I’ve been trying to figure out for a long time just what goodness is. Goodness is this strange thing that is attached to God, sex, and ice cream. All three have this “goodness” thing. How can that be? What do they have in common that allows all three of them to be called “good”?
This is, to me, a very strange state of affairs. These three have been my paradigm cases of “goodness”. That three such ridiculously incongruent things can all be said to be good makes goodness and altogether mysterious and slippery concept. Furthermore, these three cases are also extraordinarily complicated in and of themselves. (Ice cream is, no doubt, the least complicated, philosophically speaking, but still, don’t get me started on the mysterious nature of the gustatory experience.)
The only thing I can find in common between the three of them, is that they are, in the right context, a source of happiness. I have no doubt that my definition of goodness will change in the years to come, but this is my definition of goodness now: “that which, in the right context, brings pure and unmitigated happiness.”
Ice cream is good. It can bring unadulterated happiness. The experience of ice cream, with some chocolate and caramel syrup, I might add, brings a smile to my face every time. But in the wrong context (i.e., when consumed too much), it can be a source of long-term pain (i.e. health problems).
Sex is good. (I speak from a rather limited experience, but I do know a few authorities on the matter.) I can’t vouch exactly for whether its participants generally smile, but I imagine that smiles aren’t the only way people express happiness. In the wrong context, however, sex can be a source of deep and lasting pain. Wrong relationships, or ones that have been wrecked, leave scars—scar that can be redeemed, but scars nonetheless.
God is good. This I know for sure. It is not a goodness that is soft and cuddly; God’s goodness can be violent and frightful. But for the one who stands in right relation to him, God’s goodness is the goodness from which all lesser goodnesses flow. To know God fully is to have no other desire or care but him. But woe to those who would stand against God, for they will fall, and their unhappiness will be forever, because God is good.
There are two ways in which this idea of goodness affects me. First of all, this shows me just how stupid sin is. Idolatry is saying that something other than God is my ultimate source of happiness. To over-eat is to say that food makes me happier than God—that food is better (more good) than God. This is ridiculous. Ice cream does not have more goodness than God! To view pornography is to say that these images and women are good—they are my source of happiness, they and not God are good and bring me pleasure. Again, when I realize what goodness is, this is absolutely ridiculous! All of my sin and idolatry is based on puny pleasures of messed up goodnesses that don’t bring pure happiness. Their joy lasts for but a moment, but the baggage they bring with them builds up and can be carried for a long time. God, in his goodness and love, has attached consequences to these that show their inadequacy—they do not bring happiness; they are not good.
Idolatry, then, is a hideous lie. To sin is to call something good that is not good (at least in some context). It is to say that this thing that I have made with my own hands, this wooden statue, can bring my more pleasure than can my God. When I sin, I am saying that compared my idol, God is incapable of bringing me the same amount of happiness and joy.
Put this way, it is plain just how ridiculous and nasty our sin is. When I sin, I am not just a rebel, but a flat-out idiot. No one is history can claim to have acted with more stupidity then me. I have climbed to the peaks of the mental mountains of lunacy. I have sat in the throne of the imbecile, and no one can cast me from it; it is mine forever. When I sin, then am I stupid.
The second way that this idea of goodness affects me is this, that it gives me an absolutely unmitigated hope for the future. I do believe God is good. His actions toward me is filled with lovingkindness. His chastisement is to bring me happiness, and the deepest of my hurts are going to be redeemed by him so that they will increase my joy in him still more and more. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for my God is with me. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for me. Like a fountain that never ceases to flow, that fills the whole earth with water, that floods above the highest mountain, so great is his goodness to me, and so great is my happiness in him alone.
I thoroughly enjoy and agree with this post. And, wonderfully enough, it has finally found a way for me to explain the love-hate relationship I have with my job. My job/career is my idol. Never ending pain complete with some cherries of happiness thrown on top. I suppose this revelation has come with the realization that I need to fix the problem.
Well, I’d be careful about calling it an idol right off the bat. Perhaps it is; I can’t see your heart. God many times uses pain that isn’t associated with idols for greater long-term pleasure. And when we receive happiness from him, it often does come through intermediaries, such as other people, or jobs, or material blessings. It is only when we want our happiness to come from those things instead of through those things that they become idols.
In any case, I am glad that you find this helpful. It’s still quite under-developed. Your comment has helped me to see some new ways that it could be developed further. I would like to write on this some more some time, but it feels like a giant topic. I need to be much older and see much more pain and happiness before I will really know what I am talking about here.
See, that is what I mean: that I expect happiness from my job.
My job will never love me as much as I love it.