When we call God good, we are not applying an external standard to him, as if goodness existed independently and God happened to measure up. We are saying something far more radical: God does not merely conform to goodness. God is goodness. He is the original, the measure, the fountain from which all other good flows. As Augustine wrote in the fifth century, ‘You are life and light and wisdom and blessedness and eternity and many such good things; and yet you are nothing save the one and supreme good.’¹

This is the doctrine of Divine goodness at its most profound depth. And understanding it transforms not only how we think about God, but how we evaluate everything we encounter in the world.

God’s Own Goodness: Self-Existent and Essential

God’s goodness is not something given to him or acquired by him. It is essential to his being. His ‘goodness in its essential and metaphysical sense indicates the fullness and completeness of his being, his self-sufficiency and freedom from want of any kind.’² God’s life in himself — the eternal fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — is perfect goodness, a goodness that owes nothing to anyone and depends on nothing outside itself.

This is why no creature can diminish God’s goodness. Evil creatures do not — cannot — reduce his desire to establish our well-being. ‘Precisely because God does not depend on the world, his goodness is never threatened. God is good to all he has made, even his enemies (Psa 145:9, 15-16; Matt 5:45). He can afford to be, because he is God with or without them.’³

The Overflowing Fountain of All Good

God’s essential goodness is not inward-turning self-regard. It overflows. The creation itself is the first great overflow: God sharing his goodness with that which is not God. His ‘own infinite fullness flows forth, and is properly called God’s goodness, because the good that he communicates is something of himself; a communication of his own glory, and what he delights in as he delights in his own glory.’⁴

Jonathan Edwards explored this with great depth and beauty. According to Edwards, God’s overarching objective in all he does is simply the long-term welfare of his creatures. The great goal revealed in the gospel is the glorification of God in the eternal good of human beings. There is no conflict between God’s glory and our happiness: promoting our highest good is completely consistent with God’s promotion of his own glory. The same universe designed with the ambition of making God’s grandeur known and manifest is one constructed to produce human happiness.

Edwards summarised God’s threefold purpose in goodness: (1) our good is what God wants in creation — communicating good to creatures was one of the ultimate ends for which God made the world; (2) our good is what God wants in salvation — the forgiveness of sins and salvation are spoken of as being for God’s goodness’ sake; and (3) our good is what God wants in the gospel — the good news of salvation proclaims our greatest good and happiness.⁵

God Is Perfectly Good: Dimensions of His Excellence

‘God’s goodness consists in being just as good as a perfect being can be.’⁶ There are different dimensions of this goodness. Essential and metaphysical goodness means God is perfect in his very being, and consequently, all he does is good. Relational-spiritual goodness is God’s goodness itself — the excellency of his Divine personal identity, relationships, character, motives, and goals. Moral goodness flows from this: ‘God is absolutely trustworthy because given his character and disposition, doing evil is totally repugnant to him. It is unthinkable that he do evil.’⁷

All senses of God’s goodness are combined in the Psalmist’s declaration: ‘You are good and do good’ (Psa 119:68). Goodness in being and goodness in action. The source and the act. God is good, and God does good, and the two are one.

Karl Barth brought these threads together magnificently: ‘God is not the Good first, and then the One who loves, because he does not keep this Good to himself but communicates it to others. God is the One who loves, and as such the Good and the sum of all good things … Loving us, God does not give us something but himself; and giving us himself, giving us his only Son, he gives us everything.’⁸ God is goodness itself. And in giving good to us, he has given himself.

1. Anselm, Proslogion, 22; ed. Davies, 100. ↩︎
2. Paul Helm, ‘Goodness,’ in Philip L. Quinn and Charles Taliaferro eds., A Companion to Philosophy of Religion (Blackwell, 1997/1999), 245. ↩︎
3. Michael Horton, ‘God,’ in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Second Edition (Baker, 2017), 346. ↩︎
4. Jonathan Edwards, ‘Concerning the End for Which God Created the World,’ Chapter 1, Section IV (Ethical Writings, WJE Online Vol. 8, 460). ↩︎
5. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2 Volumes (Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 1:114-15. ↩︎
6. Katherin A. Rogers, Perfect Being Theology (Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 122. ↩︎
7. Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 123. ↩︎
8. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (T & T Clark, 1957), 2.1:286. ↩︎