To which I had some replies:

Odin1Eye – no.. good is subjective. I know many people that I don’t consider good. Selfish, spiteful, mean spirited, lazy etc. however, I think everyone, or almost everyone, sees themselves as good… one reason I don’t like villains to always be evil and the ones I don’t think are necessarily good, probably see me in a less positive light than I see myself. and of course, I am speaking in humanistic terms, as we know that according to scripture, none of us are good. Truth.

Alethe – If everyone was good all people would be treated with dignity and not abused. Don’t see that starting any time soon!

So we have a nice (dare I say good?) spectrum of answers to the query. And yes it’s a loaded question, but as I replied to Scott those are often the best kinds.

So what’s my take? No, everyone I know is not “good” or at least not good enough. How do I determine that? Aren’t there some people that I know that are “good”? Sure, I know plenty of people that I think are good folk, depending on the day or on my mood. They’re kind to others, frequently generous, don’t kick any puppies, that sort of thing. However, the intrinsic goodness of a person is difficult to measure meaningfully by my own personal standards, which are ultimately meaningless for most people and are far from fair or impartial. So what do I use?

Judging by a society’s standards is tricky. They change over time or by location. A good person two hundred years ago may have been a slave owner. A person in another country (or certain parts of this one) may marry their twelve year old cousin. Those acts wouldn’t be looked upon kindly in modern Western society. If I used that as my measuring stick there would be a flux, not helped by the fact that even within my own society there is a broad range of cultures that I identify with. Granted the change in what’s perceived as moral may change less frequently, but rather than being truly objective it’s still subject to the whims of large groups of people.

Using a religious standard is also an option and it’s the one I choose. Even here I run into some problems, though they are problems of a different sort. There is a large section of the Old Testament that is dedicated to laws and their punishment. One traditional argument is that some of those laws are intended just for Israel and that others are more universal. The difficulty there would be, which is which? If one picks and chooses then the label hypocrite or accusations of cherry picking come flying out of the woodwork.

Then in the New Testament we have Jesus expanding the Old Testament’s laws with statements like

21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder,a and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. (Matthew 5)

So, now simply avoiding killing or murder is not enough. We risk judgment in simply being angry or calling names. That really gets to the heart of the matter and raises the bar beyond where some people would feel is “fair”. I mean, is merely having a bad thought enough to be considered a bad act? If you consider another human being inferior or plot to murder your neighbor even if you never have the chance to act on it, have you done something morally wrong? In some cases man’s law would say yes, though usually only if there’s another conspirator. According to the Christian God’s law there is no question. Even if an act is not illegal, seriously contemplating committing an immoral act is immoral in itself.

Based on all of this, I agree with John, to a degree. By my own (again admittedly mercurial) and by God’s standards I am not a “good person”. I lack the scale or the formula necessary to tell me if my good acts outweigh my bad, but I suspect that if I had one that the scales would touch the floor on the bad side. That’s certainly what Christianity teaches. According to my culture and perhaps even to some of my friends I’m a good man, but those people haven’t seen in to my heart. They don’t know the interior Scott. When it comes to that interior life I don’t think I’m alone though, none of us are pretty on the inside. Morality is more than just what you do that your friends and neighbors to see. Whether you are good or not gets to your core and what’s in there.

So what do we do with that? The knowledge that I’m not good enough to measure up to the standards that I believe God has laid out is hard. I want to be good enough. I want my friends to be able to be good enough under their own power. Occasionally I’ve been known to whine and pout along with the best of them that it’s not fair that we can’t be. God’s standards seem too high even to me, from time to time. The good news is that we don’t have to be good enough (nice especially since we can’t be). Though God still wants us to strive and I believe that he has instilled in all of us the desire to love one another and to fulfill his commands, there is no ultimate pressure to do so. We can strive to be good not so that we measure up, to meet the bare minimum, but so we can bless those around us. The motive shouldn’t be fear of retribution or condemnation. We’ve received much grace and need to turn that around to our friends and neighbors.

So are you good enough, my friends? No. The good news is that Jesus was, freeing you to be as good as you can be.

Good Enough is a post from: Spiritual Tramp

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