Objective Good

What is "objective good"? The term is meant to describe that which is, in and of itself, good. It is intended to stand in opposition to subjective good. This would be that which is good to me (or you, if you prefer). You can see this, right? I remember the story of two villages along the Amazon (which originally was a river in South America, not a book-selling website). A heavy rain came through, and the question was, "Is that good?" The village upriver was delighted. They needed the rain for their crops. The village downstream was devastated. The rain caused a flood that wiped out their fields. That's subjective good. So what would be classified as objectively good?

At first look, it might seem easy to do. Love is objectively good. Easy, see? Well, it's easy as long as you define it carefully. "I loved my wife so much that when I caught her cheating on me, I killed her and her lover." See? Love ... objectively good. Oh, wait. Although such a use of the term might be popular, I'd have a hard time calling it "love". Still, when properly used, I think most people would consider love objectively good. Or how about telling the truth? Objectively good, right? I suppose so, although I think some might wonder if that's the case if a citizen of Nazi Germany told the truth about the family down the street hiding Jews. It would seem, in fact, that the more you go down this line, the easier it is to make the whole thing murky, and those things that we would consider good in and of themselves die the death of a hundred qualifications.

I would like to suggest a different approach. I would like to suggest that our definition of "objective good" is flawed from the outset. If we could clean that up, I think "good" can get a little clearer. It doesn't take long to figure out that one of the better known characteristics of God is that God is good. The theme is repeated over and over in the Psalms (Psa 34:8; 100:5; 135:3; 145:9) and elsewhere (e.g., Jer 33:11; Nah 1:7). What does this mean? I remember a church awhile back that claimed that since 1 John 4:8 said "God is love", therefore "Love is god." This, of course, is manifest nonsense. I could rightly claim "My wife is human", but would be an idiot to conclude, therefore, that all humans were my wife. No, John was saying that love is defined by and contained in God. This is the same concept with good. Jesus said, "There is none good but God." That is, absolute good is defined by and contained in God. It's not that there is "good" out there and God conforms to it. Instead, it is the reverse. Good is only good because God says it is.

Here, let's try this from another direction. "Good" has several related definitions. It may mean "morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious," or it may mean "satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree," or it may mean "of high quality; excellent". "Good", then, whether in terms of moral excellence or quality of any type simply means that whatever it is meets or exceeds the standard. What standard? That's the question. A "good dog" is not the same a "good man". Different standards. And the only right standard we have for "good" in terms of morality or virtue is God's standard. Since He sets the standard, He defines "good".

Okay, one more direction to view this. Assume that there is "objective good", that which is, in and of itself, intrinsically good. This would require that God, in order to be "good", would need to conform to that external, objective standard. But if God needs to conform to something external to Himself, then God is not God because that "something external" is higher than He is.

I would contend, then, that nothing is "objectively good". Instead, "good" is always determined by a standard, and God sets that standard and, therefore, defines "good". We all know folks who read, for instance, the account of God commanding Israel to destroy the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15 as not a literally factual account. The first reason offered for this is that it would make God "bad". That is, we all know that killing people is bad (I'm simplifying here) ("objective good", then, is in not killing people) and if God did it or ordered it He would be bad, so it could not have happened. Just an example. Not the primary point. The primary point is that if God defines good, then whatever God does is good and our own perceptions of what is good should conform to that rather than vice versa. If God declares something for Himself and we choose to defy that declaration because it doesn't conform to our concept of "objective good", it is neither God nor the declaration that is in error. I'll leave you to figure out where the error lies.

Isaiah has a warning for us. "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" (Isa 5:20). Perhaps we ought to let God determine first what is good and evil and then conform our own views on the subject to His outlook.