Can we judge God?
by Emery


If "good" means "what God wills" then to say "God is good" can mean only "God wills what he wills." Which is equally true of you or me or Judas or Satan.
-C.S. Lewis

Christians sometimes get around their God's moral behavior in the Bible by making a statement like this: "God is the source of all moral standards, and without Him, how can we say what is right or wrong? Therefore we cannot judge God, for by what standard would we do so?" In other words, without God, we cannot determine what is right or what is wrong, about Him or anything else. They also say that good does not exist without God, that what He does is always good by default, simply because He is good. There are some problems with this.

If we cannot judge, we cannot recognize
If we do not have the ability on our own to discern what is good or bad, how do we tell a god from a devil? God gives us one set of rules, and Satan gives us another. Without the ability to make moral judgments on our own, we could not recognize God as good, or Satan as evil. "Love your neighbor" would seem just as "good" as "cheat your neighbor," to us. The fact that we can distinguish God from the Devil shows that we do have the ability to make moral judgments within ourselves.

What is the "standard" anyway?
But let's say there is a Divine Moral Standard that tells us right from wrong. It's fine to claim to have such a standard. It's quite another thing to say what that standard is, and what it advocates. For example, "Thou shall not kill." Some say the word "kill" should really be "murder." So which is it? In any event, does this apply to self defense? How about war time? Killing civilians as well as soldiers? What if you are not in danger of death from the invaders, just a takeover of your government? Is human life secondary to national sovereignty? Can I kill someone just so I can live free? This reminds me of a bumper sticker: "When Jesus said love your enemies, I'm pretty sure that meant don't kill them."

In the end, we're all in the same boat. Christian or not, we all must decide what we feel is moral. Even with their "standards," Christians will disagree with eachother on these questions, and many others. Not to mention different denominations' differing interpretations of Scripture. So even though in theory they can argue for a Standard, in practice there is no real standard they can appeal to, because they do not agree on what that standard says, much less what it means.

Some Christians reject secular morality on the grounds that it was created by humans, because human agency is fallible. What they forget is that religion was also created by humans. The Bible itself was written by these humans, and subsequently interpreted by the same. If moral laws created by humans are suspect (because humans are fallible), why is human writing or human interpretation of such writings (even if the writings could be inspired by God) any less fallible?

We really all use the same standard
It's obvious, however, that standards do exist in human culture. Show kindness to someone, and they will think you did good toward them. Try to harm them, and they will consider your action bad. Why is this? Because we are all humanists in the end. What is good for us we consider good, and what is harmful we consider bad. That's why we determine God to be good, and Satan evil, for God is assumed to be a loving being who wants good things to happen to us, and Satan the opposite. Whether we appeal to religion or humanistic ideals, the morality of a thing is usually defined by its impact, good or bad, on people. So what are we really saying when we say God is good? We are saying that He does things that are good for us, such as granting us health, happiness and life. And Satan is bad because He does things to harm us. So what happens when God does things that are harmful to us? We must call such behavior bad. Why? Because if we don't, we cannot call anything bad, nor can we call anything good either.

Remember, morality is a relative term
For humans, good or bad are always determined in relation to us. Goodness cannot exist in a vacuum. It can only have value when it is judged in relation to something else. For example, if I say John is good, I am making a non-statement, unless I define the context I am using the word "good" in. In other words, I must explain, "good at what?" If I am talking about altruism, then I could mean that John is good at helping others. But if I am talking about his boxing abilities, then I may mean that he is good at inflicting harm on others. The same applies when we say God is good. Without a context (such as humans, and the effects on them), calling God good means nothing.

Even so, Christians sometimes try to make "good" a characteristic of God, such as "God is good." But that doesn't really make any sense, for good is not a state of being, rather it is a comparison word, just like the words near, far, tall or short. To say "Jesus was near" means nothing until you add "near to what." Compared to Jerusalem, for example, he was near. But he was not near to South America. But to say that "Jesus was near because nearness is a characteristic of Jesus" makes no sense. Similarly, goodness cannot be called a characteristic of God or anyone-- to do so would require twisting the word out of any recognizable shape.

So again, God's behavior, and therefore His moral character, can only be judged in relation to its effect on the party in question. Back when God was alone, before He created anything, saying God was good could only mean that He was good to himself, which could only mean that He did what He wanted to. In that regard, He would have been no different from any other sentient being, be it a devil or a human. It is only when there are beings other than Himself involved, does His goodness, or His morality, take on any real meaning. It is only then that we can differentiate His morality from anyone else's, and make meaningful statements about it.

Morality is a relative term that can only have meaning when it is considered in relation to those affected. Clearing the American West was a good thing for the American settlers, but a bad thing for the Indians. Burning more coal may be good for keeping our homes warm, but bad for our air. Similarly, when we say God is good, we must have something to measure that by. And the only yardstick we have is us. Can we judge God? Of course. And we must. Or else, we would never know if we were worshipping a god or a devil.