The question comes up often, and I’ve wrestled with it myself on occasion: “is God in fact good?” Here are a few reasons why I do in fact believe God to be good. None of them are especially comforting if you’ve had something bad happen to you, and these won’t make the hurt go away if you’ve experienced losing a loved one (being sure of God’s goodness, even Christ wept when he lost loved ones), but for those who have an intellectual question of God’s goodness they are entirely valid points.
1.) What if God were insane?
The reality is that even if God were completely bonkers it doesn’t change the fact that he is God and when he proclaims himself to be good, he is in fact good. Philosophically speaking, we can only understand good through the lens we are created with, ergo we can only even conceive good based on what God deems good; insane or not, what he proclaims good is good. If he proclaims he is good, fair, just, or any other attribute, then he is. Likewise, his proclamation is he loves us; I would rather have the love of an insane God than the hatred of a sane one any day! Now, frankly I don’t believe God is insane as we can only be logical and rational because he created us to have such qualities (if we were logical or rational by chance then we can not trust our logic, rationality, or perception as it may in fact be deeply flawed), which brings me to my second point:
2.) God is brilliant!
I do believe God is far more brilliant than any of us by an order of magnitude. If we believe that God created the universe, and I mean every complex law of physics that dictates how it works, then we must come to the conclusion that our understanding of good may not even begin to come close to his comprehension of what good is! In many ways it would be like me trying to explain to the ant photosynthesis, he may comprehend some parts but not to the extent you or I would. Eventually it does again come around to the idea that if God is all powerful and all knowing, he makes the definitions so we don’t really have any recourse.
3.) Justice comes with God’s own timing.
I love the book of Job, it is an inspiring addition to the books of wisdom. The whole book revolves around a series of treatises on whether or not God is just and good. Essentially, a member of God’s council claims Job is only righteous because God has blessed him and protected him. God knows better and allows Job to have calamities befall him. This launches many chapters of debate between Job and his friends, eventually culminating in God himself showing up and telling everybody that they can’t possibly comprehend everything that goes on (see point 2). Later Job is given double what he lost, proving he does in fact reward the righteous, but in his own time and his own way! We can never forget that a core part of God’s nature is his sovereignty.
4.) Jesus promised we would suffer on earth and be rewarded in heaven.
Jesus told everyone quite bluntly that if they want to follow him they will suffer, Matthew 10:38-39, Matthew 16:24-28, Mark 8:34-38, Luke 9:23-27 all recount Christ telling people the cost of following him being hardship and possibly even death. He furthermore points out that judgement, the ultimate justice, and subsequent reward and punishment is reserved for his second coming (see point 3). True to his word, aside from John, every apostle was martyred as were many of his other followers. These were “good” people and yet they died horrible deaths for doing good.
In 1 Peter 1:6-12 Peter points out that as a Christian you will have to endure trials, and if you hold fast to faith in Christ, the reward you receive will be a treasure far beyond anything we could possibly acquire here on earth. Likewise Romans 8:15-25 speaks again of enduring trials and suffering because the reward is a delayed reward, but well worth the wait. Sometimes modern Christianity and pastors do a great disservice by leading people to believe that God is going to bless people all the time with health, wealth, and stability. This is so incredibly far from what we actually see in the new testament. Paul and Timothy were known to have health issues, the apostles were constantly giving everything away and living in poverty, and people were constantly being imprisoned for believing in Christ as fully man and fully deity.
5.) We are all wicked and yet we are still alive.
Pretty much every one of us has sinned, and that means we aren’t righteous. Romans 3:9-28 points out that every person has sinned and only through God can we be declared as righteous. Likewise, Ephesians 2:1-10 claims we were essentially disconnected from God; basically we were doomed because we had no connection due to our sin. The very fact that we wake up every morning is proof positive that God is good because he has every right to kill us in our sleep! I mean seriously, if the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) then by all rights every single one of us should already be dead. What more proof of God’s goodness than he gives us time beyond what we deserve!
Like I said, I know these don’t soften the loss of a loved one or a tragedy you’re experiencing, for that all I can say is God still loves you and he is still good. For everyone else, my hope is that at the very least this article has caused you to stop and think about God’s goodness.