The Huge Implications of God’s Goodness

In December 2004, a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean killed more than 250,000 people. Over the following weeks, the news media were filled with articles asking, “Where is God?” One reporter wrote: “If God is God, he’s not good. If God is good, he’s not God. You can’t have it both ways, especially after the Indian Ocean catastrophe” Suffering nearly always creates doubts in the human mind about God’s goodness. And if God is not good, then his moral law is just his selfish restriction upon human pleasure, which was the reasoning Satan used to lure Eve into rebellion. This episode examines the massive implications of God’s perfect goodness, not just in resisting temptation, but in enduring suffering, and in shaping the way we interact with the fallen world.  

A famous attack upon the goodness of God was made by Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People, published following the death of his son, Aaron, from the horrible premature aging disease progeria. Kushner argued, “If God is all-powerful, he could prevent evil. If God is all-good, he would prevent evil. Evil exists. Therefore, either God is not all-powerful, or he is not all-good.” Kushner opted for God being good but not all-powerful. Since Kushner’s book exploded on the scene in 1981, careful thinkers have exposed the logical flaws of his argument. Hidden away within Kushner’s argument are two fatal assumptions.

The first is that the evil and suffering that exist can have no good purpose. Kushner views evil as inherently pointless. This reasoning is of course, fallacious. Just because you can’t see or imagine a good reason why God might allow something to happen doesn’t mean there can’t be one. It is a bit arrogant for humans to say that if we can’t plumb the depths of the universe for good answers to suffering, there can’t be any. This argument against God’s existence doesn’t hold up, not only to logic, but to our human experience. Athletes understand a basic truth of life—no pain, no gain. Many people admit that most of what they really needed for success in life came through their prior most difficult and painful experiences. So even at our human level, we get a taste of the possibility that God might allow evil and suffering for a greater good.

The second hidden assumption that fatally undermines Kushner’s logic is that if God were an all-powerful, all-loving God, he would have destroyed evil and suffering ALREADY. Ironically, Kushner’s assumption that a good God would destroy evil is exactly what the gospel of Jesus Christ points to—but not yet! The gospel is that God himself in the Second Person of the Trinity came on a rescue mission for creation. He had to pay for our sins so that someday he could end evil and suffering without ending us!

Besides refuting Kushner’s false logic, the Bible, additionally points to God’s compassion and identification with the human suffering caused by our own evil as proof of God’s goodness and love for those who suffer. As Keller observes:

“Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand, despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture, and imprisonment. On the cross he went beyond even the worst human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours as infinitely as his knowledge and power exceeds ours. In his death, God suffers in love identifying with the abandoned and godforsaken” (Ibid).

When we ask, “Why does God allow suffering and pain to continue?” and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still can’t fully conceive what the answer is. But we now know what the answer is NOT. It can’t be that God doesn’t love us. As Paul wrote, Neither death nor life, neither messenger of Heaven nor monarch of earth, neither what happens today nor what may happen tomorrow, neither a power from on high nor a power from below, nor anything else in God’s whole world has any power to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord!

BIBLICAL TEACHING THAT GOD IS GOOD

• Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him (Ps 34:8)!
• Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good (Ps 100:4-5).
• Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!...For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things (Ps 107:1, 9).
• The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made…. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing (Ps 145:9, 16).

God’s goodness is his morally pure self-giving character by which he acts to benefit his creation. A. W. Tozer, in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, describes God’s attribute of goodness. “The goodness of God is that which disposes Him to be kind, cordial, benevolent, and full of good will towards men. He is tenderhearted and of quick sympathy, and his unfailing attitude towards all human beings is open, frank, and friendly. By his nature, he is inclined to bestow blessedness, and he takes holy pleasure in the happiness of his people.” J. I. Packer adds to this explanation that goodness is generosity, which “means a disposition to give to others in a way which has no mercenary motive and is not limited by what recipients deserve, but consistently goes beyond it. Generosity expresses the simple wish that others should have what makes them happy.” (Knowing God).   

GOD’S GOODNESS IS TESTED IN TRIALS

James, the earthly brother of Jesus, seems to have understood that when trials come our way it is easy for us to doubt the goodness of God. Notice three ways that James highlights God’s goodness for us to remember in the midst of our trials.

