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What Does It Mean to Be Good?
After listening to the most recent GLOP podcast, I started to think about the meaning of being good. John Podhoretz mentioned the death of Gene Wilder; he shared that Wilder had been obsessed with being good. Anything taken to an extreme, such as an obsession, can be a detriment to our lives: the obsession becomes the center of our universe and everything else is secondary. The story caused me to think about my own commitment to being good, what that meant to me, and how I acted upon it.
As a child, I practiced being good to avoid getting into trouble! But as I matured, I realized that intuitively I wanted to do good because G-d expected me to. Finally, I chose to be and do good because I wanted to serve G-d. Although goodness is partly an “inside job,” it is also demonstrated in how we act in the world. So I can think about good things I’d like to do, but unless I actually do them, I am not fulfilling my understanding of being good.
I spent a little time exploring how others saw being good. In one article the writer suggested the following:
Always ask yourself: Am I defining “good” as that which looks good to the fast-food-Internet-Hollywood segment of society, or am I defining “good” as that which has real meaning, a deep message, and makes a valuable contribution to society?
To be good, we also are called to do things that we really don’t want to do, or that are unpleasant. To be with my husband who has a condition that causes him to cough, often loudly, can be challenging. How can I be a good person around him and in a way that helps him? There are times when I think I can’t bear another moment. But then I stop my flailing thoughts, breathe deeply, continue my knitting or reading, and allow him to do what he needs to do; that, for me, is being good.
I also love to lead my meditation group and to be a hospice volunteer. Visits with friends and being present for them are also ways to be good. Being good for me also demands that I only do as much as I can, physically, spiritually and emotionally. Lots of people spread more goodness than I do, but I know my limitations, and to be good for everyone, including myself, I find a balance in those activities.
Am I always good? Hardly! Sometimes I am selfish, self-centered and clueless. But I am also human. And like many folks, I do my best.
Some of you may think that you do things in the unfolding of your lives but you don’t think about whether they are good or not. You just do them because they call to be done. In my view, that is the actualization of a deeply held goodness.
So my heart goes out to someone like Gene Wilder. I expect that he was a good person, even if he was obsessed with being good. My hope for him is that he was able to embrace his goodness in ways that were fulfilling and rewarding for him, as well as for others.
So what does it mean for you to be good? What is your own definition? Why is it important to you? How do you teach it to your children? How do you act upon it in the world?
Published in Religion & Philosophy
But iWe, don’t these examples just underscore my main point which is G-d takes sin VERY seriously?--I mean he wiped out every man, woman, and child on earth (save Noah’s family) as a result. Same for Sodom and Gomorrah except for Lot and his family.
As as for the curve, is it fair to assume that no one who drowned in the flood or burned in S & G was any better or worse than any other.
As as for Noah, Lot, and their families, no paragons of virtue there. Remember, Noah was the original “get drunk and get naked” party animal. See Genesis 9:21. Richochet rules (and modesty) prohibit me from even recounting here what Lot did with his daughters, but you can read about it in Genesis 19:36. Lot’s wife yearned more for S & G than obedience to G-d, and became a pillar (and not of the community).
So, bottom line, I don’t see a lot “curve” in that. I see pretty uniformly wicked people who need serious help (not just good advice or better motivation or stronger resolution). See my point?
Huh, I must have been talking past a lot of people here.
OK, yeah, really talked past people.
Sorry for that. I put forth this hypothetical that I myself disagreed with, contrasting it with what I said later, and for some reason those replying think the initial hypothetical, not my own response to it, is what I really meant. I must have phrased it badly.
Mr Conservative: doesn’t the Bible tell us that much will be expected from the one to whom much has been given? This statement seems to indicate that more is expected from some people than from others, and that God does grade on a curve. Jesus tells us repeatedly to not compare ourselves to others; I always assumed that the admonitions to not compare ourselves with others were related to the fact that God expects more from some than from others.
I come from a Catholic background; we were taught that people are intrinsically good-not totally good, by any means, but intrinsically good. What you are describing as Christian teaching sounds very different from what I was taught in Catholic school
In the first sentence, @iWe, YOU NAILED IT: “Ongoing and recurring themes [of] G-d [returning to us], of love despite infidelity, of mercy being available to all of us, however much we have done wrong.” (Ok, I made one small change but you’re really close.) That is GRACE, it’s beautiful and it’s written on virtually every page of the bible (Torah included). It’s a glorious story of a love that will not let me go–despite my sin and rebellion–not overlooking it, but providing an alternative means of payment for it–a substitute, a sacrifice, a perfect spotless lamb whose blood is spread over the threshold of my life and which says to the death angel above, “not this one, he’s mine.”
So, no “curve” based on my next (maybe last) decision (does our salvation and acceptance really hang by such a tenuous thread?), but a glorious decision on His part to pay for my sins at a cost very dear to Himself.
Well, let me give an example:
I say it’s no wonder human beings have trouble avoiding thoughts like, “Is God grading on a curve?” or “Did David somehow get extra credit with God despite his sins?” I point out these thoughts, though wrong, are natural.
