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Forum Friends,
According to Greek philosophy, Goodness is one of three transcendent values, Beauty and Truth being the other two. But what is it actually? How would you define it? And why do you think Jesus declared, “only God is good”? Wasn’t Jesus himself the embodiment of living goodness for the whole universe of Nebadon? Where was his goodness incomplete? Aren’t the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit Good, in the highest sense? Even Greatest?
…The estimate of greatness varies from sphere to sphere. To be great is to be Godlike. And since the quality of greatness is wholly determined by the content of goodness, it follows that, even in your present human estate, if you can through grace become good, you are thereby becoming great…. (317:3) 28:6.22
I know I’m not good or great yet, but I may do good now, even aspire to greatness. Maybe saying ‘only God is good’ is the Master’s way of instructing us on the inherent nature of goodness, and that we might aspire to goodness and greatness even though we can never know them in their fullness this side of Paradise. God alone is Absolute Goodness.
Many times the authors admonish us to become Godlike. How can we become Godlike unless we know what God is like? One of the essentials of God’s nature is Goodness. And one thing God lovers know for sure God is Good, that God is the source of Goodness, its inventor and primary promulgator. God is the Standard of Goodness for the Universe of Universes. Humans easily recognize Goodness as the currency of love and affection. Even the evil recognize Goodness when they see it.
Goodness and love are intertwined almost to the point of being indistinguishable. Perhaps the most memorable line in the Urantia Book about both is at the very end of a long discourse on Goodness, Beauty and Truth (56:10), most readers know it well: Love is the desire to do good to others. Goodness, like love, is inspiring, even contagious.
The primary requirement for goodness to become real is personality. Without personality, goodness finds no place to arise, abide and contribute to the creation of the Supreme Being, that living repository of all Truth, Beauty and Goodness, one who comes out of time and space experience, out of our evolutionary decisions and acts.
The second requirement is contrast. We are told Havona natives don’t need any contrast at all to know good from evil. In time and space, it is essential. The authors say this in many ways.
…Goodness, like truth, is always relative and unfailingly evil-contrasted. It is the perception of these qualities of goodness and truth that enables the evolving souls of men to make those personal decisions of choice which are essential to eternal survival…. (1457:6) 132:2.3
…Man could not dynamically choose the divine life if there were no self-life to forsake. Man could never lay saving hold on righteousness if there were no potential evil to exalt and differentiate the good by contrast…. (51:12) 3:5.13
The third requirement is choice. Because we have personality with its will endowment, and since we can recognize good, choice becomes an inevitability. Decisions must be made, it is the design and way of time, space, and evolution. And choosing the good eventually leads to greatness, even Godlikeness.
One of my favorite philosophical anchors in our new revelation is from Melchizedek, a Section titled: Knowledge, Wisdom and Insight:
…The eternal real is the good of the universe and not the time illusions of space evil. In the spiritual experience of all personalities, always is it true that the real is the good and the good is the real…. (1122:11) 102:3.15
Is goodness something we should understand, come to know well? Something to inculcate in our children? Is there a way to increase the awareness of goodness in our rapidly expanding civilization? Is there anything to gain from attempting to raise awareness about this quintessential Godlike trait? Does goodness have a place in secular society? What is the best method of seeding and growing more good on our war-torn, quarantined, half-enlightened, half animal world? Is goodness even a viable concept on Urantia anymore?!
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Richard E Warren
Thanks Rick…I look forward to this one…too!!
What the Master said about only God being good has always been like a koan to me….riddle within enigma, considering the source of such a declaration. My thinking has come to the point where I think he is accurately portraying God as the creator and source of all goodness and all that is good. Creation is a reflection of God’s goodness but all of us created ones are but conduits or agents of that which is good. We do not create goodness so much as pass it along by our own experience and expressions of goodness. Is not love the same? God is love. All others are its beneficiaries, stewards, and reflections of love which cannot be held onto but must be given to be received. Or something like that.
