First, just to be clear: no, I’m not arguing that God is evil, amoral, or anything less than the God of love, mercy, and justice portrayed in the Bible, and made known to us through the person of Jesus Christ. This is an issue not about God’s character, but about vocabulary.
The way we talk about things matters. The words we use affect how we view the world and how others view us. The trouble is that human language is limited and trying to use a finite language to describe the infinite is never going to be easy.
We simply do not have the words to describe God. That’s not a new or ground-breaking thought, but it is relevant when it comes to talking about goodness, because, as Jesus himself says (Mark 10:18), if you describe God as good, then you have nowhere to go when talking about mere humans. By comparison, if God and God alone is good, then humans–all humans–must, by definition, be evil, right? And that’s a real problem.
It’s a problem because it defines us by our failures. It creates the view, which I’ve heard many times from more conservative Christians, of humanity as disgusting, corrupt, and miserable creatures reveling in sin and debauchery. It leads to the sort of unhealthy obsession over sin that becomes not a recognition of shortcomings and a desire to repent and do better, but a cause for despair. Sin becomes the defining characteristic of human life. And when you see humanity in those terms it becomes difficult to understand God’s unconditional and… [Read more…] about Is It Time We Stopped Describing God as Good?