Video
Twitter
RSS Feed
God's goodness, and absence
Q: Is there good without God? Can people be good without God? How can people be good, in the moral and ethical sense, without being grounded in some sort of belief in a being which is greater than they are? Where do concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, come from if not from religion? From where do you get your sense of good and evil, right and wrong?
I read somewhere that there is no bad; that bad is merely the absence of good, and that good is all that truly exists. That person said that good exists because of God.
But plenty of bad exists in spite of God, or maybe even because of God, so the question, "Can good exist without God?" really boggles my mind.
It boggles me because if it is true that bad does not exist, but is merely the absence of good, then God, ever present, is also frequently absent.
So, if one does not believe in God, or embrace God, one is really no worse off than one who does embrace God but has to accept the fact that God ...is too often absent.
Theological debates are wearisome to me because they are circular; there is never an end-point, a real period in answer to the question trying to explain rationally something which is not rational.
The notion of God is not rational, yet faith in this non-rational entity really does affect the behavior of people inclined to believe in that way. The effect can be positive or negative, however. The presence of God does not guarantee "good" any more than the absence of a belief in the presence of God guarantees "bad." Human beings and our behavior are too complex to be so simply broken down.
Actually, the presence of God, or the belief in the presence of God, has driven people to do horrible things. People have killed in the name of God. They have raped because of their belief in this God, a God who has made them angry over the years.
People discriminate and oppress other people in spite of the presence of God. Wars have been instigated and perpetuated in the name of God. War is not good. Neither is oppression or discrimination.
There is a new movie coming out called, "Collision." In this movie, an evangelical pastor, Douglas Wilson, debates an atheist, Christopher Hitchens. They are arguing about the presence of God. The evangelical says "yes, " and, of course, the atheist takes him to task.
But if one thinks that the presence of God means there is always good, and tries to argue on that point, that person will lose. Strong believers in God do bad things, and people who do not believe in God do good things.
Hitchens says that there is "no role for faith" in the modern world. Faith is what compels a person to believe in God.
But faith cannot compel good behavior. In fact, believers have made a science out of sidestepping the supposed "will of God" to do what they want, and then have said that their behavior was justified and condoned by God.
Andrew Jackson, for example, thought God told him to annihilate American Indians.
Hitchens says that the presence of God, or belief in the presence of God, is a subjective truth, and the evangelical pastor says that the presence of God is an objective reality.
I would say that the truth lies somewhere between the middle of these two extremes.
There is God, who, of course, can motivate good, but there is something else, perhaps created by God, which motivates good, too. But, if one believes that God created everything, this same God would have created those things which motivate bad.
So, what is my conclusion? I conclude that in spite of God, there is good and there is bad. Because of God, there is good and there is bad. And that confusing reality is not likely to be changed or easily understood.
By the way, the person who explained evil as the absence of good was none other than Albert Einstein.
By
Susan K. Smith
|
October 29, 2009; 4:31 PM ET
Share This: 
Technorati
| Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook
Previous: The Best Host |
Next: Morality: no gods required
Posted by: tyson41 | November 1, 2009 7:37 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Fortunately for the world, science has successfully undermined the simpleminded religions - the Abrahamic cults, mainly Christianity and Islam.
Christianity and Islam have had a good 2000 year run preying on ignorance and the ignorant. This ended for Christianity in Europe with the development of science. It is now looking for the ignorant and uneducated in Africa and South America.
Islam - a strange combination of ignorance and intolerance - has been picking the lowest lying fruit for a 1000 years as apparent in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Now is the time for science, logic, and deeper & truer spirituality - not supremacist, intolerant cults like Christianity and Islam that proselytize and force their views on others. This results in conflict, violence, and suffering.
Now is the time for Vedanta & Hinduism. After 1000 years of anti-Hindu propaganda, many are not prepared to hear the wisdom or absorb the deep & complex monistic philosophy which is consistent with science. Now is a good time to start; at least some will benefit.
A new age of rational spirituality is again arriving, and Hinduism and Vedanta will lead the way again.
Posted by: clearthinking1 | November 1, 2009 11:50 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Hey Rev Sue:
Now that it a complex and circular excercise of the mind! It seems to be anchored in an either or dichotomy--I won't push that beyond the mention of it. I do believe that God's presence is ongoing and that free-will causes bad to happen. To blame bad on an absence of God just does not fly with me, but seems to baked into the circular argument.
I heard Walter Brueggeman recently at the FTE Conference in Atlanta. He said that we are called to peculiarity, but that call is always under the pressure of reality--so much so that each day we are challenged to re-decide about the call to peculiarity. There is an ebb and flow to faith in real time it seems. Perhaps that is why Paul said that we should not get "weary" in good-doing--because we will! Perhaps the good we do is always under the pressure to not do it. Paul, again raises the point that when he would do good, evil is always present. The human heart is treacherous--who can know it?--asked the prophet Jeremiah. Thanks for another thought-provoking blog!
Ozzie Smith
Posted by: jr4111checkitout | October 30, 2009 6:52 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Let me catch an interesting phrase. War is bad. Simplistically that is true. But is it always true? The war against Hitler was probably good. Milton's war of the angels of god v angels of satan - should god and his angels not have fought back?
Let us rephrase the dynamic: the world is in flux. That flux is part of the system, can't stop it. We, within the flux, experience the to and fro of the flux and define one direction as good, another as bad. I move towards my goal, I move away from my goal. Now, instead of seeing that it is my perspective that creates the construct of good and bad, I conclude that good and bad are eternal aspects of being. All I have done is placed a valuation on the flux. That has not changed the nature of the flux. But my claim runs into problems because I have now claimed a truth for which my basis is unsound. I must turn my attention to the flux. The movement of that flux, or more correctly, the being of the flux has its own internal goodness/badness. Thus we can choose to says the flux is good or bad from our perspective but honesty should demand a silence about the goodness or badness of the flux.
I hope that explains the apparent duality that is a singularity. (We don't need freedom, we need to act on that freedom to gain realization.)
hariuam
Posted by: Navin1 | October 30, 2009 2:45 PM
Report Offensive Comment
...which proves that just because Einstein is a genius, he didn't know everything!
I think you're onto something Susan.
Maybe it's the African American religious tradition in me, but I struggle with the notion of God creating bad.
I think about it a little differently. I think of God who is so vested in the freedom of God's created beings that God opted for creating us free knowing that both good and bad would result. I think of God as so confident and sure of God's goodness that God knows that God's redemptive plan will be accomplished, and good will one day vanquish evil. In fact, because God exists in the eternal now, evil has already been defeated. Jesus's death on a cross accomplished the victory. Now we who follow Jesus and do good works (I agree one does not necessarily lead to the other__ sin still abounds) and those who do not even know Jesus but are doing good (Mark said whomever is not against us is for us) are ushering in the reign of God in linear time.
So for me, God is good all the time. Yes, technically, since God created us, and gave us free will, and we are prone to do both good and evil, God is certainly responsible for evil (God is in charge!). So in a way you are right.
Did I just agree with you?
Posted by: revduggan | October 30, 2009 11:42 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Circular you say? Reminds me of my logic class discussions!!!
I guess I wonder what is to be gained from deductive or inductive reasoning about
good and evil? About God?
I think for me the issue is not did God create good or evil but in my life with the existence of good and evil how will I create “God”.
In other words, rather than debate what I don’t know about God, I will spend my time on what I do know about God and that is God is love.
So in the expressed absence of good, will I sit and debate did God create it or will it? No! I will in my believing that God is love be proactive in the embodiment of that spirit for my self and my interactions with others.