Is God Good?

Elie Wiesel, in his book Night, a personal biography of time spent in the Nazi concentration camps, presents an indictment of God. His presentation includes eight arguments designed to prove that God is not only not good but also the author of evil. God is on trial here as He is each day in the hearts of all those who suffer.

Argument #1a: Is God good when He Owes Me?

For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me. Why should I bless his name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for? P31

Many of us wonder, Is God good, even if it is unspoken or subconscious. We want a God that proves He is worthy of our praise. That worth is derived from what we receive from Him. When our lives are comfortable, pleasant, and prosperous, He is deemed worthy of our commendation. However, if trials, disturbances, and struggles characterize our lives, God is deemed unfair, withholding of deserved good, unloving, uncaring, and defaulting on His debt to us. We feel that we do not deserve these problems and are cheated by Him for allowing inconveniences, hurts, tragedies, and lost dreams instead of the good we believe we deserve.

Humans were made by God and for His pleasure. He sustains them and gives them their very breath day by day (Ps. 104:27-30). We are in His debt for we are absolutely dependent upon Him. In contrast, He does not depend upon His creation for His existence but is independent in every way. He follows only His own will and there is none that is His equal. God freely chooses to be involved in the affairs of humans. He owes them nothing, but has freely chosen to make Himself known to them. God is good but owes us nothing.

Argument #1b: Is God good if He has wronged me?

Never shall I forget those moments, which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dream to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.” P32 Since God owes me, His withholding of good therefore proves that I am wronged. Until He makes good, I will not forgive His defaulting. I will hold this against Him forever.

In reality, all have wronged God. We have all committed treason against the Sovereign Lord of the universe and are deserving of death. It is only by His mercy and grace that we are not destroyed. While we may be unforgiving toward God for turning our dreams to dust, He is willing to forgive all who come to Him through Christ.

Argument #2: Is God good when He is not just.

Some talked of God, of his mysterious ways, of the sins of the Jewish people, and of their future deliverance. But I had ceased to pray. How I sympathized with Job! I did not deny God’s existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.

“I am innocent! How could this happen to me?!” If God were truly just, He would not have allowed this to happen. God allowed poor Job to be tormented physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. He was a righteous man and God unjustly allowed him to suffer. A truly just and righteous God would not allow this to happen to him or to me.

The Lord is righteous in all of His dealings with creation (Ps. 145:17). It is against His nature to be less than just. He is absolutely righteous, morally perfect (Jo. 17:25). He is not capable of being unjust and therefore all His dealings with us must be totally righteous. There will be a day when all, the wicked and the just, will see God’s judgment. All will see that He does reward the righteous and the wicked for their deeds (Ps. 58:10-11).

Argument #3: Is God good if He is not faithful?

Where is God? Where is He? Someone behind me asked? Where is He? Here He is-He is hanging here on this gallows…P61

He abandons His people in disregard to what He has said. He portrays Himself as the God who is there always in loyal love; yet, when He is truly needed He is not there.

Our eternal destiny is secure because of God’s faithfulness. He will never reject, nor give up on His people, but will continue to work in their lives growing them more like Christ daily. He never abandons His people even in times of suffering. He fulfills every promise but not always in the way and time we expect or want. Sarah did not have a son until her old age. As each year passed it would seem that God was not good but in His time he remembered her (Heb. 11:11; Gen. 15:4-5).

Argument #4: Is God good if evil is stronger?

What are you my God, I thought angrily compared to this afflicted crowd, proclaiming to You their faith, their anger, their revolt? What does Your greatness mean, Lord of the universe, in the face of all this weakness, this decomposition, and this decay

Look around and you will see that evil prevails. The wicked prosper and the innocent is unprotected by this great God. If God were indeed stronger, this would not be so.

God is sovereign over all – including evil. Evil did not create the stars, or the atom nor does it rule over creation but is subject to the Creator (Ps. 103:19; Is. 40:26; Col. 1:16). He directs the way of paupers and kings and is not surprised or defeated by their plans (Prov. 16:9; 21:1; Acts 17:26). He alone is the Almighty, good God.

Argument #5: Is God good when He lacks compassion for the hurting?

Why do You still trouble their sick minds, their crippled bodies? p62

If God is everywhere present then He sees evil being done and further hurts the innocent by not intervening even as they cry out to Him.

God is aware of human suffering and does respond (Mt. 14:14; 9:36-38). In His perfect wisdom, He allows in our lives that which moves us toward a fulfillment of His plans for us (Rom. 8:28). Joseph suffered as an innocent man but God caused good to come from the evil done to him (Gen. 50:20). Even Christ was delivered up to suffer by the predetermined will of God (Ac. 2:23), but for the ultimate good of all of creation.

