Is God morally good? Is he morally bad? Confronted by the reality of evil his defenders have sometimes said that he is morally good, or, at least, that there is insufficient proof of his moral badness. Why? Because, so they say, the following argument is acceptable:

1. 1 In creating, God brings about or allows various evils.

2. 2 These evils are justified since they go along with some good or goods which depend on them in some way.

3. 3 Evil can therefore be seen as part of God’s justified plan in creating or allowing for certain goods.

But does it make sense to say either that God is morally good or that he is not? This is the question I raised at the end of my previous article on God and Evil.

Many people would find it odd, or even offensive, They would say that since God is good, he is bound by moral requirements in the way that human beings are, that the goodness of God is moral goodness, where that is understood in the same way as it is when ascribed to men and women. Richard Swinburne is a good representative of this view. God, he says, is perfectly good. What does this mean? It means, says Swinburne, that God knows which actions are morally good and which actions are morally bad, and that God always does actions which are morally good and never does actions which are morally bad. According to Swinburne, ‘God’s perfect goodness follows deductively from his omniscience and his perfect freedom’. Since God is omniscient he will ‘know the truth value of all moral judgments whether or not they are true or false’. Since he is perfectly free he ‘will always do any action which he recognizes to be over all better to do than not to do, and so one which he judges to be morally obligatory’.