I am not asking Does God exist ? – but Does Good exist ?
Theodicy is the study of the question:
Is God Good? Is God Just?
That may seem, at first, to be an unimportant question but it forms the foundation of our ability to resist evil and maintain hope in the face of the CNN – constantly negative news, that confronts us daily from the media.
Moral Physics
Can someone or something inflict an evil result upon me and never suffer (receive) a compensatory / reciprocal action? Physics tells us that it is a law of nature that “For every action there is an equal and opposite action.” Knowledge of this law is crucial to sending rockets into space. Does it also apply to human moral interactions?
“Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” Jesus counseled us to apply reciprocal thinking to our relations with others. Is it a Law or is it only voluntary?
Justice
Justice can be understood as the application of compensatory / reciprocal actions upon perpetrators of evil actions to their fellow human beings. Human justice is limited by the rules of evidence, court procedures and the availability of sufficient knowledge of the crime committed. Judges can be bought, witnesses can be intimidated, truth can be hidden. Human justice is not sufficient to establish GOOD in the earth.
Is life good without justice?
We can erase the power that evil has to warp our lives, through forgiveness but that does not address the question of the existence of Justice.
The dictionary defines Justice as compliance with generally accepted ethical conventions. That does not go far enough. Justice must account for Truth and must promote Love ( if we define love as promoting that which causes the utmost blessing to our fellow human beings) and Equity.
Equity
Equity is the principle of ‘blindness’ or impartiality in the application of laws. Equity relates to the law of physics – equal and opposite action. In Jesus’ statement, equity would be the ‘others do unto me’ – part of what I have done to them.
Human justice cannot account for these things. We lack omniscience – the ability to know everything with nothing hidden from us. We lack the authority and power to impose judgement in all cases. We also lack the Goodness that is required to render just judgments.
Does God lack any of these requirements? Truth, Love, Equity, Goodness.
If we could prove that God was Love but not equitable in His application of compensatory judgments
then would we continue to say that God is true and Good?
If we could show that God’s judgments were true but not equally applied to every soul
would we continue to say that God is Loving, Just and Good?
I believe that the answer to both of these questions is NO !
A god who was so ‘loving’ that it could not bear to apply the just consequences of moral actions to souls is not truly loving, only wishy – washy. Ultimately that god is a hater of those to whom justice was denied for the sake of this so-called ‘love’.
A god who could create us but not ‘know’ us ( know the truth about all that we had chosen to do in life and how that had effected others souls,) could not be just or good. Such a god would be negligent or arbitrary in the application of laws which govern creation yet not us.
God Must be Equitable to be considered Just and Good.
Truth and Love are important but if the quality of Equity is overlooked then Goodness is in question.
God’s Response
Salvation through the acceptance of Jesus is YHWH’s response to the questions of Justice and Truth . If a soul will accept Jesus’ love and identification with Him then they are also identified with Jesus by the Father. That means they will receive the Judgement Jesus was given – Righteous ! Forgiven! Part of God’s family.
What about Equity?
If death can prevent a soul from ever being presented with the offer of salvation through Jesus then the Equity aspect of Justice is not fulfilled. A soul that was prevented from hearing the gospel until their life had passed has lost their right to justice if this is the case. If that were true then we could not call YHWH Equitable, True or Good.
Death does not Prevent the Gospel
Contrary to what most people believe, Death cannot prevent the offer of God’s covenant loving-kindness, the offer of salvation through Jesus’ blood. In the HELLRAZER`S BIBLEs I have highlighted the verses of scripture that show God`s ability to defy death in the pursuit of justice for all souls.
Consider this scripture: Ruth 2:20
“Blessed be the Lord who has not ceased His Kindness to the living and to the dead“.
Kindness – in Hebrew does not mean ‘Niceness’. It is a covenant term. Kindness means the fulfillment of covenant obligations to the other partner in that covenant. King David desired to show ‘kindness’ to the remaining members of Johnathan`s family. ( 2 Samuel 9:1) David and Johnathan had made a covenant. David wanted to honour it even after the death of his friend.
YHWH will do no less than David. He will seek those who have the right to be offered covenant-friendship through Jesus. It was Jesus`desire that the Church present this good news to all souls. Not even death can prevent that offer.
Nhillism
Life without the existence of Good is a wearisome troubled experience. Many people would say that Good does not exist. Their lives are filled with despair because evil is not dealt with and there is no recompense for what they themselves suffer or what countless millions of others have suffered. They have no answer for the Holocaust or for the death by disease and starvation of millions today while the few live in safety and excessive luxury.
Good does exist. His name is Jesus.
Not even death and Hell can stand in His way.
He has sent His Church to preach the good news to all souls –
even in Hell.
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