Jeff250 wrote:Let's step aside from categorically casting blame for a second.
When somebody survives cancer, we say that this is ethically good. It is good that people survive cancer. When they do, we don't say that it is an ethical wash, since they deserved to die of it anyways (or deserved even worse). We treat the situation for what it is--a good thing.
When somebody survives a natural disaster, we say the same thing, that this is ethically good. It is good that people survive these things. It's not a wash--it really is a good thing.
Are you really going to deny this? This is all you have to accept to recognize that an all-good God is leaving a lot of good things undone.
I'm not sure Duper responded to this as correctly as I'd like, so I'll take a stab at it.
I think there's some confusion between ethical good/bad and moral right/wrong.
I do agree with all of your statements about ethical good and/or bad (although I wouldn't say that they are exactly an ethical issue- I'll take a stab at defining ethics further on). Morally, however, your examples
are a wash. Why? because morality carries with it an element of decision. Your examples are all purely causation, with no person making a decision about anything. It could be argued that there is some element of decision on God's part in ordaining things to happen as they do, but, as I pointed out earlier, that doesn't mean that responsibility lies on Him.
Now, to address the idea of inaction carrying with it a moral/ethical value. In any example I can think of (I'm thinking of doctors, witnesses to crimes) there is an ethical implication to inaction, but not a moral one. for example, if a doctor refuses to save a patient from dying, ethically it would be a bad thing to do, but morally the inaction itself isn't condemning. (You couldn't throw a doctor in jail for not saving a patient.) Now, there are motives, which can be evaluated morally, behind the doctor's not saving a patient. In one case, it could be that the doctor is in the middle of a war, has 50 wounded soldiers to attend to, and simply can't save all of them. In another case, the doctor could be standing there maniacally laughing while watching the person die. In the former case, the doctor's motives are not morally at fault, while in the latter they are.
If I apply this to God: when I say "God is good" I mean two things:
1. Morally, God is incapable of wrong.
2. God does good things for people (not all-inclusively)
Furthermore, we, as humans, have developed the idea of ethics in an attempt to deal with deal with cases where a person's actions are not morally at fault, but their motives are. Since God is morally incapable of evil (motives and actions), the idea of ethics doesn't really apply to Him.
So, you keep on throwing in the word "all" when you say that God is good, and then go on the imply that this means that God should be doing all possible "good" things- where your definition of "good things" is saving all people from all pain, destruction, and death. I don't think I agree with this definition of "good things," even. (I don't think that we really know what is actually "good" (or best) for someone most of the time.)
I'm saying that I disagree with your definition of "good things", and I also disagree with the idea that God is obligated to or claims to do this for everyone. I think that there are special promises of blessings that apply to Christians only, and that these blessings come (mostly) in a form that is very different from what a non-Christian would expect.