I think there is much goodness on our world….as much goodness as there is love perhaps? And there is more than enough contrast to discern it…and desire it….and to respond to it by the giving of it. Which begins to energize and reorient us to recognize its effects on self and others and begin to realize the circuitry to which we, thereby, are all connected. Such an experience, over time, infects the mind with the actual desire to be good and do good….not by rule or fear of punishment but for the actual results of goodness in our own life and in our world. The connection to the circuit overcomes the issues and behavioral restraints of ethics and morality to a recognition of what truly happens when goodness and love are our actual motivation toward others and of others to us and all others.
We may find truth, beauty, and goodness and we may express them and we may be changed by them….but only one IS good and all others are but blessed by that goodness…and the more it is expressed and shared and experienced, the more it becomes its own force of “goodness for goodness sake” and the less contrast is required for the ascender to know goodness in and of and for itself.
I look forward to further illuminations.
The reason Jesus asked, “Why do you call me good?” is because true goodness is unconscious. You can’t be self-forgetting and conscious of your own goodness at the same time. Jeez.
140:8.26 Jesus always insisted that true goodness must be unconscious, . . .
As for goodness in society, it will always begin with morals and ethics, but morals and ethics without religion cannot reveal true goodness.
196:3.27 Morality without religion fails to reveal ultimate goodness, and it also fails to provide for the survival of even its own moral values. Religion provides for the enhancement, glorification, and assured survival of everything morality recognizes and approves.
Another thing to think about is grace. Grace is a gift. Goodness is a gift. Goodness without grace isn’t good, it’s something else because it’s ineffective, it’s kinda dead. I think ego is what makes the human species of goodness unattractive; the self gets in the way of it.
171:7.2 Goodness is universally attractive only when it is gracious. Goodness is effective only when it is attractive.
Rick Warren wrote: Maybe saying ‘only God is good’ is the Master’s way of instructing us on the inherent nature of goodness, and that we might aspire to goodness and greatness even though we can never know them in their fullness this side of Paradise.I think you’re on point about aspiration to goodness. Maybe this aspiration is enfolded with divine truth and divine beauty in the divine call to be perfect even as God is perfect. The teachings of the Master, now a Master Michael, were/are intended to inspire the personalities of his whole creation living in his 10,000 systems of inhabited worlds. When built out, each system will have 1,000 inhabited planets! The call to perfection is universal and Nebadon is evolving toward the era of light and life. (17:6:9)1:4:5 The divine mystery consists in the inherent difference which exists between the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, the time-space creature and the Universal Creator, the material and the spiritual, the imperfection of man and the perfection of Paradise Deity. The God of universal love unfailingly manifests himself to every one of his creatures up to the fullness of that creature’s capacity to spiritually grasp the qualities of divine truth, beauty, and goodness..Here they talk about divine goodness as the revelation of infinite values to the finite mind. Jesus gave credit where credit was due – to God our Father – when he said only God is good.56:10:9 The worlds settled in light and life are so fully concerned with the comprehension of truth, beauty, and goodness because these quality values embrace the revelation of Deity to the realms of time and space. The meanings of eternal truth make a combined appeal to the intellectual and spiritual natures of mortal man. Universal beauty embraces the harmonious relations and rhythms of the cosmic creation; this is more distinctly the intellectual appeal and leads towards unified and synchronous comprehension of the material universe. Divine goodness represents the revelation of infinite values to the finite mind, therein to be perceived