The other evening, my wife and I watched a movie entitled, God’s Not Dead. It is a nice movie, replete with largely dispensationalist notions on Christian faith. Two of the main characters throughout the movie – a White Christian pastor of undetermined denomination and an obligatory African pastor who acted as an out of place sidekick – repeated a mantra throughout the film: “God is good all of the time and… all of the time, God is good.” It was a cute little cadence that is sure to make church ladies smile. It is also wrong.
God is not good.
To expound upon this theological position, it is important to understand God is incapable of being “good” because God is not human. Good is a moral determination predicated on decision making. I am “good” if I choose to act in a way that is of beneficial consequence and/or righteous; I am bad if I choose to act in a way that is not of beneficial consequence and/or sinful. The human condition requires us to make choices daily in which a set of results are based on the decision making of an individual. Do I stop my car short of the parking lot exit to allow the other cars to get out? (Stop short = good; block the exit = bad.) Do I have sex with that flirtatious woman at the bar, even though I am married? (Adultery = bad; faithfulness = good.) Etc, etc…
The fact is, God is never confronted by such decision making because He is perfect. God can neither be good nor bad. God’s decision making is entirely founded upon His perfect will. Both Satan and God can use horrible events to sway global or personal events. The latter, however, uses such events to improve earth. The former uses such events to erode or destroy faith. Because Satan is not perfect, he is very capable of being bad, but never capable of being good – because that is not his nature.
When God allows a horrible event to befall a person or place, it is for their benefit. God may correct someone through the use of a car accident, imprisonment, or a flood. When God chose to devastate lascivious Sodom and Gomorrah, He understood the deleterious influences that those sinful cities would have upon the seed of Abraham, should they continue to flourish. When God floods an area, it brings order and correction to a natural flow that subsequently yields and sustains life. When God loves one of His children who deviated onto a sinful path, He uses a myriad of methods to correct that child. That is the work of a loving Father. To us, that may seem “good” in the context of human choices. But, it is genuinely a manifestation of a perfect Father.
Satan’s primary goal is to destroy God. He seeks to supplant God. To achieve this objective, Satan uses every tool at his disposal to erode confidence in God. Drinking alcohol, for example, is not a sin in itself. However, it is cautioned that the Christian not subject himself to so much alcohol that he lacks moral clarity. Satan’s ability to then insert himself via temptations in order to destroy the Christian’s life – such as, making poor choices that lead to adultery, drinking-and-driving, fighting, etc – is made easier through inebriation. Other influences upon the righteous, such as cancer, a loss of income, or death of a beloved family member, are frequently used by Satan to shake the faith of man. Of course, as we see in the book of Job, once we submit ourselves to God, we become His dominion. Satan will still try to pry us away from God through temptation, but when faced with such a circumstance, imploring Christ Jesus breaks the back of Satan and temptation.
All of this leads back to a dangerous precedent set by so-called Christian leaders in the modern era – an attempt to equate the actions of God by human standards – “good” or “bad.” When these Christian leaders attempt to apply human moral relativism into the equation of a God who is perfect, they introduce a subconscious dichotomy that there can be a “bad” God. Such corrosive consideration enables Satan to escape blame while empowering the Christian to become angry with God when something bad happens to them. This is dangerous.
The humanization of God by well-intentioned Christian leaders acts like a domino in a chain of Biblical collapse. If God is good, He can theoretically be bad; if He can be bad, He can be fallible. If He can be fallible, then what is the point of worshiping a fallible God? From that dangerous point, we can now see why God’s Word is questioned on everything from transgenderism and homosexuality to marriage and usury. Race is another area within which Biblical truths can be ignored.
The adoption of critical race theory by one large, formerly “Southern” denomination is a direct rebuke of God’s Word. It is entirely based on the argument that God made a mistake when He made distinct races. Such so-called Christian leaders can only make such an egregious adoption by a false presumption that God is not perfect. Why? Because critical race theory (CRT) places the onus of modern societal ills within the minority communities – especially Blacks – upon Whites whom CRT claims created a self-serving society based on White Supremacy and laws that uniquely benefit Whites. It is a philosophical repudiation of the individual sinner beholden to God and God’s Word as the source of societal ills and, therefore, entirely ungodly. Any church that adopts CRT is therefore a blanket rejection of God – and consequently, Satanic.
