Is God a Moral Being?

[Platos stepchild]

No; the short answer is, God is not moral. The question we must ask is, why that's so. Let's take for granted that morality is real, it does exist. We're now entitled to ask, "whence morality?" That which exists necessarily has a ground from which it springs. But, the "ground" cannot be that which springs from it. The soil from which a flower springs isn't itself a flower. The ground from which beauty springs isn't itself beautiful. The same is true of morality, as well.

What, then is the ground of morality? I propose that God is the wellspring from which morality flows. That's why God isn't moral. Karl Jung wrote a fascinating paper entitled Answer to Job. The Biblical Book of Job describes the titular character as being tested by God, who wants to be sure that Job isn't worshipping Him simply because God has been generous. Jung describes Job as being morally superior to God, who merely thunders in response to Job's argument that he doesn't deserve the torments God allows to be heaped upon him.

Those who worship God must concede that whatever God does is necessarily right and good. Job conceded that God's power trumped his own moral superiority. In Plato's book, Euthyphro he posed an interesting dilemma. Recasting the dilemma in terms of the one God, he asked is goodness good because God loves the good; or, does God love the good because it is good? Basically, the question asks which is superior; God or goodness.

If goodness is superior to God, then goodness is God. But, if God is superior to goodness, then whatever God does must therefore be good. The same argument also applies to morality. God is the wellspring of beauty, goodness, morality and even existence. This means that God is not neither beautiful, nor good, or moral. God doesn't even exist, at least not in the sense which we exist. We could make a compelling argument that God is unknowable.

An unknowable God makes religion highly problematical. All we know is right here, in this world. We do know there's a God who's the ground of this world. But, God is unreachable and transcends any language which we might use to describe Him. The categories of understanding which theology uses to explore God fall far short of any understanding. It's like that Paul Simon song, Slip Slidin' Away: God only knows. God makes His plan. The information's unavailable to the mortal man. And that about sums it up.

[Wayne92587]

Plato's stepchild #61

Recasting the dilemma in terms of the one God, he asked is goodness good because God loves the good; or, does God love the good because it is good? Basically, the question asks which is superior; God or goodness.

The answer to your question is tainted because God is neither good or bad, God is amoral.
God does not love the Good, nor hate the bad. God is omniscient, Good is and Illusion, is facsimile.

[Platos stepchild]

Plato's stepchild #61

Recasting the dilemma in terms of the one God, he asked is goodness good because God loves the good; or, does God love the good because it is good? Basically, the question asks which is superior; God or goodness.

The answer to your question is tainted because God is neither good or bad, God is amoral.
God does not love the Good, nor hate the bad. God is omniscient, Good is and Illusion, is facsimile.

You're not very good at reading a complete post, are you? Because, if you had read my complete post, you'd realize just how ridiculous your answer is.

[Gertie]

Plato's Stepchild -

''No; the short answer is, God is not moral. The question we must ask is, why that's so. Let's take for granted that morality is real, it does exist. We're now entitled to ask, "whence morality?" ''

I read your whole post, and followed the internal logic, but my problem is it rests on assumptions which I don't buy.

First obvious one, that an undefined something you're calling 'God' exists.

Second, which you acknowledge is an assumption, Morality exists in the objective sense that some things are Right and Wrong, no matter what you or I think.

Third, that the undefined something you're calling 'God' which you are assuming exists, is the assumed source of this assumed objectively existing morality. You've included that in your definition of God, as a brute fact, which then by your own definition leads to the conclusions you draw from it.

In other words, your conclusion relies on unsupported assumptions which create your conclusion.

What you can argue is -

If an unknowable and undefined Something I'm calling God exists, and

If Objective Morality exists, and

If the unknowable and undefined Something I'm calling God created everything Not-God, including Objective Morality, then

God is 'outside' of everything Not-God, including Morality.

Aside from these assumptions I don't think are warranted, you acknowledge that if such a God Entity with the properties you ascribe exists, you can't know anything sensible about it. You can't, presumably, apply your logic to it.

And finally, we're actually getting a pretty good idea of 'Whence morality?' in terms of it being grounded in evolved impulses beneficial to social mammals such as ourselves. There's no need to assume any extraneous supernatural entity to account for what we've come to call Morality. Any more than we need to assume the existence of such an entity to ground the existence of eg tribal religious hatred, or... potatoes.