and elevated to the very threshold of the spiritual level of human comprehension..Bradly wrote: God is love. Yes! The greatest thing in the universe.56:10:20 To finite man truth, beauty, and goodness embrace the full revelation of divinity reality. As this love-comprehension of Deity finds spiritual expression in the lives of God-knowing mortals, there are yielded the fruits of divinity: intellectual peace, social progress, moral satisfaction, spiritual joy, and cosmic wisdom. The advanced mortals on a world in the seventh stage of light and life have learned that love is the greatest thing in the universe — and they know that God is love.Thanks Rick…I look forward to this one…too!! What the Master said about only God being good has always been like a koan to me….riddle within enigma, considering the source of such a declaration. My thinking has come to the point where I think he is accurately portraying God as the creator and source of all goodness and all that is good. Creation is a reflection of God’s goodness but all of us created ones are but conduits or agents of that which is good. We do not create goodness so much as pass it along by our own experience and expressions of goodness. Is not love the same? God is love. All others are its beneficiaries, stewards, and reflections of love which cannot be held onto but must be given to be received. Or something like that. I think there is much goodness on our world….as much goodness as there is love perhaps? And there is more than enough contrast to discern it…and desire it….and to respond to it by the giving of it. Which begins to energize and reorient us to recognize its effects on self and others and begin to realize the circuitry to which we, thereby, are all connected. Such an experience, over time, infects the mind with the actual desire to be good and do good….not by rule or fear of punishment but for the actual results of goodness in our own life and in our world. The connection to the circuit overcomes the issues and behavioral restraints of ethics and morality to a recognition of what truly happens when goodness and love are our actual motivation toward others and of others to us and all others. We may find truth, beauty, and goodness and we may express them and we may be changed by them….but only one IS good and all others are but blessed by that goodness…and the more it is expressed and shared and experienced, the more it becomes its own force of “goodness for goodness sake” and the less contrast is required for the ascender to know goodness in and of and for itself. I look forward to further illuminations.
Much appreciate the many thoughtful insights, Bradly. Your circuit metaphor is very instructive re goodness and love. Any component not tied into the circuit can’t receive, pass on, or transform energy. It is isolated, stagnant, essentially dead. Not good
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Richard E Warren
The reason Jesus asked, “Why do you call me good?” is because true goodness is unconscious. You can’t be self-forgetting and conscious of your own goodness at the same time. Jeez.
140:8.26 Jesus always insisted that true goodness must be unconscious, . . .
As for goodness in society, it will always begin with morals and ethics, but morals and ethics without religion cannot reveal true goodness.
196:3.27 Morality without religion fails to reveal ultimate goodness, and it also fails to provide for the survival of even its own moral values. Religion provides for the enhancement, glorification, and assured survival of everything morality recognizes and approves.
Another thing to think about is grace. Grace is a gift. Goodness is a gift. Goodness without grace isn’t good, it’s something else because it’s ineffective, it’s kinda dead. I think ego is what makes the human species of goodness unattractive; the self gets in the way of it.
171:7.2 Goodness is universally attractive only when it is gracious. Goodness is effective only when it is attractive.
Great points all, Bonita. Also, one has to wonder if the Master wasn’t also a little put off by attempted flattery. Maybe not. Anyway, he used the occasion to make a transcendent statement of truth about God, one that rang down thru the ages.
From Luke 18:
18A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
19“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.
