Good vs. Perfect God

“You are good all the time. All the Time You are good.”
-some Christian pop song

It is certainly popular among the modern church to present God with a happy face. As is illustrated by the quote above, many so-called “praise and worship” songs talk about God being “good.” However, what seems to get swept under the rug is that few seem to be willing to talk about how to reconcile a “good God” when life and events go catastrophically wrong. In fact, it is a common tact by non-believers to take to believe that a “good God would never let such a thing happen” or that the pervasive evil in the world smacks of the non-existence of God.

On 9/11, did God say, “Oops! Dropped the ball on that one!”? During the Holocaust, did God say, “Sure I could stop it, but I’ll just let those silly humans execute their precious free will.”? During the crusades, did God say, “Hey, if they want to kill in my name, who am I to stop them?”?

Thus saith Mr. E., “I don’t think so.”

So if God is “good all the time,” why has all of this evil happened on God’s watch? The most common explanation I run into in the church is to blame humankind itself… as if the pots have control over themselves behind the Potter’s back. Given the fact that God created time and history and everyone in it (and thus the good or bad circumstances behind their entrances into time and history), and then went on to give prophetic milestones (some reached, some still to be reached) and given that wars and rumors of wars “must take place” (Matthew 24:6), evil is inevitable and necessary to carry out God’s plan. In short, evil is part of God’s plan.

But Christians don’t like to think about that, and it’s a lot more palatable to chalk the evil in the world up to ourselves rather than to think that it’s as much a part of God’s plan as good. So to review, good comes from God; evil comes from humans; therefore, God is good, and humans are evil.

That’s the setup; here’s my thesis: God is perfect, not good.

Consider what “good” means. “Good” can be either qualitative (i.e. good/bad) or moral (i.e. good/evil). This posting deals with the latter only. When evil became part of the human condition in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3), evil was not the only thing that Adam and Eve gained the knowledge of. They also gained the knowledge of good, as the tree that they ate from was called “tree of knowledge of good and evil.”

Good and evil are necessary counterparts that cannot exist without each other. If all is “good,” then there is no “good.” It’s the same principle as highlighting every word in a book; if everything is highlighted, then nothing is highlighted. Without lowlight, there is no highlight, and without evil there is no good.

Christians seem to think that being “perfect” means being absolutely “good” or “good all the time.” However, given the need for the existence of evil to substantiate the existence of good, a realm devoid of evil must necessarily be devoid of good as well. It must be meta-moral. That is what perfection is: it is being neither good nor evil, being beyond moral credit or culpability. It is absolute sovereignty.

Observe my very crude diagram below.


[If reading from the facebook import, click here to view the original posting to see the diagram]

Good and evil are both straying concepts from perfection, and they balance each other. The greater capacity for good, the greater capacity for evil. Good and evil are measurable (or if not measurable, at least comparable). Perfection is to morality like infinity is to time: complete absolution from the other. There is no good and evil in perfection; there is no time in infinity. Perfection is neither measurable nor comparable; it is either perfect, OR it is good/evil.

Perfection is like a mathematical zero. It is neither negative nor positive; it represents a pure balance between indefinite numerical divisions on either side of the line. It also represents an absolute lack of quantity. It is substantially nothing and is of no value to either the positive or negative sides. If one took all the good and subtracted all the evil, one would wind up with perfection—zero.

Bear in mind Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden in a perfect state (the image of God, Genesis 1:27) in perfect communion with God (God walked with them in the Garden, Genesis 3:8). They knew neither good nor evil; they were perfect creations UNTIL they knew both good and evil. It wasn’t evil first; they didn’t start out good.

One could argue that God created them and “it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). This “good” is an example of a qualitative good. This is not a moral judgment; it’s a qualitative assessment. It’s like an artist admiring his own work. Those statements refer to quality, not morality.

Why is this important?

From where I sit, I hear all kinds of views of God, and so many of them reduce God to a vending machine and gofer. Christians like to think of God as “good” and point to times that God did good things for them to substantiate it. Non-believers often point to the evil of the world (or worse: the evil of supposed believers/churches), and this makes the concept of a “good God” not just unthinkable but downright repugnant. Christians try to sell God as “good” to people that have witnessed little other than evil. Professing a “good God” is repulsive and backwards to many who don’t already believe in God.

God is sovereign and beyond good and evil. He has absolute rule as the Creator of time, space and mass. Good and evil are moral constructs for us; they are not applicable labels for God. God is infinitely perfect, not good/not evil.

