OPTIONAL
Is Goodness Independent of God? A Question Raised by Genesis 1
During a group discussion of Genesis 1, one participant raised an interesting question about the repeated statement, “God saw that it was good.”
Does this mean that goodness exists independently of God, and that God discovers that something is good only after creating it? Or does goodness itself ultimately depend on God?
It is a question worth taking seriously. It leads us into a long-standing conversation in Christian theology about the relationship between God, creation, and goodness.
Question 1: Has Christianity explored this question before?
Yes. Christian thinkers have explored the relationship between God and goodness for centuries. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, among others, developed accounts of God as the supreme Good and the ultimate source of created goodness. Their approaches help us understand why Christian theology does not need to regard goodness as either an independent standard above God or an arbitrary product of God's decisions.
Question 2: What is the Christian response, and what is the reasoning behind it?
The classical Christian response begins with the belief that God is the source of all created being. Created things are good insofar as they possess the existence and perfections appropriate to their nature. Their goodness is therefore not independent of God.
At the same time, goodness is not merely an arbitrary label that God attaches to things. God does not become good by deciding to be good, nor does he discover a standard of goodness superior to himself. Rather, God is good in himself, and the goodness of creation ultimately depends on him.
How does this help us read Genesis 1?
When Genesis says that God saw that creation was good, we need not imagine God discovering something previously unknown to him. We can understand the words as affirming the genuine goodness of the created order that comes from him.
The biblical text does not explicitly provide a philosophical explanation of the relationship between God and goodness. The Christian theological tradition helps us explore that relationship more systematically.
The question raised in our discussion therefore opens up a valuable way of reading a familiar passage. It reminds us that the goodness of creation is not incidental to the biblical account: it is a fundamental affirmation about the world and its relationship to God.
Further Reading: Is Goodness Independent of God?
The question raised in our discussion of Genesis 1 has occupied philosophers and theologians for centuries. If you would like to explore it more deeply, the following readings offer several ways into the subject.
1. Start with the philosophical problem
Plato, Euthyphro
In this dialogue, Socrates asks whether something is pious because the gods love it, or whether the gods love it because it is pious. Although the dialogue concerns piety rather than goodness in general, it raises a problem closely related to our question: does goodness depend on a divine decision, or is there a standard of goodness independent of the divine?
This is a good starting point because it helps clarify the philosophical alternatives before considering the Christian response.
2. Augustine: God as the supreme Good
Augustine, Confessions, Book VII
Augustine's reflections on God, being, and evil are particularly relevant. He comes to understand evil not as an independent substance competing with God, but as a privation or corruption of a good that ought to be present.
This provides an important background for understanding how Christianity can affirm both the goodness of creation and the reality of evil. If God is the supreme Good, created things are good through their participation in the goodness that comes from him, although their goodness is limited and can be corrupted.
A question to consider: If evil is a privation of good rather than an independent substance, what does this tell us about the relationship between the Creator and the created world?
3. Thomas Aquinas: the relationship between goodness and being
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Part I, questions 5, 6, and 19
These three questions offer a particularly systematic treatment of the subject:
Question 5, “Of Goodness in General,” examines what goodness is and how it relates to being.
Question 6, “Of the Goodness of God,” considers God as good in himself and as the source of the goodness of other things.
Question 19, “The Will of God,” explores divine willing and its relationship to God's nature and the created order.
Aquinas argues that being and goodness are convertible: whatever exists is good insofar as it possesses being and the perfections appropriate to it. This does not mean that every existing thing or action is morally good in every respect. Rather, goodness is not an additional property that must be attached to otherwise neutral existence.
These questions are especially useful for anyone who wants to follow the logical structure of the classical Christian response rather than simply learn its conclusion.
A question to consider: If God is the source of all created being and goodness, does God need to consult a standard of goodness outside himself? And if not, how can we avoid concluding that goodness is arbitrary?
4. Go deeper: the relationship between God, goodness, and divine command
For a more advanced exploration, look into contemporary philosophical discussions of the Euthyphro dilemma and the classical Christian response that goodness is grounded in God's nature rather than in arbitrary divine decisions.
This raises a further question: is God's goodness something separate from who God is, or is goodness inseparable from God's very nature?
It is important here to distinguish the classical Christian account from the claim that anything becomes good simply because God commands it. The claim that goodness is grounded in God's nature is an attempt to avoid both the idea of a standard superior to God and the idea of an arbitrary divine will.
