Objection: God Being “Good” Must Not Be Understood from Man’s Perspective

The Lord is GOOD and His mercy endures forever, so no serious Bible reader can ever conclude that God isn’t good.  However, a theme of some objections is that “good” doesn’t mean what we think it does and that we try to explain God’s goodness from a selfish human perspective of what we think is “good.”  This then degenerates into worn-out arguments that sickness may somehow be “good” for us and that “higher good” results from bad things.  Supposedly WE think healing is “good” but God sometimes doesn’t because He thinks that in some cases, for some reasons, staying sick is “better.”

I have seen the other extreme where people think that “good” means “being like a cuddly teddy bear” or something.  If that’s your definition, then God is NOT “good” all the time because He sentences those who don’t receive His Son to an eternity of torment.  However, God is both “morally good” and “kind” because He provided a way for everyone to avoid that eternity of torment.

So perhaps “good” from SOME men’s perspective is not an apt description of God, so the objector has a point when it comes to God not being ooshy-gooshy all the time as some people wish that He were.

However, His “goodness” does not leave Him willing that people should suffer disease for some higher “good” or purpose.  Jesus went out and “healed them all” and allowed “as many as touched Him” to receive healing.  Jesus is our standard because He always did what pleased the Father (John 8:29).  Thus, it was always “good” in God’s eyes (as well as most people’s eyes) to heal the sick.  Jesus NEVER told anyone that it was “better” to stay sick FOR ANY REASON, and we should never tell anyone that either.

Jesus went about doing GOOD and healing all who were oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:38).  So what Jesus did in His ministry was GOOD, and you should agree with God about that.