What the Bible Says

"Goodness" is action that is motivated by love. "Love God with all your heart... and love your neighbor as yourself" (or close enough as makes no difference- going from memory here).

In any case that your actions are not motivated by pure love in the spiritual sense, you are being less than perfectly good, and thus to some extent sinful.

God is the source of all goodness because he is the source of all love (defined not simply as an emotional state, but as a source of spiritual energy or power- the emotional experience you think of as 'love' is actually merely the outcome of allowing this energy to pass through you. Bear in mind that the passage of this energy is not the only thing that can cause you to experience the emotional state).

We have to make a distinction (that is very difficult due to shortcomings in the English language) between actions that remove you from God's love due to ignorance or misunderstanding (more or less the fate of everyone while on earth- a more liberal definition of 'original sin' if you like) versus actions that are deliberately intended to remove one from this power- a very serious sin.

Losing your temper and hurting someone's feelings is an example of the first kind, torturing someone to death is an example of the second.

Thus we have an independent criterion of "goodness", a reason why God is considered 'good', and a working model of what sin is.

You're welcome.

If you say so. sounds like a lot of self-reference, not to mention I fundamentally disagree with your starting point.

Details. It's like you're teasing me.

Well, for starters, "goodness is motivated by pure love-" what does that even mean?

I measure goodness by the utility it creates. If someone's life is improved, that's good. If someone's life is harmed, that's notGood. There feels like there's a lot of pseudo-meaningfulness when you define goodness in terms of "love" and that means that any application of that goodness to God is likewise only pseudo-meaningful.

I'm saying that the motivation of an act is what defines it's goodness. To the extent that someone is motivated by desires other than spiritual love that act is less good. Less good = more sinful. Not sure where the ambiguity comes in.

Measuring goodness by utility is a perfectly respectable philosophical position, but it isn't the Christian one, which is what I thought you were asking for information about.

It just struck me that you might not know what "spiritual love" is, in which case you might be experiencing some confusion. I'm referring to what the Bible calls "agape". Here.

I don't know man, it sounds like creating a whole new set of definitions to prove something through equivocation.

"I measure goodness by the utility it creates."

That's fundamentally not the point when it comes to absolute goodness.

If your definition of Good doesn't include making people's lives better, I hold that it make be true in a sense, but it is simultaneously irrelevant.

So the sense that God is All Good while being all powerful and all knowing is irrelevant.

If I was a theologian I could probably even argue against your chosen definition, but it doesn't really interest me because it doesn't have any real meaningful consequences that I can take away from it.

It's true that one can ultimately show that utilitarian argument fits in with your picture of goodness, but I don't think utilitarianism itself is the standard.

In other words, God does want to provide what's best for humans (God's goodness/blessing and life), so in a way it makes sense. But, that happens in God's viewpoint. Humans might be happy at the moment but their happiness might be misguided and ultimately lead down to a wrong road that, in the long run, will result in unhappy consequences.

Good nature is probably closer to theological goodness.

I'm not continuing this argument any further because I don't know what position I'm defending or arguing against.

I'm asking why you're imposing quantitative utility on absolute goodness.

What are you talking about? "Utility" doesn't mean it's "quantitative." It doesn't mean there are explicit "numbers." Utility isn't any less abstract than "love."

I guess I read it as quantitative when you said "measure".

About this: "If someone's life is improved, that's good. If someone's life is harmed, that's not good." I don't think it's that simple, because you have to look at what it all comes down to together, and not just the momentary utility. But one can argue that if you have the correct basis and outlook, then ultimately utilitarianism, too, may agree with this sense of goodness.

Also, on the practical side, I fail to see why measuring if a certain action improves or worses the lot of people is any easier. You cannot simply ask people for their personal evaluations, for example; and you cannot certainly limit yourself to examine the immediate consequences. If you ask an heroin addict if you are helping them by withholding their drug, for example, they will say that this is not at all the case — that if you really wanted to help them, you'd give them the fix they need.

If anything, it seems to me that there is less wriggle room if we start from high-level principles ("Love your neighbor as yourself" and all that jazz) and try to see what that implies on a practical level.

EDIT: In other words, what said.

edited 4th May '12 1:51:46 PM by Carciofus

Do I need to say "all else being equal" after every line? I assumed that was implied.

Look-the difficulty in MEASURING utility does not mean it doesn't exist. You can make a better argument that the difficulty in measuring it makes it impractical as a means of dictating morality or policy or the like, but that's an entirely different point.

The point I'm getting at is that, in the aggregate, what matters is wellbeing versus suffering-not some notion of "I did it for loooooove." I mean, what if I'm a Yandere?

edited 4th May '12 3:47:39 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

The issue here isnt the relative merits of utilitarianism as a system of ethics, it's simply that the Bible doesn't use that as a standard of good. Christianity is not utilitarian. That doesn't mean that one or the other must be better or more correct, only that there are different standards of the good in different moral systems, and Christianity uses one that Tomu evidently regards as without value to him (actually, I'm not sure that Tomu even understands it, but that's another matter).

The bottom line is that, I can't accept an entity with the power to stop needless suffering but elects not to do so as being "all good" or "all loving." Aka, the problem of evil.

Suffering isn't always "needless"; it's a consequence. Tossing out all rules for the sake of making people happy isn't how things work.\

Suffering is necessarily needless if God is omnipotent.

If you're willing to abandon that particular title, then fine.

If God is just a pack of infinite energy, then yes. But that's not the case. If God was omnipotent and that's it, without the "good nature" part, then God could do wrong.

edited 4th May '12 6:43:01 PM by abstractematics

Alright, so, God isn't omnipotent. The question, then, is what-if any-powers God has to begin with.

There are plenty of ways to justify suffering via God's inability to prevent it-though they tend to be non-biblical because "all things are possible through God" and all that.

"Aka, the problem of evil."

Well, that's a different issue. That problem remains even if you did understand/accept the good=love algorithm I offered.

There is no one traditional Christian explanation of evil. The simplist is the supposition that the afterlife is so nice and rewarding that a little unpleasantness here on earth is soon forgotten. The freewill approach is also popular.

I take issue with both approaches.

Oddly, it was Rottweiler who first gave a convincing argument-which basically said "Screw omnipotent and all loving, it's just THE MOST powerful and THE MOST loving."

Though I can take issue with the latter at times, because you can get scenarios where earthly individuals, through their actions, can be considered more loving than God. Basically, does the evidence hold up and all that.

Intention does not make goodness. Action does.

I can intend all I want to with full sincerity, but my actions will decide if I am good or not.

Example, parents who genuinely love their homosexual children and want them to avoid hell who send them to "straight counselling". Or worse, those who feel they should "beat the gay out of them".

Lets stay on topic please