“Goodness” is one of those attributes we often apply to God without much reflection. In many Christian circles, the phrase “God is good” has become so familiar that it risks losing its substance altogether. Yet suffering has a way of forcing deeper questions. What does it actually mean to call God “good”? And how can believers cling to that confession through prolonged grief, trauma, disappointment, or loss? A deeper understanding of divine goodness does not erase pain, but it can anchor faith amid the darkness.
To wrestle meaningfully with this doctrine, we must first clarify what we mean by the word “good.” When discussing the doctrine of God’s goodness most theologians will speak of both moral goodness and ontological goodness. The first category is the one most Christians instinctively recognize. God is good in the sense that he does not do anything evil. God is always morally upright, full of integrity and purity. “God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him” (1 John 1:5). He is “not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone” (James 1:13). This is usually the category we have in mind when we speak of God’s goodness.
But there is a second category that grounds the former: ontological goodness. If the former seems to identify the good that God does, the latter grounds that goodness in the very being of God. God does good because He is the source and essence of all goodness. All human goodness is derivative, but goodness is actually inherent to who God is. In fact, we only have a conception of goodness because of the character of God. There is no standard or metric for goodness, so to speak, apart from God. God is goodness itself.
Scripture repeatedly presents goodness as a defining attribute of God’s character. Psalm 34:8 famously invites us to “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” For the Psalmist, to truly know the Lord is to encounter Him as good. Psalm 100:5 calls God good and testifies to his eternally enduring love. Psalm 145 says the “Lord is good to all,” indicating that His “mercy is over all that He has made.” Significantly, Psalm 119:68 makes a distinction between the being and action of God, just as we are here:
You are good, and you do what is good;
teach me your statutes.
God is good and it is out of that goodness that He acts. Goodness is who He is and what He does.
The experience of prolonged suffering, however, creates an emotional clash with this belief. How can God be good if this pain in my life won’t relent? How can God be good if I pray for relief and still suffer? How can a good God ordain and permit such sorrow? These are meaningful and deeply painful questions. They are often not asked in anger but in anguish and they come from people of genuine faith who do not understand. The temptation is to use the doctrine of God’s goodness in a simplistic way, like a hammer to shatter doubts. Or perhaps, we try to use it as a weapon to silence questions. But God’s goodness is more like a surgeon’s scalpel, finely cutting through our weak definitions of “good” and leading us to something richer and deeper.
If suffering raises doubts about God’s goodness, His being answers them. Goodness is not something outside of God to which He must adhere. God’s actions flow out of His very being and therefore He can never do evil. No evil can corrupt His intentions or skew His behavior. For God to do evil would mean He ceased to be God. We want to be sensitive here, however, because God’s ontological goodness does not answer the questions suffering raises simplistically. The Bible never suggests that because God is good evil is not evil. In fact, it is on the basis of His eternal goodness that we can actually call something evil. Evil is that which is contrasted with the character of God. But it is precisely because God is good that we can face suffering with hope. God’s ontological goodness guarantees that evil will never have the final word.
While ontological goodness does not erase pain and suffering, Scripture shows us that God redeems it. We see this most famously in the story of Joseph. Sold into slavery by his brothers, thrown in prison on false charges, forgotten by those who promised to help him, Joseph experienced years of painful sorrow. The end of his story, however, reveals that God used every ounce of that trouble for good. Speaking to his brothers years later, he can honestly say:
You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result—the survival of many people. (Gen. 50:20)
This is an example of what the Apostle Paul means when he says:
We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Rom. 8:28)
God has good purposes that no suffering or trouble can ever overturn.
The ultimate redemption of suffering is seen, however, in the cross of Christ. The wickedness that evil men planned and executed against Jesus in His crucifixion was part of God’s foreordained plan to rescue sinners. That’s Peter’s specific message:
This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. (Acts 2:23)
Peter does not deny that “wicked men” put Jesus to death, but he won’t let evil have the final word. This plan was predetermined by God for our redemption. The cross is the testimony that this eternally good God is using all things for good, even suffering. In fact, because of the cross Paul urges believers to trust God with their sorrow.
He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything? (Rom. 8:32)
God’s goodness is seen even at the cross of Christ, and because of that we should trust Him in our own sorrows.
Ontological goodness does not make pain less painful. Nor do we need to act as if evil is somehow good. No, God’s goodness allows us to still call evil for what it is, but it reminds us that God is trustworthy because He will never act contrary to His nature. He is good and He does good. And even the sorrows we experience in this broken world cannot overcome His good intentions. God redeems suffering because He is good.
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