Returning to the humanization trend, it comes from dispensationalist attempts to encourage Christians to seek Jesus Christ as someone within whom they can easily confide. The argument largely goes like this: Jesus lived as a man – like you and me – and felt all of the same emotional stresses, therefore He understands your current predicament. While it is true, Jesus is full of compassion and understanding, He is the human manifestation of a Triune God and therefore, also perfect. Jesus is not simply “good.” Jesus is one with God and the Holy Spirit. You can turn to Christ, but not as a crutch to excuse continually bad behavior. This is a facet of faith that is often ignored by mega-churches, mainstream Protestant denominations, and feminized evangelical churches.
The application of human moral relativism upon a perfect God is part of the cancer that is Marxist subjectivity displacing objective truths. So-called Christian leaders are desperate to save their congregations and believe going soft is the way to do so. As we can see by church attendance globally, that attempt is failing. When you open your faith up to subjective applications of truth, your congregants are simply confused. The Devil has his evil hooks into such churches.
People who attend church are seeking concrete answers to their problems – beginning with a perfect God Himself. Sometimes hard truths must be conveyed. This may make someone uncomfortable with their sinful ways, but they should feel uncomfortable. That is the Holy Spirit stirring within them. If the Holy Spirit is not present in a church, Satan will take its place. All of this begins with a simple understanding of the power of language and its linear, downrange consequences. Godly Christian leaders should be mindful of how they approach and minister the Word, beginning with one simple truth… God is not good, He is perfect. Get it right.
The son of a recent Irish immigrant and another with roots to Virginia since 1670. I love both my Irish and Southern Nations with a passion. Florida will always be my country. Dissident support here: Padraig Martin is Dixie on the Rocks (buymeacoffee.com)
Great article! God is not subject to his creations. God’s will is eternal and perfect. You must love it or lump it.
“Why dost thou call me good? None is good but God alone.” Luke 18-19
Part of question 6 of Summa of St Thomas on the Goodness of God
From question 1 whether God is good:
I answer that, To be good belongs pre-eminently to God. For a thing is good according to its desirableness. Now everything seeks after its own perfection; and the perfection and form of an effect consist in a certain likeness to the agent, since every agent makes its like; and hence the agent itself is desirable and has the nature of good. For the very thing which is desirable in it is the participation of its likeness. Therefore, since God is the first effective cause of all things, it is manifest that the aspect of good and of desirableness belong to Him; and hence Dionysius (Div. Nom. iv) attributes good to God as to the first efficient cause, saying that, God is called good “as by Whom all things subsist.”
From Article 3 Whether being essentially good belongs to God alone:
I answer that, God alone is good essentially. For everything is called good according to its perfection. Now perfection of a thing is threefold: first, according to the constitution of its own being; secondly, in respect of any accidents being added as necessary for its perfect operation; thirdly, perfection consists in the attaining to something else as the end. Thus, for instance, the first perfection of fire consists in its existence, which it has through its own substantial form; its secondary perfection consists in heat, lightness and dryness, and the like; its third perfection is to rest in its own place. This triple perfection belongs to no creature by its own essence; it belongs to God only, in Whom alone essence is existence; in Whom there are no accidents; since whatever belongs to others accidentally belongs to Him essentially; as, to be powerful, wise and the like, as appears from what is stated above (I:3:6); and He is not directed to anything else as to an end, but is Himself the last end of all things. Hence it is manifest that God alone has every kind of perfection by His own essence; therefore He Himself alone is good essentially.
God is good; man is evil.
Mark 10:17-18 As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.
I believe what Jesus meant is the correct position to hold regarding the goodness of God. God loves righteousness and hates evil. Being good in this way makes Him desirable. He appeals to me. He has done more to promote good and thwart evil than anyone I know. We should follow Him and glorify Him by using His words and ideas.
Man on the other hand He says is not good.
As it is written, “there is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for god; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.” Romans 3:10-12
I wish we all would value the Lord’s opinion over our own.
Thank you for you for reading my latest piece and your comment. You are right. The inherent nature of mankind is to be drawn to evil. This is why Marxism and all manifestations of it are brutally evil. Marxism places the full weight of utopian ascendancy upon individuals surrendering their God created individuality toward a human attempt to suppress it.
Now, regarding the passage toward which you are referring – Mark 10 – Are you questioning the divinity of Christ through the misuse of this scriptural passage?