Is God Good?
Adam Bailey- April 15th, 2026
When considering belief in God, there are often two bridges that need to be crossed. The first is, is belief in God even reasonable? Is there evidence for God? This is its own question to be addressed (Does God Exist?). But the question before us gets at the second bridge: If I think there is a God, do I even want to follow Him or know Him? Is He worth pursuing? So often, at the core of the second bridge, we are asking: Is God good?? If He is, that would go a long way in helping us cross that bridge, which has much more to do with the relational than the rational. It’s a bridge that deals directly with the pain, evil, and brokenness we see in the world and experience personally.
It’s also worth digging deeply here at the beginning and asking: How would I even define good? People do define good differently after all. Does saying “God is good” just mean God does whatever I think is right? Or is it possible a God who is truly good would at times do and say things I don’t expect? Indeed, most of us can at least acknowledge that we aren’t perfect people. Clarifying how we define good is important because it helps us see exactly what we might be looking for in God. Additionally, the concept of purpose is also deeply connected to whether or not we view something as good. If something was made, is it doing what it was intended to do? If God did in fact create all things as is often claimed, then as Creator, it seems reasonable that He would assign purpose to what He has made. As such, if God really does exist, it is at least plausible to be open to the idea that the creator God, not us, would get to decide what is good and what is not.
The First Place Many Look: The World
Having considered the above, the first place many of us look to determine if God is good is our world. We see that it is filled with brokenness, suffering, and hate. A natural question arises: “How can God be good if His supposed world is full of so much not good??” In the same moment, another thought counters: “Yet I experience so many things that I feel are good beyond a shadow of a doubt.” Perhaps for you it is a significant other who loves you well, caring parents, art, nature, food and drink, selfless deeds, a best friend, or justice. A paradox has come into view. Can both good and bad exist in the world, and yet the creator God still be good? Of all the answers given to this paradox, I believe the Christian answer is the most compelling.
It begins by asserting that the world was originally completely good. In fact, it uses that very word in the English translation of the Bible’s narrative. After God finishes creating all things, in Genesis 1:31 it says, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” At this point, all things existed, including people, and all lived in perfect harmony without any brokenness, pain, or evil. But then Genesis explains that humanity made a choice. They decided they wanted to be like God and disobey Him rather than simply live with Him (see Genesis chapter 3). God decided to allow them to make this choice, but the choice had grave consequences. Their act of rebellion brought suffering and brokenness to all human relationships and to the rest of creation. The teachings of Christianity assert that this is why we see what we see today: it was and continues to be human sin and rebellion against God that broke everything.
This is not the final word, however. Ironically, the second-to-last chapter of the Bible describes how God’s power and goodness will overcome this, in the same way the second chapter described its original state. Revelation 21:1&4 says: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more… He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Jesus Christ asserted, “No one is good except God alone”. At least one of the reasons he said that, despite the world he witnessed around him, was because he assented to the fact that God didn’t create the world with brokenness originally. God allowed humanity to make a choice that wrecked the world, but Jesus also knew God would eventually have things His way again.
The Second Place Many Look: Our Lives
The other place we tend to look to answer our question is our own life experience. When things generally go our way, it seems reasonable to think that God is good. When things go poorly and we suffer for various reasons, we are tempted to think He is evil. The pain we see in the world is one thing, but when it touches our lives personally, it is quite another. Illness, betrayal, the death of loved ones, and trauma are all clear and bitter examples. Further, we often seek God and struggle to hear Him, experiencing unanswered prayers and an apparent divine silence.
We’ve seen how Christianity asserts that suffering came because of human sin, but could a good God allow such suffering to endure, even if for only a period of time? Even if it came because of the choices of humanity? The problem of evil and suffering we personally experience, many have argued, is the primary question we all face as it relates to the goodness of God. A song by Beautiful Eulogy once aptly said, “At some point every human looks right into the eyes of agony, and through tragedy asks himself, ‘How can this happen to me?’”
If we suffer for our own sin, fine. But what about all other suffering? Though God’s purposes for allowing suffering may be mysterious in many ways, the apostle Paul gives us a glimpse of how God is working in it. In 2 Corinthians 4:16-17, he says, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison…” He claims something similar in Romans chapter 8, when he asserts that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him. Even the bad things.
And yet, even if we agree to the idea that God has a purpose in suffering (with perhaps great difficulty!), if God is good, then how does He feel towards my pain? After all, the goodness of God has much more to do with the relational bridge than the rational one. How does God stand towards the difficulty of my life emotionally?
Ultimately, Christianity teaches that this is best answered not by looking at our own lives, but at the singular life of someone else: Jesus of Nazareth. The reason for this is Christianity’s claim that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). It’s saying, essentially, “You want to know what God is like? Look at Jesus.” He is God come in human form, and he makes God known in a more comprehensible and accessible way than anything we’ve ever seen before. So when we look at him, what do we see? Is this supposed God-man good? If we read about him in the Gospels, we see one who calls all to repentance for sin, while also giving mercy and grace. We see one who weeps over the pain of others (John 11). We see one who came not to be served but to serve (Mark 10:45). Most significantly, we see one who set his face toward paying for the sins of those who would believe in him, so that they could be brought home. This is the essence of his death on the cross: securing our return to complete uncorrupted goodness by paying for our sins with his own life. In doing this, he perfectly blended justice against evil with love for people. What this means is that Christianity is saying “good” itself flows from the character and identity of God, and this is made most clear in Jesus, the Son of God.
Christianity claims that in Jesus, the goodness of God is apprehensible and tangible in a way far greater than we imagined. Jesus shows us that God is familiar with our pain and acted on our behalf in spite of our rejection of Him. This is a God who understands us and moves towards us in love. A God who turns the bad to good now in this life, and completes that work in the life to come.
If you would like to further explore this question, we here at Skyline Church in Denver would love to invite you into the conversation. We have groups that discuss this very question amongst others in an open and non-judgmental way. We also have pastors and other leaders available to sit down and discuss it with you further. If you are interested in this, please let us know here.