[OntheHorizon]

Because there can be no laws external to God which He is bound to obey, terms such as 'good' and 'evil' could not apply to His behavior, since that implies an external standard which God's will is held up to.

Whatever God does is necessarily correct. There can be no moral judgment on God.

Whatever He does could not be a mistake and whatever He wills can't be considered wrong.

The parameters of His definition appear to confine God to infallibility.

In the end God never makes moral choices.

Morality concerns the concepts of right and wrong, good and evil. If God is never confronted by an external wrong or evil then in what sense is He a moral being?

People that don't consider whether what the god does is good or bad just aren't thinking about it enough. We the humans do consider things good or bad, it is inevitable that we conclude the gods actions to either be good or bad or somewhere in between. Religious people would consider the gods actions good or bad regardless, they don't consider these actions outside the context of good or bad even if they say they do. They ARE going to determine the morality of it's actions.

Though these religions tend to say that the god is infact good, sometimes even the ONLY good being in existence and this god usually gives us codes or laws to follow that IT made. So the idea that the god is free of being good or bad doesn't hold water but it's also true that no religious person really thinks that good and bad don't apply to it's actions. The only reason people started to say that the god was free of being either good or bad is because their religious texts tell stories of the god doing things they have no other way of justifying, except dismissing. Infallibility is just made up word salad based on confusion and desperation.

Rocks are always right and always good. This statement is just reasonable the statement that a god is always good and right.

-- Updated October 10th, 2016, 4:20 pm to add the following --

Plato's stepchild #61

Recasting the dilemma in terms of the one God, he asked is goodness good because God loves the good; or, does God love the good because it is good? Basically, the question asks which is superior; God or goodness.

The answer to your question is tainted because God is neither good or bad, God is amoral.
God does not love the Good, nor hate the bad. God is omniscient, Good is and Illusion, is facsimile.

sociopath much? Most of these religions are actually all about their gods being very good and other things being very evil in contrast and they specifically say god loves the good and hates the bad.

[TigerNinja]

As morality is largely relative, it would require God to have multiple split personalities within every single person to support their view of morality to make himself a moral God. I personally would prefer not to see God as a man with a white beard in the sky, but more of like how a 15-16th century philosopher would see the world. As clockwork, although God is the clock maker. He set it in motion in the essence of the big bang. I would be fine seeing the universe itself as a higher power, although then that would extinguish the very ideology upon which God is based, as then he would be a much more scientific and down to Earth being, if a being at all.

-- Updated October 25th, 2016, 6:11 am to add the following --

As morality is largely relative, it would require God to have multiple split personalities within every single person to support their view of morality to make himself a moral God. I personally would prefer not to see God as a man with a white beard in the sky, but more of like how a 15-16th century philosopher would see the world. As clockwork, although God is the clock maker. He set it in motion in the essence of the big bang. I would be fine seeing the universe itself as a higher power, although then that would extinguish the very ideology upon which God is based, as then he would be a much more scientific and down to Earth being, if a being at all.

I forgot to reference how in the First Testament, God can be seen as quite a brutal leader. He kills many despite his teachings such as 'Love your enemy'. As I said, the time and place in which you see God determines his views of morality, his beliefs, how he acts and everything about his nature.

[Renee]

I like the proof that the original post presented. I find nothing wrong with it.

Further to the discussion: I find it highly unsettling that "God created man in His own image; in His image He created him." What does this mean? How far do the similarities go, where do they stop, and where do the dissimilarities begin?

We, humans, can't create matter, can't raise from the dead*, can't judge each person of all humankind in one day. God can't die, He wasn't born, He had no parents. We have to obey God, God does not have to obey Himself. ETC.

(*) May change; with raising individuals from cell fragments of the dead. Tech is not there yet, but wait it out and it will get there.

So how are we similar? "I'm a mean and jealous God", He declared it in the 10 commandments. All right, humans are mean and jealous. Or can be.

And there are no more hints on God's nature, how man is similar to him and vice versa. This angers me. Why insinuate something, and not follow through to a decisive conclusion? This is sick.