The Midwayers alluded to this incident twice in the same Paper, 196:
…this Galilean, God’s Galilean, when addressed as Good Teacher, instantly replied, “Why do you call me good?” When we stand confronted by such splendid self-forgetfulness, we begin to understand how the Universal Father found it possible so fully to manifest himself to him and reveal himself through him to the mortals of the realms…. (2088.4) 196:0.9
…He progressed from the humble status of mortal dependence which prompted him spontaneously to say to the one who called him Good Teacher, “Why do you call me good? None is good but God,” to that sublime consciousness of achieved divinity which led him to exclaim, “Which one of you convicts me of sin?” And this progressing ascent from the human to the divine was an exclusively mortal achievement. And when he had thus attained divinity, he was still the same human Jesus, the Son of Man as well as the Son of God…. (2091.11) 196:2.2
And thanks for bringing grace into the thread. Graciousness and goodness form an inextricable and divine association. One of the most memorable lines about the power and effect of grace has that exquisitely beautiful phrase all readers well know: “a love saturated soul”, in Paper 171:
…Jesus spread good cheer everywhere he went. He was full of grace and truth. His associates never ceased to wonder at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. You can cultivate gracefulness, but graciousness is the aroma of friendliness which emanates from a love-saturated soul…. (1874:4) 171:7.1
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Richard E Warren
Rick Warren wrote: Maybe saying ‘only God is good’ is the Master’s way of instructing us on the inherent nature of goodness, and that we might aspire to goodness and greatness even though we can never know them in their fullness this side of Paradise.I think you’re on point about aspiration to goodness. Maybe this aspiration is enfolded with divine truth and divine beauty in the divine call to be perfect even as God is perfect. The teachings of the Master, now a Master Michael, were/are intended to inspire the personalities of his whole creation living in his 10,000 systems of inhabited worlds. When built out, each system will have 1,000 inhabited planets! The call to perfection is universal and Nebadon is evolving toward the era of light and life. (17:6:9)1:4:5 The divine mystery consists in the inherent difference which exists between the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, the time-space creature and the Universal Creator, the material and the spiritual, the imperfection of man and the perfection of Paradise Deity. The God of universal love unfailingly manifests himself to every one of his creatures up to the fullness of that creature’s capacity to spiritually grasp the qualities of divine truth, beauty, and goodness..Here they talk about divine goodness as the revelation of infinite values to the finite mind. Jesus gave credit where credit was due – to God our Father – when he said only God is good.56:10:9 The worlds settled in light and life are so fully concerned with the comprehension of truth, beauty, and goodness because these quality values embrace the revelation of Deity to the realms of time and space. The meanings of eternal truth make a combined appeal to the intellectual and spiritual natures of mortal man. Universal beauty embraces the harmonious relations and rhythms of the cosmic creation; this is more distinctly the intellectual appeal and leads towards unified and synchronous comprehension of the material universe. Divine goodness represents the revelation of infinite values to the finite mind, therein to be perceived and elevated to the very threshold of the spiritual level of human comprehension..Bradly wrote: God is love. Yes! The greatest thing in the universe.56:10:20 To finite man truth, beauty, and goodness embrace the full revelation of divinity reality. As this love-comprehension of Deity finds spiritual expression in the lives of God-knowing mortals, there are yielded the fruits of divinity: intellectual peace, social progress, moral satisfaction, spiritual joy, and cosmic wisdom. The advanced mortals on a world in the seventh stage of light and life have learned that love is the greatest thing in the universe — and they know that God is love.Yeah! Let’s get “love-saturated”, Mara
But, as your quote points out so plainly, capacity is an unavoidable limitation, an ever present challenge to the status quo.…As you ascend the universe scale of creature development, you will find increasing goodness and diminishing evil in perfect accordance with your capacity for goodness-experience and truth-discernment…. (1458:3) 132:2.6
What exactly creates greater capacity “for goodness experience”?
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Richard E Warren
Rick Warren wrote: What exactly creates greater capacity “for goodness experience”?PRAYER
Rick Warren wrote: What exactly creates greater capacity “for goodness experience”?PRAYER
That’s it, nothing else?
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Richard E Warren
Rick Warren wrote: That’s it, nothing else?YUP. Unless you want to add worship.
Goodness is the measure of divinity attainment. Do you think you can attain divinity without prayer? No, you can’t. Goodness, like truth is a supermaterial experience, which means a soul experience. How do you get to the soul level of experience without prayer? There is no other way. Prayer is what expands the capacity for receptivity; it keeps the connection alive, providing nourishment for growth. It’s simple.
132:2.5 Goodness is always growing toward new levels of the increasing liberty of moral self-realization and spiritual personality attainment–the discovery of, and identification with, the indwelling Adjuster.
144:4.2 The earnest and longing repetition of any petition, when such a prayer is the sincere expression of a child of God and is uttered in faith, no matter how ill-advised or impossible of direct answer, never fails to expand the soul’s capacity for spiritual receptivity.
146:2.14 But he did teach that prayer is a factor in the enlargement of one’s capacity to receive the presence of the divine spirit.
