Is God good or evil?

[tojo]

[quote name='Revprodeji' date='Dec 5 2005, 01:32 AM']God=good, for our understanding of good-right, or natural, or inteneded or Joy, thus God is the absolute of this, steping away from God is away from a natural intention thus is is an "evil" for it is away from the God. We realise this "evil" because of free will allows us to step away from God if we desire. In the fall with the continuted depravity of creation that evil is more obvious
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We must also keep in mind that the Fall clouds our ability to always discern what is and is not truly good.

[Semalsia]

Did God create goodness?

If he didn't, then he isn't the creator of everything.
If he did, then he could not have been good before he made it (that means he was evil).

[Brother Adam]

[quote name='Semalsia' date='Dec 13 2005, 12:14 PM']Did God create goodness?

If he didn't, then he isn't the creator of everything.
If he did, then he could not have been good before he made it (that means he was evil).
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Ah, the English Language. God is good. God was never not good. Goodness is not a created entity, but rather an attribute of many of those things which exists.

[Myles Domini]

[quote]Did God create goodness?

If he didn't, then he isn't the creator of everything.
If he did, then he could not have been good before he made it (that means he was evil). [/quote]

You're mixing up the qualities of created and uncreated essence. The goodness of the created is of a different order than the goodness of the uncreated (God). God is the author of all created essence and being and in this all of creation reflects what God is but it is not what God is. Every good quality we find in the world has an analogous relationship to what God is: every similiarity shows an even great dissimilarity as Lateran IV taught. The good that we find in the created cosmos is so far different from what the good is in God's uncreated essence that there is barely any similarity between them at all. God transcends the transcendentals.

Have a read of this: [url="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0268008019/qid=1134499270/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/103-7813054-9098266?n=507846&s=books&v=glance"]The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas by Etienne Gilson[/url]. The parts on ontology should sort you out .

INXC
Myles

[chickens4life]

God is good... and I mean literally, the word good came from the word God, and replaced it in a number of phrases such as, "Good Friday" (used to be "God friday"), "Good Bye" (used to be "God be With You").
When one word is a derect deivitive of the other, asking "is God good?" sound a lot like "is God God?". and when you look at it that way it seems kind of obviouse.

in Christ

John

[Guest JeffCR07]

[quote name='Semalsia' date='Dec 13 2005, 11:14 AM']Did God create goodness?

If he didn't, then he isn't the creator of everything.
If he did, then he could not have been good before he made it (that means he was evil).
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As others have pointed out, the correct understanding of "God is the creator of everything" is that "God is the creator of everything that is created."

Clearly, God did not create himself, because He is eternal. Because God is The Good, and God is uncreated, so so too then is The Good (which is God) also uncreated.

Your Brother In Christ,

Jeff

[Paphnutius]

I am sure that others have stated this but perhaps another voice in the crowd might drive the point home:

Goodness is not something created, but more likened to a participation inGod's "Goodness"