Goodness

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What Is Moral Goodness?

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Left in the rain! A favorite book—ruined.

It was a growing-up experience for many book lovers, accidentally ruining a prized book. And how does it feel? The feeling is sadness, but also moral guilt.

I’ve been writing about the concept of “goodness,” and today I would like to look at a special aspect of goodness: morality.

What Does “Good” Mean?

In my last post I wrote that when we say “the world is good,” we have two specific, distinct meanings: 1) the world is useful for man’s life, and 2) the world and man are useful for God’s purposes.

Today I want to generalize and discuss the full meaning of “good.”

Let’s start with the most simple meaning: “good” can mean “useful.” A tree can be good for food. A pen can be good for writing. Here, “good” means functional.

God Saw That It Was Good.

What did God mean when he looked at his creation and “saw that it was good”? If you asked ten Christians you might get ten answers!

As Christians, we need to take a deeper look at the important concept of “goodness.” Genesis 1-2 is a logical starting point. In these chapters we find the word “good” twelve times!