Good vs Bad

Truth and lies, life and dead

Telling a Better Story: How to Talk About God in a Skeptical Age The Modern Era

Guided by supposedly autonomous reason and confidently equipped with new methods for discovery, many people, especially leading intellectuals, turned to deism—the belief in a God who built a self-sustaining universe and is now largely absent from it. Since they would only believe what they thought they could “prove,” they conceded there was a God (they needed him to ground their morality), but that he didn’t intervene in life (miracles could not be proved) or reveal himself in any particular religion (no Bible or holy book could be proven to be inspired). This is a picture of God boxed in by Enlightenment reason rather than revealed through special revelation (e.g., the gospel, Scripture, and Jesus Christ).

—> About modernism.

‘Many things that are written down as good in society actually have their roots in the Christian story’ (Telling a better story: How to talk about God in a Skeptical Age).

New Dictionary of Theology: Historical and Systematic Postmodernism

Rationalism exalts human reason as the primary source of knowledge and truth, most typically over against divine *revelation.

‘’Everything in the universe is good to the degree it conforms to the nature of God and evil as it fails to do so’’ - A.W. Tozer (Good or God?).

—> Mark 10:18 “And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” —> if there was one person that is good it would have been Jesus. But He still didnt accept the way this man called Him a good teacher.

‘’It wasnt the evil side of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that Eve was drawn to. It was the good side’’ —> Good or God (p.44). Genesis 3:6

Genesis 3:6 ESV

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

When we make a desicion in what is good for us, by what standard is it good?

‘’There is a good that is not of God. It is not submitted to Him’’ (Good or God, p.44).

God saw that it was good in what He created.

Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”

Proverbs 3:13–18 “Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed.”

In Hebrews 5:11–12 “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,”

Hebrews 5:14 “But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”

Good and evil are not always openly evident (John Bevere, Good or God, p. 55). ‘’IT takes an enlightened heart, one that is trained, to identify what God calls good and evil. Eve was perfect in every way, and in the garden where she resided the presence of God was powerful and strong. However, what she discerned to be good, pleasant, and profitable was actually evil and detrimental for her life. She was deceived and suffered because of it’’ (Bevere, Good or God, p.55).

James 1:16–17 “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

Quote of C.S. Lewis in the book of John Bevere: ‘’[The Christian] does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.’’

But how can God be good and let all the evilness still excist. How would a good God let bad things happen.

God blesses because He is the source of all blessing, of every good thing. Goodness can only come from God because there is no source of goodness outside of God.

John F. MacArthur