Other good people then get the impression that, simply by describing a natural human reaction, and acknowledging that it’s an understandable reaction to have, I am calling it good, and so they see the need to correct me for views I never asserted to begin with. As in the following:
Here I’m sitting thinking, “Arghh! Why are you telling me this? Why do you think I don’t already know this?”
And so, instead of being simply able to observe and confess what it’s like to be human, and not have it taken the wrong way, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of having to defend my own innocence and goodness, such as it is, simply to be understood! :-)
Miserable sinner though I am, I am not quite the ignorant sinner you take me for!
What I think I’m trying to get across is that “it is not good for man to be alone” – when we evaluate goodness, it’s not just a solitary evaluation made in our prayer closet before God (though it is that, too). It’s also something involving community, ecclesia.
It is also not just an evaluation of our past sins, but also an evaluation of what we do – and do not do – going forward. Though it be wrong for the sexually continent and chaste to look down in spiritual arrogance upon the adulterers, it is also wrong to fail to make distinctions between small sins and larger sins – for we can distinguish to some degree, and to the degree we can distinguish, we should. A moment of cheerlessness towards one’s spouse really is less of a sin than adultery. That is not to sit in haughty judgment over others who have committed adultery when I haven’t, but if we cannot distinguish magnitudes of evil in our own behavior, how do we, even with God’s grace, govern ourselves?
So, there’s a place for calling some sins greater than others. There’s also a place for social judgment of sin. And given those things, good people can and do get confused when an individual seems to overstate his own sinfulness. They may even consider such overstatements exhibitionism. At its worst, it becomes a lose-lose proposition, where no way of acknowledging one’s sin in the sight of others is judged appropriate (it’s either dishonest understatement or exhibitionist overstatement).
Yes, Judithann, this is very different. Thanks so much for noticing that and for your honest questions. At some point, JC, I would humbly recommend simply reading the bible for yourself and asking, “Is this telling me about intrinsically good people who just need to make better decisions and try harder OR does it tell me about a people who are irretrievably fallen, morally broken beyond hope, and who need a Savior to rescue them, BE their righteousness, and pay the price for their sin (not just help them make better decisions or to try harder).
Here’s a hint to get you started. Luke 19:10
One more. Ephesians 2:1-9.
May God bless you on your journey.
He will only need to look to his dad to have a model of how it’s done, Jerome. Best wishes on his arrival!
You may have been clear enough. Sometimes folks on Ricochet don’t look so carefully at the context. I’ve erred that way myself from time to time, and been scandalously victimized by it on occasion.
(That’s not fair. Others may have been scandalously victimized by me as well. At least once, I’m quite sure that happened!)
I think it’s the nature of these discussions to talk past one another a lot. Much of this stuff is stuff that “everyone knows”, at least in some sense – but does everyone know it 100%, or do they know it in the way we do?
I had a history teacher who was assigned some infiltration duties at hippie rallies and so forth, you know, to suss out the real subversives. He said, often, what ended up happening is that the infiltrators all sussed each other out as subversive, not realizing they were other infiltrators. Sometimes I’m reminded of that when a bunch of Christians who don’t know each other terribly well start evangelizing one another :-)
I have found some of the discussion with Mr. C very frustrating–and I’m not even in the discussions! For the record (and I believe you know this, Midge, so I’m just venting) Mr. C is determined to convince everyone that we are all sinners, morally lost, hopelessly mired in evil. Well, I don’t think I’m terribly arrogant or immoral or a degenerate, and I choose to believe, based on the Bible, that I will screw up and ask forgiveness along the way (remember Yom Kippur, too) and I will do my best to be a good person and that is enough. AND I quite frankly don’t care if Mr. C thinks I will go to hell if I don’t accept Jesus as my savior. I’ll take my chances with the G-d of the Tanakh.
Of course, according to Christian theology, the G-d of the Tanakh is the G-d who promises and gives Yeshua the Messiah. There’s hermeneutical differences in them there theological differences.
I have heard that, although Rebitzen Holly Pavlov, with whom I studied Alei Shur (a contemporary mussar work)said that was oversimplifying things a bit. All the bases of the mussar techniques were laid out in classical mussar works well before Franklin’s Autobiography, and Franklin himself, although a disciplined scholar, was far to much of a libertine to pass rabbinical scrutiny.
I tried to argue that perhaps the systematic approach had been absorbed from Franklin, but my teacher was dubious.
To be good means being or acting in a manner that moves us into conformity with the intention of the perfect i.e. God which is both our duty, destiny and most happy destination as created beings.
p.s. I did not care for John Podhoretz’s comment about Wilder. The purpose of all men is to “obsess” about being good no matter what the cost to one’s profession or personal life. Gene Wilder will be remembered fondly for being a gentle and good man longer than any comedic portrayal. He was living an eternal story not an obituary.
Yes, as in the G-d who promises to bring the Messiah.
Perhaps I should be more specific. Maybe I can edit that comment.
