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<\/a><\/p>\nUnfortunately for everyone (including God), the vast majority of people who consider themselves Christians have little to no understanding of basic Christian world and life perspective. Unfortunately for Christianity, the vast majority of people who consider themselves astute critics of Christianity have little to no understanding of basic Christian world and life perspective. A few of us Christians do, but getting people, Christians and critics of Christianity, to sit still and listen long enough to understand is almost impossible.<\/p>\n
As a student and teacher of Christian intellectual history, I have worked hard to get down to the \u201crock bottom\u201d of Christian thought. What is the most basic intellectual idea that governs everything else about Christian theism\u2014belief in God and God\u2019s relationship with the world?<\/em><\/p>\n Two of the greatest minds Christianity has produced are Augustine<\/em> (d. 430) and Thomas Aquinas<\/em> (d. 1274). Especially Catholics admire these men. But one idea they both brought into Christian intellectual history (or brought out from within it) that is also entirely consistent with the best of Greek philosophy, is that God and \u201cthe Good\u201d are one and the same<\/u>. With this all Christians should agree because any disagreement leads over a cliff into nihilism. (Here, by \u201cnihilism\u201d I mean any idea that the good<\/em> is contingent and that this universe is not a naturally moral one, that the cosmos is basically a-moral either because God is or because there is no God.)<\/p>\n *Sidebar: The opinions expressed here are my own (or those of the guest writer); I do not speak for any other person, group or organization; nor do I imply that the opinions expressed here reflect those of any other person, group or organization unless I say so specifically. Before commenting read the entire post and the \u201cNote to commenters\u201d at its end.*<\/em><\/p>\n To jump to the twentieth century from the fifth and the thirteenth, C. S. Lewis, a Protestant, grasped this necessary (to escape nihilism) truth and attempted to communicate it through most of his writings\u2014without precisely expressing it in the way I am expressing it here. However, the way I am expressing it here is consistent with Lewis\u2019s entire Christian philosophy.<\/p>\n I believe the Bible simply takes this for granted; there is no other reasonable way to interpret Scripture than this\u2014that the Creator, Redeemer, and Renewer<\/em> of the world is goodness itself<\/em>. God is the good and the good is God<\/u>.<\/p>\n If you are having trouble understanding this point, think of Plato\u2019s theory of the forms<\/em>. There had to be a \u201cform of the forms\u201d and Plato labeled that \u201cthe Good\u201d (or Goodness itself) and also sometimes God. (I am not claiming that Plato was a theist, but his \u201cthe Good\u201d functioned<\/em> much like God functions in Christian metaphysics and ethics. Augustine simply identified Yahweh with the Good and imported the forms into God\u2019s eternal being as transcendent ideals or patterns.)<\/p>\n \u201cGod is good\u201d is a tautology but not a useless one. Not useless because so many people misunderstand \u201cgoodness\u201d as either whatever God does, making it contingent, or as humans independently of God willing and acting for the happiness of themselves and others. \u201cGod is good\u201d really means<\/em> \u201cthe true good, goodness itself, is God.\u201d And God, goodness itself, love, if you will, is that \u201cend\u201d (telos) toward which all of creation is directed internally by virtue of having being. God is the fullness of being, \u201cbeing itself,\u201d understood correctly (not impersonally), and the fullness of goodness. Being and goodness are one<\/em>. When humans choose to follow the path of their own true good\u2014union with God\u2014by means of grace and free will\u2014their beingness is enhanced. Movement away from union with God diminishes their beingness.<\/p>\n All this is why theologian Karl Barth seemingly obliquely referred to Satan as \u201cdas Nichtige\u201d\u2014\u201cNothingness.\u201d He did not mean that Satan does not exist. Darkness exists! But it has no being. Without being darkness even has power<\/em>. (Try sitting in a cave without any light at all as I have; you will feel its power.)<\/p>\n All this is why C. S. Lewis\u2019s classic The Great Divorce<\/em> gets to the rock bottom of Christian thought, metaphysics, in the form of an allegory. Hell is lack of being as it is lack of goodness. It exists as<\/em> the place of near nonbeing. Heaven is fullness of being or near fullness of being because it is the home of God and the \u201cresidence\u201d of goodness. Allegorically, it is too \u201chard\u201d for wills that are turned against goodness. (Read the book if you haven\u2019t!)<\/p>\n I have come to believe there are two great misunderstandings<\/em> (actually sometimes ignorance) about Christian theism.