Apologetics 101, Question 3: Must God Be Good?

Recently, Catholic Insight posted a thoughtful note from Carl Sundell on the essential questions we should be prepared to answer about our faith.

This list of questions was likely meant to inspire readers to find and research their own answers to these questions. There are over 2,000 years of resources one could sift through in order to adequately answer and confidently respond to these questions.

This inspired me to work through these 39 questions in order to provide clear and concise answers for readers. None of these would, or could, be conclusive, but they could help simplify answers and provide a framework for how one can approach these questions.

3. How can you reason, even without revelation, that God must be good?

In order to answer this question, it would be worth going back to my first installment in this series that answered the questions of God’s existence, specifically the “fourth way” that discussed the Standard of Being.

Briefly though, it says that when we recognize anything in reality as good or true, it is because that individual example of goodness or truth participates in a standard of goodness or standard of truth.

We know something is objectively good, rather than just appealing to me, like my favorite ice cream, because we have this definition of Goodness in our mind, and that something meets our definition. Even if our definition is imperfect, it is still the standard to which other things adhere.

This is not to say that the individual determines what objective goodness is. That will be addressed in the next paragraph. It means that even on the individual level, there is still an appeal to a standard of goodness that exists outside of the individual good thing. When one says that a hammer is good, the standard of goodness exists outside the hammer itself, even if the one saying the hammer is good is mistaken about what makes a good hammer.

Even if one’s standard is imperfect or mistaken, it can only exist if there is an ultimate, objective Standard of Goodness with which our individual standard should align. Using the previous example, I may disagree about what makes a good hammer and appeal to a higher standard of goodness that exists outside of me and my interlocutor. This points to a standard independent of us and more authoritative. It would include more goodness within itself.

Move beyond just the goodness of hammers and apply this logic to all good things. This standard must then include all goodness. It would exist independently of all individual good things and must exist before them in order for them to participate in its goodness. This Standard of Goodness that precedes every individual good thing and determines that thing’s goodness must, by nature, include all of goodness in order to be the standard.

Here is where it would actually be helpful to consult my second installment in this series as there I provide a way to understand a definition of good that is not arbitrary or dependent on the Bible. Briefly, the concept of goodness, both metaphysical and moral goodness, relies on the integration of a substance ordered toward its purpose. Something is “good” when it is made of a matter and form according to its specific purpose. This is just as true of actions as it is with objects or ideas.

If the Standard of Goodness includes by its nature all goodness, then it must by definition be good itself. It includes within itself all goodness and is the cause of any individual good thing. This means that when we use the word “good,” it only makes sense because of that standard. If that standard of goodness (indeed, of all ‘being’) is God, then God must, by definition, be good.

Something that should be added to this description of ‘God as good’ is that we can only use this description as an analogy. God cannot be described as good in the same way that any other thing is good. This is because of what was shown earlier about God not just being another good thing, but the very standard and cause of goodness in everything else. This means that God’s goodness, while similar, is still qualitatively different from the goodness found in all other existing things.

The goodness of Creation resembles God’s goodness in the way a shadow resembles the look of the real person. Because we are made in God’s image and likeness, our goodness resembles him more closely than anything else in Creation (even more than the angels because of the Incarnation), but we are still just the best shadows.