194:3.20 Prayer does not move the divine heart to liberality of bestowal, but it does so often dig out larger and deeper channels wherein the divine bestowals may flow to the hearts and souls of those who thus remember to maintain unbroken communion with their Maker through sincere prayer and true worship.
Rick Warren wrote: That’s it, nothing else?YUP. Unless you want to add worship. Goodness is the measure of divinity attainment. Do you think you can attain divinity without prayer? No, you can’t. Goodness, like truth is a supermaterial experience, which means a soul experience. How do you get to the soul level of experience without prayer? There is no other way. Prayer is what expands the capacity for receptivity; it keeps the connection alive, providing nourishment for growth. It’s simple.
132:2.5 Goodness is always growing toward new levels of the increasing liberty of moral self-realization and spiritual personality attainment–the discovery of, and identification with, the indwelling Adjuster. 144:4.2 The earnest and longing repetition of any petition, when such a prayer is the sincere expression of a child of God and is uttered in faith, no matter how ill-advised or impossible of direct answer, never fails to expand the soul’s capacity for spiritual receptivity. 146:2.14 But he did teach that prayer is a factor in the enlargement of one’s capacity to receive the presence of the divine spirit. 194:3.20 Prayer does not move the divine heart to liberality of bestowal, but it does so often dig out larger and deeper channels wherein the divine bestowals may flow to the hearts and souls of those who thus remember to maintain unbroken communion with their Maker through sincere prayer and true worship.
Thanks for that insight-filled expansion. And there are even deeper, grander factors involved in our capacity for TBandG, according to Melchizedek:
…Subsequent to the bestowals of the Paradise Sons the liberated Spirit of Truth makes mighty contributions to the enlargement of the human capacity to perceive religious truths…. (1129:1) 103:0.1
This quote implies prayer plus work are required for increased goodness capacity:
…Spirituality enhances the ability to discover beauty in things, recognize truth in meanings, and discover goodness in values. Spiritual development is determined by capacity therefor and is directly proportional to the elimination of the selfish qualities of love…. (1096.1) 100:2.4
So, we’ve determined goodness capacity has at least three contributors: Prayer, worship, and selflessness. Don’t we have to add experience with good and evil? Or is that an “a priori” assumption?
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Richard E Warren
Rick Warren wrote: Don’t we have to add experience with good and evil? Or is that an “a priori” presumption?In a nutshell, experience is a consequence of prayer. I know I have to drill down and explain what I just said, but I’m out of time for the day. I’m writing another mini-book on the Revelation of Prayer in which I have a whole chapter on that subject. Essentially, we master evil (imperfection) by the power of goodness. The power of goodness is a soul power. Prayer accesses soul powers. Prayers first, followed by choice, then experience becomes a consequence (which belongs to God).
Later, have a great day!
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It’s noteworthy in the discussion of Goodness that Truth and Beauty both have pages on Wikipedia, but not Goodness. Why not?
The word goodness is defined simply as the quality of being good. Doesn’t help much, does it? How about just Good?
Good, as a noun, is primarily defined this way:
That which is morally right; righteousness. that which is morally right; righteousness.
Synonyms: virtue, righteousness, goodness, morality, integrity, rectitude; honesty, truth, honor, probity; propriety, worthiness, merit; blamelessness, purity
The UB authors broaden Goodness’ definition to an actual attribute of God, a prominent part of God’s nature. God is Goodness, and its original source. But here we might reiterate that memorable Divine Counselor’s line about love: At times I am almost pained to be compelled to portray the divine affection of the heavenly Father for his universe children by the employment of the human word symbol love…and replace the word love with good, and it would still be accurate. The average person may use the word good many times everyday without ever looking to its source. English speakers use good as a common reply of affirmation. “How are your doing?” “Good”. But what would it mean if we really were good, in all its divinity of meaning?