A. God is a GOOD coach. A good coach focuses on game day. He knows he must get his team running hills and wind sprints to build their endurance so that in the fourth quarter they can overpower their opponent and win. As a superb coach, God’s focus is the Day when Jesus Christ is revealed—a day that will continue into eternity. To be fully ready for that day, we need to build character through endurance. So, James writes, When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find you have become men of mature character with the right sort of independence (1:2-4). We cannot become like Christ in our character without enduring pain. Pain is the fire that refines our inner attitudes. But we hate pain because our focus is right now instead of game day. However, God loves us too much to take his eyes off game day. He does NOT wrap us up in a protective bubble to be “safe.” It is precisely because he loves us that he is not safe, in the sense of protecting us from all pain. I think of Lucy’s question to Mr. Beaver in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe about whether Aslan was a safe lion. Mr. Beaver answered, “Who said anything about safe. ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he is good.'"  

B. God’s goodness causes him to promise us wisdom to endure hard times. God has not endowed humans with the mental horsepower to always understand suffering. He is weaving our lives into his perfect tapestry, which includes dark hews of suffering, difficulty, and pain. We view the tapestry from underneath, where the dark threads seem like a bunch of ugly knots. But from the perspective of eternity, we will see how the dark threads were necessary to accomplish God's perfect design of our lives. However, though we are limited in our ability to grasp God’s purpose for suffering, God promises enough wisdom to get us through the trial. James continues into verse 5: And if, in the process, any of you does not know how to meet any particular problem he has only to ask God—who gives generously to all men without making them feel foolish or guilty—and he may be quite sure that the necessary wisdom will be given him. In goodness, God is happy to grant to us all the wisdom we need to get through a trial, without shaming us if we ask for it.

C. The goodness of God, which lies behind every good gift, never changes. As James addresses Christians who were suffering, he reminds them that the God who is behind every good gift they have every enjoyed is the same good God who is taking them through this trial. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change (1:17). James wants to insulate his readers against Satan’s fiery arrows, which make us doubt God’s goodness when he takes us through hard times. The God who could remover this difficulty from your life but has not done so is the same one who sent his beloved Son to the cross proving once and for all that he loves you and desires what is best for you. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:32)

THE DOCTRINE OF COMMON GRACE

James’ teaching that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights is the foundation for what has been called common grace. John Calvin recognized this capacity for goodness in non-Christians as a gift of God’s grace. He made the distinction between God’s saving grace towards believers, and God’s common grace towards all men. This James text means that no matter who performs it, every act of goodness, wisdom, justice and beauty is empowered by God. God gives out good gifts of artistic talent, intellectual power, athletic ability, musical skill, wisdom, physical strength, etc. graciously, for the development of his beloved creation earth. He casts them across all humanity regardless of race, gender, religious conviction, or moral character. This doctrine of common grace transforms our entire attitude towards the fallen world.   

The Goodness of Creation Reaffirmed

A. We are to VALUE God’s creation. God’s action of pouring out good gifts upon his image bearers to develop his creation points to the goodness of the material world, which is a mirror of God’s glory. It is a great tragedy that the church has often fallen into the dualism of Greek Gnosticism, which viewed the material world as inferior to the spiritual world. In fact, Roman Catholicism located evil in physical matter. Thus, marriage, along with sexual intercourse that went with it, were lawful but not nearly as virtuous as avoiding sex altogether and becoming a celibate priest. In sharp contrast to such heresy, Paul commanded married Christians at Corinth: The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise the husband also does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Stop depriving one another so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (1 Cor 7:4-5). In Proverbs 5, God shamelessly explains to married men struggling with lust the same Biblical principle for defeating it that Paul taught: the best defense is a great offense. Drink water from your own cistern. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Rejoice in the wife of your youth. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love. Notice that God does not say to take a cold shower, suck it up, pray and read your Bible more! Scripture teaches men that part of leadership is to be sure he and his wife both understand that pursuing sexual oneness is as important to God as pursuing spiritual oneness.

Any demeaning of the physical realm, whether it is the sexual relationship in marriage, the arts, physical recreation, secular work, feeding the hungry, or clothing the poor is heresy. John’s command, “Love not the world neither the things of the world” was never intended by God to deny the goodness of his material world and its culture. That text goes on to say that it is the values that guide secular culture not governed by the moral law of God that is to be avoided. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. To separate from the world is to deny our fundamental calling in the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible to shape culture. Furthermore, the author who said, “Love not the world” also told us that God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son to die to redeem it and that the spiritual fruit of love can’t ignore the realm of the physical: But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? (I Jn 3:17).

