The problem of good

You may have heard the argument that, if God is good, why is there evil in the world. This is called the ‘problem of evil’ argument against there being a god. Now, I believe that the Bible gives a perfectly reasonable answer to that question, but that is not the problem I want to consider today.

I want to consider the problem of good. (I got this idea from a bad movie.)

If we really do live in a universe where everything, including life, came about by random chance, and if life develops and continues via some naturalistic process, and if people are simply the result of time, genetics and environment, where does good come from? Where would even the idea of good as distinguished from evil come from?

I am assuming, of course, that there is some universal idea of what ‘good’ is, and strangely a wide variety of cultures have broadly similar views about what is good. For instance, the Hindu story of the Rāmāyana, begins by looking back longingly to a former age when personal and societal relationships were ruled by virtue, virtues that seem to parallel those encouraged by the Hebrew Ten Commandments and the other world religions.

My reading of the Bible leads me to expect this universal idea of ‘good’. Because we are made in the image of God, we have his commandments built into our psyche (written on our hearts, and Paul says in his letter to the Romans). Even as rebels against our Creator, we still retain something of that knowledge. As human beings we long to have that good, even as we make every effort to avoid the source of all good, God.

When we see people, specially people who do not acknowledge their creator, selflessly risk their own lives to save strangers, we are confronted with the problem of good. But this is only a problem if we assume that all reality is a result of random, blind chance. But, if the God of the Bible is God, we have in his word a reasonable explanation for both ‘good’ and ‘evil’.

More than that, we can have hope. Our personal moral record, a mix of good and evil, is a problem. We each have gone astray. We have become breakers of God’s law. We are heading toward judgment and an eternal reckoning. We have no reason for hope except for that hope that God himself provides.

He has sent his Son so that all who trust in Jesus Christ will not perish for their wrong doing but will receive everlasting life.

Why is that good? Should a good God let bad people escape judgment? Wouldn’t that be bad? No, because when Jesus came, he came as the legal substitute for his people. No wrong doing will escape judgement.

Jesus, as a human being, lived a truly good life, doing the good that we ought to have done. He lived that good life to replace our bad lives.

Jesus died as a human being, taking responsibility for our wrong doing. We can know this is true because the Bible tells us that death is what sin deserves. If Jesus lived a wholly good life (and he did), he could only die if he was willingly dying because of the sins of others.

Jesus rose from the dead, never to die again, because all the sins for which he died had been judged and condemned in him. There was no sin remaining to keep him in the grave. This means, for those for whom Jesus died, that there remains no condemnation. Those who trust Jesus are regarded by God as already judged and punished in Jesus. They are also regarded as having passed from death into life by the work of Jesus on their behalf. Those who trust Jesus have eternal life. Both the problem of good and the problem of evil are resolved in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.