Goodness has not always been clearly defined or well promoted on Urantia. Plato and his contemporaries sought to teach virtue in a university. This was a novel and very controversial idea at the time, but they did eventually succeed. They taught that goodness is the health of the soul (98:2:6) at the Academy and the Lyceum, alongside “wisdom, courage, temperance and justice”. They established these seminal universities for the study of virtue 2400 years ago. This points to the fact that virtues and values like Goodness, Truth and Beauty are as old as human history. In fact they are as old as the God who created them.
After the dark night of Europe, the Renaissance philosophers discovered anew the deep thinking Greeks. There was a French philosopher in the mid-nineteenth century, Victor Cousins, who bundled his lectures on, “The True, the Beautiful and the Good”, into a book of that title. Other thinkers, artists and poets of that era expanded these grand concepts into a newer philosophy of living, a philosophy we still live under today in considerable measure. This tri-fold concept is deeply embedded in the religious philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church, thanks largely to a little known Italian.
From Wikipedia:
In the fifteenth century in Florence, Italy, Marsilio Ficino was instrumental in reviving an interest in Plato and translating some of Plato’s rediscovered texts. It is to Ficino that we can safely attribute the first definitive formulation of beauty, goodness, and truth, and this is found in his Commentaries on Plato’s Dialogues. The idea was not without influence and in Palladio’s I Quattro Libri, to take an example from architecture, is a reference to the “true, good and beautiful method of building”.
And history should not ignore the great sages and saints of the East who arose the same time as the celebrated Greek teachers. Lao and Confucius also taught enlightened philosophies of living centered around virtue and goodness–that is, embracing and doing good for other than one’s self. Good and Goodness run throughout Buddhist philosophy, notwithstanding the virtual absence of a singular personal God.
Michael, incarnating as Jesus, studied the old ideals and accepted truths, then exalted the best of them through actual living, at the same time adding to them new revelations (fatherly instead of brotherly love), all that his generation could contain! Next comes the ‘fifth epochal’ revelation clarifying, emphasizing, shedding brilliant and marvelous new light on these up-stepped concepts of the Master Teacher, even to a vast new understanding and appreciation of Goodness and Greatness.
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Richard E Warren
Though I’d add TUB’s definition of virtue.
16:7.6 Virtue is righteousness — conformity with the cosmos. To name virtues is not to define them, but to live them is to know them. Virtue is not mere knowledge nor yet wisdom but rather the reality of progressive experience in the attainment of ascending levels of cosmic achievement. In the day-by-day life of mortal man, virtue is realized by the consistent choosing of good rather than evil, and such choosing ability is evidence of the possession of a moral nature.
This idea that virtue is not an intellectual conviction but the result of ascending spiritual experience of the personality conforming with the cosmos, i.e. circle progress, can be applied to goodness as well. The mental idea of goodness is not the same as the living experience of it on spiritual or cosmic levels. One of my most favorite quotes in all of TUB is about the difference between the kingdom of God (righteousness, 34:6.13; 137:8.9) and the kingdom of good (intellectual convictions). I think it means that God is good, but good is not always God.
2:5.12 When man loses sight of the love of a personal God, the kingdom of God becomes merely the kingdom of good. Notwithstanding the infinite unity of the divine nature, love is the dominant characteristic of all God’s personal dealings with his creatures.
Another thing to mention is the fact that goodness is the one part of TBG which requires personality. And I’m not talking about good food, good weather or good grammar (incidentally, when someone asks you how you are doing, you’re supposed to reply with “I’m doing well”, rather than “I’m doing good”). True goodness is a character trait of personality. Therefore, true goodness requires a personality relationship with the Spirit of Truth, the character revealer of the Father’s good and loving nature. (You get this through prayer.)
1:7.3 The concept of truth might possibly be entertained apart from personality, the concept of beauty may exist without personality, but the concept of divine goodness is understandable only in relation to personality. Only a person can love and be loved. Even beauty and truth would be divorced from survival hope if they were not attributes of a personal God, a loving Father.
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