Isaiah 45:7 (NASB)
The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these.

Spiritual but not Religious

“Some people believe in the ‘man upstairs’ or the ‘big guy.’ ... That’s bubba faith!”
-Rev. Allen Lockerman

I firmly believe in questioning your own faith and coming to informed and educated opinions, and I rag on Christians all the time for not being well informed, and I rag on churches constantly for propagating the gospel of ignorance. This time, if you call yourself “spiritual but not religious,” I call on you to take a good hard look at why you believe what you believe.

What does “spiritual but not religious” even mean? There are probably as many explanations for it as there are people who espouse this, but let’s take a closer look at what they’re saying. What does it mean to be “spiritual”? Why not be also “religious”? What does one who claims this mantel actually believe, as opposed to not believe?

I’m spiritual...
Okay, so you’re “spiritual.” So? What does that mean? I gather that it means that you believe in something. Okay, well, what is it? What is this almighty something? Further, why do you believe in this something as opposed to nothing?

I know some who are so bold as to call this something “God.” Some use euphemisms like I quoted from Allen Lockerman above. And some just refer to the great something as an unfathomable mystery. Here’s the problem with that: that’s where it all stops. Huh? Those who hold this belief in the almighty something have no accountability to it. Why? Because they have no relationship to/with it. The almighty something exists only in their minds for their sole benefit. The almighty something agrees with them and their own worldview of good and evil, so as far as they’re concerned, if they can stay “good” by their own reckoning, then the almighty something agrees and will presumably usher them into a favorable hereafter.

So the bottom line here is that one who is “spiritual” believes in something but does not really know what or why, and by staunchly defending the great mystery of the man (or woman) upstairs, one may remain blissfully ignorant of any accountability to the something. IF one’s sense of right and wrong stems supposedly from this belief in the almighty something, it will remarkably resemble the individual’s environmentally-based conclusions on morality. The almighty something will almost invariably support the individual’s good vs. evil worldview... coincidence?

Quick aside: a lot of contemporary Christian worldviews are similar in their self-justifying properties. “God” becomes little more than the Almighty Yes-Deity.

“Spiritual” people want to believe in something and don’t know what to believe in, or they just want to believe in what ever they want to believe in that makes them happy or justified in their own ways and views. Those are key, because they absolve the believer from all accountability to something other than self.

The deeper you probe, the more you find that the almighty something is self.

...but not religious.
Oh, the much lamented and vilified word, “religion.” A great many followers of the almighty something believe in the something because they hate organized religion. “Please Lord, save me from your followers.” I can definitely see how other people’s observances of religions can be a turn off, but be that as it may, that is still an irrelevant referentialist approach. Do I really need to tell anyone that there is more than one flavor of Christianity or Islam or any “organized” religion? You can easily kill people knives, but do you take a moral stand against knives just because they have been placed in corrupted hands in the past? Anything is corruptible, yet why do you so quickly walk away from religion based on the actions of the corrupt and the throngs that blindly followed? Do you actually believe that the corrupters of religion are correct in their self-serving interpretations of it? Do you? Do you really think that you can make an informed judgment of what a religion really says based on the corrupt judgments of power-hungry people?

Mind you, I’m in no way excusing the errant and destructive acts of rank hatred perpetrated throughout history by corrupt or brainwashed supposedly religious zealots. Deplorable is as deplorable does.

What I am saying, however, is that you can’t make an informed judgment on a religion without a formalistic inquiry into the academic and historic properties of the belief system itself, NOT just referentially how it has been used in the hands of the corrupt.

Another property of religion that is undesirable to the followers of the almighty something is, once again, a distinct and very desired lack of personal accountability. Without a body of believers around who believe similarly, who can ever correct you? To whom must you answer for your decisions? No one! And that is exactly the point! I’m willing to bet that more people are familiar with the Bible verse, “Just not lest ye be judged,” (Matthew 7:1) than John 3:16. No one wants to be told than he/she is wrong, so we’ve cloaked our own faults in the impenetrable façade of “Don’t judge me!” After awhile, we started to believe ourselves that our faults aren’t really faults at all, and no one can call me out on them (and if anyone does, I can always resort to Matthew 7:1). Even Christians do this now!