<\/p>\n First, there is the misunderstanding that (literally) bedevils the minds of many critics of Christianity. \u201cChristianity\u201d is not<\/u> what the majority of Christians think or how they act at any given time; it is a life and world view that naturally results in conviction and repentance or hardening of the heart and rebellion<\/em>. It is like a Platonic form only not one. It exists independently of what people think; it is what God thinks and knows and has revealed about himself\u2014whether anyone else thinks or knows or believes. Many critics of \u201cChristianity\u201d are focused on what they regard as the hypocrisies of Christians. They need to at least pay attention to what Mahatma Gandhi is supposed to have said\u2014that the main problem with Christianity is that it has too seldom been tried. I would say it has too seldom been known or believed.<\/p>\n So what do I want to say to critics of Christianity? Only that God is love<\/em> and goodness itself is love<\/em>. No secular, naturalistic life and world view can say that goodness itself is love and explain why.<\/p>\n Second, there is the misunderstanding that bedevils the minds of many Christians. \u201cThe Good<\/em>\u201d is whatever God does and commands and is contingent\u2014not rooted in God\u2019s own eternal being<\/em>. These Christians have to think of God as a great cosmic dictator who is arbitrary and just takes pleasure in commanding things and punishing those who violate his arbitrary commands. Of course, the moment one says it this way, almost every Christian will shrink back and say this is not what they believe, but their everyday language about God and the good shows they do suppose this.<\/p>\n I have talked much here about this second misunderstanding\u2014as well as the first one. Here I want to connect them and say that the second one is a major cause of the first one. Most atheists, agnostics, and critics of Christian theism I know suppose that Christianity includes belief in God as an omnipotent, arbitrary dictator who gets pleasure out of commanding things arbitrarily and then punishing those who do not obey.<\/p>\n May I add here a side bar about popular culture? If you have not seen commercials for the forthcoming new television series in which Steve Buscemi plays \u201cGod,\u201d you should look at it online\u2014just to see how vulgar popular culture can make theism look. This new forthcoming television series is a vulgarization of the old movie \u201cOh God!\u201d starring John Denver and George Burns (as God) (1977). Is it possible to vulgarize the already fully vulgar? Apparently so.<\/p>\n Back to my main point. Absolutely fundamental to Christian theism\u2014although widely unknown and unacknowledged and often denied even by Christians!\u2014is the Great Idea promoted by Augustine, Aquinas, and Lewis (to name only three) that God is being itself and goodness itself and that the three are really just three distinct ways of talking about the same thing (which is not a \u201cthing\u201d at all)! And that \u201cgoodness itself\u201d is love<\/em>. God cannot be unloving. To suggest such would be to make a mockery of God and love and undercut ethics. But that latter assertion is for another blog post. I have hinted at it here many, many times before.<\/p>\n Another way of making my point: It is necessary to believe that we live in a moral universe; that requires belief in a divine being, Creator, Redeemer, Renewer, who is being itself (but not impersonal) and goodness itself\u2014not contingently but necessarily<\/em>. Everything depends on this, literally everything\u2014unless we are willing to believe that goodness is contingent\u2014an invention either of God or ourselves.<\/p>\n *Note to commenters:<\/em> This blog is not a discussion board; please respond with a question or comment only to me. If you do not share my evangelical Christian perspective (very broadly defined), feel free to ask a question for clarification, but know that this is not a space for debating incommensurate perspectives\/worldviews. In any case, know that there is no guarantee that your question or comment will be posted by the moderator or answered by the writer. If you hope for your question or comment to appear here and be answered or responded to, make sure it is civil, respectful, and \u201con topic.\u201d Do not comment if you have not read the entire post and do not misrepresent what it says. Keep any comment (including questions) to minimal length; do not post essays, sermons or testimonies here. Do not post links to internet sites here. This is a space for expressions of the blogger\u2019s (or guest writers\u2019) opinions and constructive dialogue among evangelical Christians (very broadly defined).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Down to \u201cRock Bottom\u201d of Christian Theism: God and the Good Unfortunately for everyone (including God), the vast majority of people who consider themselves Christians have little to no understanding of basic Christian world and life perspective. Unfortunately for Christianity, the vast majority of people who consider themselves astute critics of Christianity have little to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n