B. We are to DEVELOP THE POTENTIAL of Creation. The observation in James 1 that every good gift among humankind has been poured out by God upon all his image bearers to enjoy and develop his creation underscores the importance of our calling not just to go to heaven but to cultivate the earth. Chuck Colson says:

God cares not only about redeeming souls but also about restoring his creation. He calls us to be agents not only of his saving grace but also of his common grace. Our job is not only to build up the church but also to build a society to the glory of God. As agents of common grace, we are called to help sustain and renew his creation, to uphold the created institutions of family and society, to pursue science and scholarship, to create works of art and beauty and to heal and help those suffering from the fall (How Now Shall We Live).

Richard Pratt points out, “God ordained humanity to be the primary instrument by which his kingship will be realized on earth” (Designed for Dignity). This original calling of King Adam who was given Kingdom Earth to develop and rule was recovered from Satan, sin, and death by the Second Adam who now extends his rule over earth by reissuing the cultural mandate to his followers to accomplish, now, in his resurrection power to overthrow sin. Richard Pratt explains further:

The Great King has summoned each of us into his throne room. “Take this portion of my kingdom,” he says, “I’m making you my steward over your office, your workbench, your kitchen stove. Put your heart into mastering this part of my world. Get it in order; unearth its treasures; do all you can with it. Then everybody will see what a glorious King I am." That’s why we get up every morning and go to work. We don’t labor only to survive; insects do that. Our work is an honor, a privileged commission from our great God. God has given each of us a portion of his kingdom to explore and to develop to its fullest (Ibid).

The Goodness of Lost Humans Reaffirmed

The Biblical teaching of total depravity does not mean that mankind is as evil as it can be. Rather, it means that evil has reached every aspect of the human heart. In a world full of false God’s like money, power, pleasure, prestige, and comfort, Paul commands the Romans, “Make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires,” which can easily lead to a very mistaken withdrawal from evil fallen culture and evil fallen non-Christians. But such a separation violates what Scripture teaches. The image of God in humans is not destroyed by sin but only marred. The good gifts poured out upon all means that all humans experience common grace. Common grace keeps our total depravity from becoming absolute; it keeps the world from falling into anarchy. In my view, the greatest impact of understanding the Bible’s teaching of common grace is changing our attitude towards unbelievers who are part of the fallen culture from a negative to positive one. Keeping in mind that our assigned mission is to shape the culture for good, common grace transforms our attitude towards the lost from the unbiblical, default view of adversary to one of potential ally. Reformed theologian John Murray explains that God not only restrains evil in unredeemed men, but he also endows them with:

“Gifts, talents, and aptitudes; he stimulates them with interest and purpose to the practice of virtues, the pursuance of worthy tasks, and the cultivation of arts and science that occupy the time, activity, and energy of men that make for the benefit of civilization and of the human race. He ordains institutions for the protection and promotion of right, the preservation of liberty, and the improvement of physical and moral conditions” (Writings).

Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper held the same view of common grace, saying, “God is glorified in the total development towards which human life and power over nature gradually march on under the guardianship of “common grace.” It is His created order, His works that unfold here. It was He who seeded the field of humanity with all these powers” (A Centennial Reader). What the truth of common grace means is that the unredeemed around us are often allies in our calling from God to develop the potential of the earth and shape its culture towards good. A generation ago, the great American theologian and philosopher Francis Shaeffer, spoke of the importance of joining forces as co-belligerents. Hugh Whelchel explains the importance of this concept in the twenty-first century:  

We often meet people who are not Christians but who agree with a Christian stance on a certain cultural issue, and therefore they are willing to work together with Christians towards resolution. We should be open to working with them towards a common goal. Francis Shaeffer popularized the use of the term co-belligerence to express that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. He explained, “A co-belligerent is a person with whom I do not agree on all sorts of vital issues, but who for whatever reasons of their own is on the same side in a fight for some specific issue of social justice” (How Then Should We Work).

May God’s goodness empower trust in his good intentions in all his dealings with us and may understanding the common grace that flows from that goodness cause us to always value what every image bearer contributes to God’s good world.

For Further Prayerful Thought

1. How would you refute the argument: If God is all-powerful, he could end suffering and evil. If he were all-good, he would end evil and suffering. Evil and suffering exist. Therefore, either God is not all-powerful or not all-good. The Christian god does not exist?
2. Summarize the three “goodness of God” truths that James tells his readers to cling to when facing trials. Which seems most helpful to you?
3. How does the common grace doctrine that God has given gifts to the unredeemed to enable his world to be developed and enjoyed, impact the way believers should view unbelievers and secular culture?