Well, if this is the line for being SUPER defensive, put me at the front. (Just ask my poor wife.) I am sure you are not ignorant in the least bit, I just love talking around (over and through) people and their points. Occupational hazard I guess.
I am sure I am the chief of ignorant bloggers. Oops, here we go again! :) :) :)
Sure.
It does seem possible, though, for both sides to respectfully consider each other wrong. Not wrong as in “I couldn’t possibly learn something from the other perspective”, but I think it’s possible to be clear that some beliefs will be mutually incompatible.
I will confess I haven’t personally had many experiences with good evangelism, either giving it or receiving it.
For example, I come from a protestant but not particularly Christian home – I’d call my parents deists or agnostics maybe? They had us go to Sunday School to learn good morals, but not, I think, anything else. My freshman year of college, impressed by my college Bible study with the importance of evangelizing to one’s family, I tried it. Let’s just say there are a lot of things I can do for my parents – pray for them, love them, serve them – but evangelize explicitly to them is just not one of them. In fact, to them, it came across as a violation of the fifth commandment!
I understand where the fear of being too timid with evangelism comes from. But not all fears about being too bold with evangelism are unwarranted, craven fears born from a self-absorbed desire to be liked by the world! Psychological astuteness and a commitment to respect the boundaries and the integrity of the persons you’re speaking to strike me as very important to genuinely offering a message. I say this fully aware that I am not sure how to do it myself – probably obvious from the failure I mentioned!
Nah, you’ll have to get in line behind me….
Haha! I’m completely aware that there was no way to explain myself there without sounding super-defensive! I think that’s one of the occupational hazards of standing before God with other people rather than all by one’s lonesome :-)
Sometimes, me neither. I think that I’m quite okay with people telling me how their views are different from mine, even diametrically opposed. But it feels really personal when someone tells me I’m a sinner. That’s between G-d and me, and He gets to decide that. But then you have the whole thing with Jesus coming into the middle of the discussion and . . . . well, time to take a break . . .I’ll be back.
Well, like I said earlier, SQ, anytime I become bothersome, let me know and I’ll bow out. Looks like now is a good time. But, before I go, if what you have said about me is true, would it matter to you what motivates me? What if the motive is love? What if far from being prideful, I see himself just as one beggar telling others where he
found bread? What if it’s like a oncologist (yes, we’ve been through cancer) who tells you what you don’t like hearing because it’s not too late for treatment. Would a kind doctor who sees treatable cancer say, “you’ll be fine, wouldn’t change a thing?”
Love to you SQ and all your kind readers! Sorry if I have caused offense.
Indeed!
well, it seems to me that all this talk about God grading on the curve is stupid. The whole idea of the “curve” relates to a classroom where everyone’s grade is based upon some standard which is contingent upon individual performance. I don’t really remember much about curve grading, except that there was always some smarty who got 100 % and thereby ruined the curve. So in this context I guess Jesus is the smarty pants and all the rest of us are on our own. And humanity is not a schoolroom class of students with God or Jesus as the teacher. The way I see it is it’s one on one, me against God’s standard and how do I measure up. Has nothing to do with what anyone else does; there is no comparing grades at the end of the day, Look at the two thieves with Jesus on the cross. They were pretty much the same sort of guys, except one acknowledged the Lordship of Jesus and so gained paradise and the other did not. I don’t see any curve there. I guess one could see grace in the context of a curve…but I think that is the same for everybody. I think of Pascal’s leap…..I looked again at those people jumping off the WTC. I know I am mixing things up here but I do think we are ll just a hair away from salvation.
Yes, that would make a huge difference! Now you’ve got me tearing up, darn it! Thank you for sharing of yourself and your faith. No, you don’t have to go: I don’t have the power to kick you off, nor would I want to. I’ve learned a lot from you, and about myself. Thank you for that, too.
How does it strike you, Michael, to say, one on one, me embracing and aspiring to meet God’s standards, and how do I measure up? Is that an incompatible statement with your views?
I loved this post because I have a definitive point of view on the meaning of good.
I do good. I provide jobs and consequently good training to young people on how not only to survive in the real world but to develop business skills, recognize opportunities, and thus provide donuts for the next generation.
I think I may have just described the meaning of capitalism.
I confess, being a natural loner, too, this is how I would like to see it. I find that being called also into fellowship with others as the body of Christ severely complicates matters. One purpose of the fellowshipping, for example, is to hold one another accountable, and all sorts of misunderstandings may interfere with finding a true account.
Moreover – and maddeningly – some Christian duties do involve putting one’s virtues on display, at least a little. For example, in teaching children by example to be good. The display need not be ostentatious, but at some level, you’re supposed to communicate your kids, “I do this because it’s good and don’t do that because it’s bad,” aren’t you?
I used to be cavalier about what folks thought of me, not minding if they thought the worst – even being amused by it! That actually caused problems, though. Not just for me, but for them.
Now, that is beautiful, and I think and hope so, too.
I hope you can appreciate that Judaism does not agree with Christianity on this. The gap is unbreachable, but at least we can understand each other.