www.youtube.com/watch?v=18wF8nkKRcU
Early Christianity on the
Perfect Goodness of God the Father
Post-Apostolic Church
INTRO
This is the eighth video in a series on what
the Pre-Nicene Christians believed about the Divinity. And this is the fifth
video about God the Father.
When something is good, it could also be called
virtuous, morally right, and righteous. What
are some of the virtues that display goodness?
Good virtues include love, kindness, grace, mercy,
patience, generosity, compassion. Of
course, good is the opposite of anything that is evil or bad. A common belief in Christianity
is that God is good by His nature. And
unlike mankind, God is perfectly good.
What have we heard about God’s goodness? Some might say, “God is good all
of the time.” Others might
say, “God is good only to those He loves.”
Others might say, “God is perfectly good because He Himself
is the definition of goodness.” Others, for various reasons, might say, “God is not or cannot be good.” For example, some might say, “If God is
perfectly just, then He cannot be perfectly good.”
PRE-NICENE CHRISTIANS: GOD
IS GOOD AT ALL TIMES
The early Christians believed that God is so
perfectly good that He takes no action that is not intended for good. Ireaneus wrote,
For with God there is nothing
without purpose or due significance. (Irenaeus. AD 180. ANF, vol 1, page 493.)
They also believed that God is so perfectly good
that there is no time when God is not doing good. Referring to the seventh day of creation,
Clement of Alexandria wrote,
God’s resting is not, then, as
some conceive, that God ceased from doing. For, being good, if He should ever cease from
doing good, then would He cease from being God, which it is sacrilege even to
say. (Clement
of Alexandria. AD 195. ANF, vol 2, page 513.)
(https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.vi.iv.vi.xvi.html,
“Fourth Commandment”)
These are
just a couple of statements that summarize what the Pre-Nicene Christians
believed about God’s perfect goodness.
PRE-NICENE CHRISTIANS: GOD
IS GOOD AND JUST
One of the reasons someone might believe that God
is not perfectly good is because they question why a good God would allow suffering
in the world or allow someone to go to hell.
The conversation about God being perfectly good and
perfectly just will probably continue to the end of time. For the early Christians, they
understood that God can be perfectly good, like a good father, and perfectly
just, like a good master. They did not
see these attributes of God as being opposed to each other but as going
hand-in-hand. Tertullian admirably
wrote,
What, if He did not threaten? Will you call this justice an evil, when it is
all unfavorable to evil? Will you deny
it to be a good, when it has its eye towards good? What sort of being would you to wish God to
be? Would it be right to prefer that He
should be such, that sins might flourish under Him, and the devil make mockery
at Him? Would you suppose Him to be a
good God, who should be able to make a man worse by [proposing] security in sin?
Who is the author of good, but He who
also requires it?... God is wholly good,
because in all things He is on the side of good…. Thus far, then, justice is the
very fullness of the Deity Himself, manifesting God as both a perfect father
and a perfect master: a father in His mercy, a master in His discipline; a
father in the mildness of His power, a master in its severity; a father who
must be loved with dutiful affection, a master who must needs be feared; be
loved, because He prefers mercy to sacrifice; be feared because He dislikes
sin; be loved, because He prefers the sinner’s repentance to his death; be
feared, because He dislikes the sinners who do not repent. Accordingly, the divine law commands duties in
respect of both these attributes: You shall love God, and You shall fear God. (Tertullian.
AD 207. ANF, vol 3, page 308.)
Lactantius said a similar thing, writing,
Let no one, induced by the
empty talking of the philosophers, train himself to the contempt of God, which
is the greatest impiety. We all are
bound both to love Him, because He is our Father; and to revere Him, because He
is our Lord: both to pay Him honor, because He is generous; and to fear Him,
because He is severe: each character in Him is worthy of reverence. (Lactantius.
AD 310. ANF, vol 7, page 279.)
SCRIPTURES: GOD IS GOOD AT
ALL TIMES
What do the Scriptures say about God’s perfect
goodness? Irenaeus said that every
action of God is intended for good. God
said to the Jews in captivity, which is also true for everyone,
I will devise for you a device
for peace, and not evil, to bestow upon you these good things. And when you pray to Me, and I will hearken
[listen] to you. And when you earnestly
seek Me, and you shall find Me. For you
shall seek me with your whole heart, and I will appear to you. (Jeremiah 29:11-14 (Brenton) (LXX: Jeremiah
36:11-14))
Why would a perfectly good God want the best for
us? As the apostle John wrote,
God is love. (1John 4:8)
How can God
be anything less than perfectly good when He Himself is the definition and
essence of love?
Clement of Alexandria said that God never rested
from doing good, otherwise, He would cease being God. When the Jews began persecuting Jesus because
he worked on the Sabbath and did not rest from His work, Jesus told them,
My Father is still working, and
I am working also. (John 5:17)
There was
never a day when God rested from working for the good of everyone and
everything.
SCRIPTURES: GOD IS GOOD
AND JUST
God is so perfectly good, this is actually the
reason why God is also just, hating evil.
It is amazing how so many passages show God’s goodness while also
connecting it to God’s justice. As the following Scriptures will show, one cannot separate God’s perfect
goodness from His justice.
His eye is too pure to behold
evil doings, and to look upon grievous afflictions. (Habbakkak 1:13 (Brenton))
When Moses went up Mount Sinai to receive the stone
tablets, God came down, stood with him, and passed in front of him. What did God say about Himself in that
moment?
The Lord God, pitiful
[compassionate] and merciful, longsuffering and compassionate [full of mercy],
and true, and keeping justice and mercy for thousands, taking away iniquity,
and unrighteousness, and sins; and [but] He will not clear the guilty; bringing
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and to the children’s children,
to the third and fourth generation. (Exodus
34:6-7 (Brenton))
Moses also wrote,
As for God, His works are true,
and all his ways are judgment [just]: God is faithful, and there is no
unrighteousness in Him; just and holy is the Lord. (Deuteronomy 32:4 (Brenton))
CONCLUSION
So which attribute of God is stronger? His goodness or His justice? This is really a silly question because it is
impossible for these two attributes to be separated. If God was not good, then He
would have no sense of justice. If God
was not just, then He would not be perfectly good. It is impossible to separate the two. If someone understands God having one
attribute without the other, then I would ask the same question as Tertullian:
“What sort of being would YOU to wish God to be?”
And so if God is both good and just and we should
imitate God, can we be both good and just?
Consider these Scriptures.
We have hated evil, and loved
good: and restored judgment in the gates; that the Lord God Almighty may have
mercy on the remnant of Joseph. (Amos
5:15 (Brenton))
You give a tenth of mint, rue, and every kind of herb, [yet you have neglected
the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faith], and you
bypass justice and love for God. These
things you should have done without neglecting the others. (Luke 11:42 [and Matthew 23:23])
Has it not been told to you, O man, what is good? or what does the Lord require
of you? but to do justice, and love mercy, and be ready to walk with the Lord
your God. (Micah 6:8 (Brenton))
Blessings
and so forth.