Since we’re in an age where people can’t seem to separate who they are with what they do, rebuking someone (even lovingly so) on anything that they do has become widely perceived as a contemptible personal attack or “intolerance” or “hate.” For example, I supported Proposition 8 in California; therefore, I am a de facto “intolerant hateful bigot.”

Religion, being a group bound together by common beliefs, has standards. Imagine if I proclaimed Mohammad to be God’s prophet in a Christian church or claimed that Jesus was the Son of God at an atheist convention. You are accountable to a body of believers in any religion, so being “not religious” absolves you of any accountability for your beliefs. Believe what ever you want; no one cares! No one can ever stand on any ground to challenge you, and you know it!

If that is you, I want you to take a good hard look at the ground you think you stand on, and put it up to the question, “Why do I believe that?” Who IS your god, and why? It’s at least more respectable to say, “I believe in no god, and here’s why…” than to say, “I believe in something, but I don’t really know what.” It’s even more foolish to say, “I believe in individual truths,” because your own personal opinion did not create anything, least of all any alleged deity(ies) that you think exists to make you feel good about yourself.

I’m spiritual but not religious.
Finally, how does this make a difference in your life? Does it help you to think that something is out there? Do you weigh your life’s decisions in light of this something out there? What difference it make to believe in a nebulous mysterious something that you think tells you to be good but doesn’t lay out what it means to be “good”?  Can you articulate what DO believe in without alluding to what you DO NOT believe in?

What is that something? Why do you believe in it? Whom are you really following?

I Think; Therefore, I Am... Rare?

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires.”
-2 Timothy 4:3 (NASB)

It never ceases to amaze me how many people fancy themselves to be “smart” simply because they can parrot others who call themselves “smart.” During the 2008 election season, I saw both of these slogans: “I think, therefore I am liberal,” and “I think, therefore I am conservative.” Aside from the fact that both of those slogans are comma splices (time has not been kind to grammar rules), I have to wonder if either side thinks much at all.

This condition, I think, comes from how a lot of people never progress past the very first methods of learning: imitation and regurgitation. Tell people what to think, and throw in a few clever snappy slogans from people who have convinced others to agree with them, and there you have it: another sheep in a herd called “smart.” There is safety in numbers, so if enough people believe something and can concoct a surface-level case for its validity with a few respected people to vouch for it, Whamo!! Instant intelligence!

And even more perplexing are those who believe that simply by opposing conventional wisdom then they are really the smart ones, because they didn’t “fall for” the awful lies and mass hysteria of the majority.

I have come to the conclusion that most “intelligence” is self-serving. That is to say that if I want something to be “right,” I will find someone “smart” who agrees with me. Or if someone “smart” says something that I like, I will agree with it.

I don’t think “intelligence” is about how much you know or what side you take; it’s about what questions you ask, to whom you ask them, and why you ask them. Anyone can parrot an expert; an intelligent person can question an expert. Better yet: an intelligent person can question opposing experts. Two examples of this:
1) If I am an atheist, reading Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion and happily agreeing with it does not make me more intelligent. It just reinforces a preconceived notion.
2) If I am a Christian, reading C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity and happily agreeing with it also does not make me more intelligent. Again, it just reinforces a preconceived notion.

How about politics?
1) If I am a conservative, readily agreeing with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity doesn’t make me more intelligent.
2) If I am a liberal, readily agreeing with Chris Matthews and James Carville doesn’t make me more intelligent.

Issues have at least two sides, and if you are repulsed by the idea of exploring objectively (as much as possible) a side that you’re not predisposed to like or support, then it doesn’t matter how much you know about your own side. You’re not really intelligent; you’re rehearsed and reinforced. If your starting point in deciding your stance on an issue is your own personal convenience, you can fill your brain with all the supporting “facts” you want, but you’re not really out to learn something, you’re out to justify yourself. That’s not intelligence; that’s regurgitation for justification.

I think a couple hallmarks of intelligence are fairness and the ability to critically evaluate claims made by all sides. There is no automatically “right” claim by anyone, including those who align themselves with you (or vice versa). Another hallmark is the ability to see from the opposing side and articulate clearly what the opposing side says and why it says it. Intelligence, as I see it, doesn’t come from knowing much; it comes from understanding much. If all you explore is one side, well then of course you’re going to hold to that side strongly! That does not make you intelligent; that makes you sheltered and indoctrinated.

A sheep in a smart herd is still a sheep. Don’t be a sheep.

Challenge and question everything.