A final question to take back to Genesis 1
When we read that God saw that creation was good, are we imagining God discovering a standard that exists independently of him, arbitrarily assigning value to his creation, or recognizing and affirming the genuine goodness of what comes from him?
Genesis 1 does not explicitly provide a philosophical treatise on the nature of goodness. But the passage opens a question that the Christian intellectual tradition has explored in considerable depth. Reading Augustine and Aquinas can help us understand that tradition and examine the reasoning behind its conclusions.
See also: the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Divine Command Theory.
Reflecting on the question:
ReplyDeleteIf evil is a privation of good rather than an independent substance, what does this tell us about the relationship between the Creator and the created world?
I understand the nature of God as a self-existent, uncreated and perfect being. And by being perfect it means he can’t change, because if it changes (like an update), then he was not perfect or was missing sth to be perfect, and if he loses sth then it’s less perfect. In this line, if he is IMMUTABLE and it’s good then HIS Goodness it’s PERFECT and can’t be corrupted or change, meaning that he will not randomly decide that sth will not be good anymore or put new rules to HIS goodness. But what about OUR Goodness? God didn’t create other God literally equal to Him, but a being with a FINITE and MUTABLE nature. Therefore it means that OUR goodness COULD be corrupted from the beginning. Because even though we were “perfect”, we were “perfect creations”, meaning that from the beginning we had everything perfectly designed for us to be happy. And that we could also experiment feelings, develop our own way of thinking and take our own decisions. Then we also have the free will to decide to follow God or to be corrupted by being far away from God. Then evil doesn’t come from God or was created by him or he put evil in the world, but evil things happens only when we turn away from God. This reflects that our nature to be good depends on God and we need God to be ultimately happy.
Marcelo, thank you for your very thoughtful comment! You raise some very important points and have provided an excellent explanation of the difficult question of good and evil. I hope you’ll also have a chance to look at the required questions on Genesis 1 and 2 in my other post.
ReplyDeleteWilliam on the following : This raises a further question: is God's goodness something separate from who God is, or is goodness inseparable from God's very nature? the way I look at it, beauty is a good substitute here - What is beautiful, is beautiful, no matter what, and because God made it so- Like Jesus said “even Solomon in all of his splendour was not as magnificent as these “ (The Lilies of the Field.) God created goodness, and beauty, and perhaps in his image - staring at stars or a mountain lake etc
ReplyDeleteWilliam, thank you for your contribution. As you can see in the texts above, as Christians we believe God is the source of goodness and beauty. He decides what defines both. I hope you’ll also have a chance to look at the required questions on Genesis 1 and 2 in my other post.
ReplyDeleteI think Marcelo's reflections on divine immutability are very interesting, especially the distinction between God's necessary perfection and the contingent, mutable goodness of creation. And William's observation about beauty also introduces something I've always found fascinating, particularly given my background in physics: the extraordinary intelligibility of nature/the universe, and the apparent objectivity of truths which seem to transcend the physical universe itself.
ReplyDeleteThis connects to a problem principally explored by Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig concerning the ontological status of abstract objects, such as numbers, shapes, mathematical relations and logical possibilities. Mathematical truths appear to be necessary, remaining true even if the physical universe had never existed (like 1+1=2), likewise logical truths like the law of non contradiction which seems even more obvious. Yet if such truths exist independently of God, have we not introduced something eternal and uncreated alongside the Creator? Conversely, if God simply decides what constitutes truth, goodness or beauty, does this not return us to the arbitrariness Father’s original post on goodness seeks to avoid?
I find the classical Catholic (in Augustine & Aquinas) conception of divine ideas a cool approach to this problem. God neither discovers some independently existing order nor determines one, but knows within His own essence the innumerable ways in which finite creation might participate in His perfection.
Anyway, I think this gives an interesting connection between Marcelo's comment on immutability and William's comment on beauty - that goodness and beauty are recognisable within a contingent and mutable creation precisely because their ultimate ground is not itself contingent or mutable.
It also seems to me to give a greater depth of understanding to Genesis 1. God's repeated affirmation that creation is good thus concerns something more profound than simple approval: the participation of created reality in an intelligible order grounded in divine reason. And perhaps our capacity to discover that order, whether through mathematics, scientific investigation or philosophical reasoning, is itself one of the most compelling expressions of the imago Dei, making a nice connection between our first and second catechesis sessions. Cool links!