BH
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Why in religious debates is it always a given a god is good?
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God and goodness
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Eldarion Lathria
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Keith&Co.
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Cheerful Charlie
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Biblical revelation.
Matthew 19
16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?
17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
Mark 10
17 And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.
Psalm 100
5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
Etc.
James Brown
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It says so on the label.
He also knows everything and can do everything.
He also knows everything and can do everything.
DBT
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ronburgundy
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Monotheism is held on purely emotional, non-rational grounds, and a one-god universe only has emotional appeal if that god is "good".
People without any reason to think the hypothesis is actually true, believe it is true b/c they want it to be true.
Under polytheism, you can have good and bad gods, b/c then there is hope for good by rooting for the "good guys". But if there is just one god in charge of everything whose power in unchangeable, then anything but a good god means hopeless despair. Why would any person want to con themselves into believing in a universe of hopeless despair ruled by an unchallenged cruel god, who would obviously also control the afterlife?
Almost no theists give any honest thought to the logical problem that there is no basis to assume god is good, b/c such honest thought leads inevitably to the rejection of that assumption, and therefore to the rejection of theism, or at least monotheism. IOW, those who have given honest thought to the question of God's assumed goodness are mostly atheists.
People without any reason to think the hypothesis is actually true, believe it is true b/c they want it to be true.
Under polytheism, you can have good and bad gods, b/c then there is hope for good by rooting for the "good guys". But if there is just one god in charge of everything whose power in unchangeable, then anything but a good god means hopeless despair. Why would any person want to con themselves into believing in a universe of hopeless despair ruled by an unchallenged cruel god, who would obviously also control the afterlife?
Almost no theists give any honest thought to the logical problem that there is no basis to assume god is good, b/c such honest thought leads inevitably to the rejection of that assumption, and therefore to the rejection of theism, or at least monotheism. IOW, those who have given honest thought to the question of God's assumed goodness are mostly atheists.
ronburgundy
Contributor
That doesn't really answer the question, but only slightly reframes it into "Why don't monotheists believe in a god that is "bad" according their own relative preferences?" Why is the monotheistic god always a god that matches the believers preferences of what is "good"? Logically, there no reason an actual god should be good. In fact, given infinite preferences, the odds are near zero that any actual god would match your relative preferences of "good".
The answer is that god is manufactured from the believers own relative preferences. Emotional comfort is the basis for monotheism in the first place, so if you're going to con yourself into a feel good lie, you're gonna make your lie include a "good" god.
BH
Veteran Member
If god does not exist, for the sake of argument, it seems there is no way to prove it if someone believes their god is all good, all knowing, and all powerful. You could use one or two of the three to explain away the shortcomings of one of the attributes.
Cheerful Charlie
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Very much so. According to Christian theology, God is good. It is a necessary attribute of God. Simplicity of God, an ancient theological theory says that God's substance and essences are one an the same. If God then is essentially good, prefectly good, and god creates all, where does evil come from?
So the word good needs a does of special pleading. God owes us nor moral obligations. God is not a moral agent. Ideas apparently going back to Duns Scotus, and found today from any number of theologians including William Craig Lane. The idea that since god gave us existence, he does not owe us anything more than that great gift.
Which does not solve the Problem of Evil, unless you set the bar low for solving that.
https://ndsmcobserver.com/2016/03/professor-analyzes-views-on-god-good-and-evil/
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[h=2]news[/h]
[h=3]Professor analyzes Aquinas’s view on God, good and evil[/h] Sydney Enlow | Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Fr. Brian Davies, a distinguished professor of philosophy at Fordham University, has dedicated his academic career to studying and writing about the philosophy of religion, and has focused on the work of Thomas Aquinas. Fr. Davies explored the question of why, if God is all powerful and morally good, there is evil present in the world in a lecture held Tuesday night at Rice Commons
The lecture focused on Aquinas’s rejection of the argument against the existence of God. According to Aquinas, God is not a morally good agent, despite popular belief.
“Aquinas views that God should not be thought of as a moral agent in the first place, meaning that God should not be thought of as something either morally good or morally bad,” Davies said. “Aquinas maintains that we do not know what God is … God is strictly non-classifiable.”
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