fieldus

Guy Damman gives the theodicy another whipping…
Good God, why? | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

The real problem, though, consists in the fact that an element of free will is generally agreed to be essential to the notion of goodness. Whether an action is judged to be morally good through a reflection on its ends or on its means, the ascription of goodness to the act’s perpetrator necessarily involves the implication that the course of action in question was chosen freely. In other words, to be good in doing the right thing, the possibility of doing the wrong thing must exist too.

But with God existing outside all known constraints, even those of space and time, and for whom the distance between thought and action is precisely zero, to speak of goodness in this sense is simply meaningless. Good God! The idea is preposterous.