Argument #6: Is God good when He is responsible for evil?

Why, should I bless Him? In every fiber I rebelled. Because He had had thousands of children burned in His pits? Because He kept six crematories working night and day, on Sundays and feast days? Because in His great might He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed art Thou, Eternal, Master of the Universe, Who chose us from among the races to be tortured day and night, to see our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end in the crematory? Praised by Thy Holy Name, Thou Who has chosen us to be butchered on Thine altar? P64

It is His fault. If one has believed the prior arguments against God then the progression to this stage is inevitable. If God is not good, just, compassionate, good, powerful, loving, and faithful, then we might as well blame Him for the evil that abounds. He could stop it and chooses not to, therefore, He is not only to blame but also the cause of evil.

Humans, not God, introduced sin to the world. Adam and Eve sinned and the result was a transformation from a perfect world to one filled with death, disease, poverty, and evil played out in the lives of humans (Gen. 1:31; Rom. 8:19-22). God, in His infinite love, sent Christ to resolve this situation. He suffered and died to break the bondage of evil and make a way back to the Father (Mt. 27:46). His suffering cannot be compared to the totality of all human suffering throughout all time.

Argument #7: Is God good since He sins?

This day I had ceased to plead, I was no longer capable of lamentation. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone-terribly alone in a world without God and without man. Without love or mercy. I had ceased to be anything but ashes, yet I felt myself to be stronger than the Almighty, to whom my life had been tied for so long. I stood amid that praying congregation, observing it like a stranger. P65

Since God could stop evil and doesn’t, He is guilty of sin. Since He is guilty, God is not good. Since He is not good, He is no better than we are.

Satan offered to open Eve’s eyes way back in the garden. She was offered the capacity to be like God knowing good and evil. Satan proposed then that God is not good because He was withholding knowledge from Eve. Now the proposal is that God is not good because He is allowing you to know first hand good and evil. God is holy (Lev. 11:44; Rev. 4:8). He is completely separate from creation. He is morally pure and absolutely separate from sin. Because He is holy, He cannot sin. God is good.

Argument #8: Is God good since He is unworthy?

There was no longer any reason why I should fast. I no longer accepted God’s silence. As I swallowed my bowl of soup, I saw in the gesture an act of rebellion and protest against Him….in the depths of my heart, I felt a great void.

A God such as this in not worthy to be praised. Only a God who is good, holy, apart from evil, caring and responsive towards His children is One who deserves to be followed. Rebellion and protest are not only acceptable but also absolutely necessary against an unworthy God.

Henry Blackaby states that we should never try to understand God looking at Him from the midst of our circumstances. We can only get a true picture of Him from the foot of the cross. Jesus emptied Himself and freely took on humanity for the express purpose of suffering and dying for us. God, the creator of all that exists, humbled Himself and became a man (Ph. 2:6-8). He walked among us, was tempted as we are, felt what we feel, cried, loved, laughed, and died for us. This is a God worthy to be followed, loved, obeyed, and trusted.

Still, I need Him.

In spite of myself, a prayer rose in my heart, to that God in whom I no longer believed. My God, Lord of the Universe, give me strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahou’s son has done. P87

Even as he grappled with the issue of theodicy, Wiesel’s heart cannot stop itself from crying out to God. Where else can we go? He alone holds life. Yet, the question of suffering and evil is not adequately answered. If we are to look at the world around us in order to determine the nature of God, then Wiesel’s judgment is sound - God is not good. If we look at God from the foot of the cross the image changes and we see that God is good. All questions of the goodness of God stem from a lack of knowledge of, a lack of relationship with, and an incomplete faith in God. This does not mean that those who place their trust in Him will not doubt in such times and horrors that Wiesel was forced to endure, only that we cannot base our knowledge of Him from this moment in time.

Same trial, different verdict

Corrie ten Boom and her sister were also subjected to the concentration camps. They too suffered a great deal, saw others suffer, were starved, beaten, degraded, and forced to work like animals. Yet, their faith, in contrast to Wiesel’s, deepened and sweetened.

They were tempted to doubt, and, in fact, Corrie had to struggle with her belief in the person of God. In the end she said she came to understand that “No pit is so deep that God is not deeper still.” She made it her life’s mission to let this be known. God is greater than our suffering. He is faithful, just, compassionate in suffering, powerful, merciful, and yes, He is good."

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