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God, Morality and Benevolence

Posted on June 13, 2017 — 2 Minutes Read

Questions of right and wrong, and of good and bad, have puzzled humanity for ages. All these moral questions however seem only relevant for those in a diverse and possibly God-created society. If there were only one individual, ever, on a God-less earth, there would likely be nothing that seperates the right from the wrong, and the good from the bad, nor would there be any reason to. There would be, perhaps, no concept of morality.

Christianity suggests that God created man in his image, and that there is only one God with no precedent. In this sense, if God is in some way similar to man, and that if God, like man, does not have concern for moral questions without a society of equal, or a superior to look up to, then would it be possible that God, being the all-powerful one with no equal or antecedent in his realm, does not share our concept of morality that we have now come to in our diverse and possibly God-created society?

This would perhaps provide a perspective to the problem of evil, that despite of an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good God, evil of colossal magnitude persists. All-knowing and all-powerful may God be, his benevolence may be beyond our understanding of the good and the right, based on the moral principles we have come to in our diverse society. Of a similar view is depicted in Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order by the 18-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza to whom deity is of absolute infinitum (infinite) with no will, purpose or intention.

If however Christianity be true that God indeed has a sense of purpose and did create man in his image, then perhaps this could be one of the reasons why God created man in the first place, to see how questions of right and wrong, and of good and bad are deliberated in a society of equal. Perhaps the line between right and wrong, and good and bad are not as clear-cut as we think.