfectly good. Nevertheless, there are often two mistaken lines of thought surrounding this affirmation. The first mistaken line of thought is to suppose that God is good just like a human saint is good – that God is like the most virtuous person, or something like that. This is anthropomorphic and relies upon a univocal understanding of goodness, where goodness means precisely the same thing when attributed to God as when goodness is attributed to us. The second mistaken line of thought is to suppose that God is so utterly different that we have zero grasp whatsoever in what God’s goodness consists in, such that we can have zero moral expectations of God. This relies upon an equivocal an understanding of goodness, where goodness means something totally different when attributed to God as when attributed to us. The right approach is analogical (“similarity in difference”). Let me explain.
The classical theist arrives at God’s goodness by application of certain principles. One of these principles is the convertibility thesis of being and goodness – namely, that goodness just is being under the aspect of perfection or desirability (for a defense, see Kerr’s contribution in this recent Aquinas volume). Specifically, the convertibility thesis maintains that goodness just is actuality, or more specifically the actuality of some due potentiality, necessary for the perfection of whatever entity is under consideration. For example, we believe it is good when we are actualized along the lines of our rational nature, we believe it is bad when we fail to act rationality. More broadly, we believe it is bad when a human being is missing a leg, since given our human nature we should have two legs – there is something missing about us, concerning actuality (in technical parlance, a privation), that grounds our negative judgment.
Next step is simple. If God is purely actual (we know this from first cause argumentation), then, by the convertibility thesis, God is purely good. Just as God is subsistent existence, God is subsistent goodness. On the surface, this doesn’t seem to tell us much. Really, this is just telling us that whatever God is, God is the most perfect instance of whatever God is. So yes, God is definitely good, but since goodness is analogical, when saying God is good we are not immediately saying God is just, or merciful, or whatever else we think constitutes a good human being. Because notice: we can say a pair of scissors is good without saying a pair of scissors is just – justice is not a relevant good making feature of scissors, whereas being sharp is.
Does this leave us completely in the dark about just what the goodness of God consists in? Of course not. Because while it is true that when we say God is good we do not mean God is good in exactly the same way the best of any human person is good, nevertheless, if we can attribute certain other things of God – particularly rationality and love – we can infer God’s goodness along these lines is no way inferior to ours but infinitely superior. And indeed, we can attribute rationality and love to God (for reasons philosophical and revelatory), so whatever else God’s goodness consists in, it must consist in being perfectly rational and loving, and that forms to basis for our having broad moral expectations of God – that God will treat us fair, mercifully, and all the rest.
