How does God’s love and goodness follow logically? [closed]

Question

According to some religions and philosophers/theologians, the existence of God follows logically because there must be someone to create the universe. (The first cause argument.)

However, in many of these religions, there's an assumption that this God is loving. How did the assumption that he is loving originate? At best we can say that he is neutral but I am unable to find any solid reasoning for his love.

I'm curious about Sikhism in specific but also interested in other religions that have the same assumption.

As asked by @JoWehler, here are some references to how Sikhism describes God. From Japji Sahib pauri 5:

thaapi-aa na jaa-ay keetaa na ho-ay. aapay aap niranjan so-ay.
He cannot be established; By doing it cannot be done. He Himself is Immaculate and Pure.

Again from pauri 5 :

jin sayvi-aa tin paa-i-aa maan. naanak gaavee-ai gunee niDhaan.
Whoever serves Him receives honor. O Nanak sing – “Only Lord has endless Virtues”.

Here they call God pure and virtuous. Other religions make similar claims. How have theologians argued that God is loving/good?

Answer 1

Logic is not the right method to find an answer to God questions. This point was made by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason.

Whether there is a God in our universe or not, and if so what that God or Gods Propeties are, is now considered an empirical question, not a logical one. Most theologians before Kant tried to derive God properties from reasoning, but this project is doomed if the world and what is in it is contingent, not necessary.

As all sorts of DIFFERENT Gods have been claimed, with different properties, which one if any might exist is clearly not derivable by logic.

Non-empirical arguments, like "first cause" etc., are in current theological thinking not "proofs" but plausible rationales or "warrants" for considering a God claim or version.

One of these plausible rationales has been deployed in favor of monotheism -- that a simpler and more pure religion is possible within monotheism than polytheism, or diffuse Hindu pluralism. Then among monotheists, there are comparative claims about relative degree of monotheism, with Muslims claiming Islam is more monotheistic than Christianity (due to the Christian Trinity doctrine), and Jews claiming Judaism is more monotheistic than Islam (no semi-divine special messenger needed). In this comparison, Sikhism actually "wins" the most monotheistic prize, as Sikhism holds that EVERYTHING IS GOD, and our belief in our and the world's separateness and individual existence is -- delusion. Maya. Note this is neither a logical nor an empirical justification of Sikhism, but more of a rhetorical one.

Is a monotheistic God loving? There is actually a strong empirical case against this, as the property of being loving is not consistent with the brutality and cruelty that is embedded in so much of our world. The failed empirical test case of the postulate of "God is all powerful and loving" is called the Problem of Evil. We have good empirical evidence against this claim.

The REASON to think that a God is loving, is generally based on mystic insights. Those who claim to commune with a God, often say the God IS loving. This is from direct first person experience.

The conflict between this empirical evidence for Love, the theology of monotheism, and the empirical failed test case of the Problem of Evil, is resolvable if one abandons monotheism for di-theism.

While Christianity, or Hinduism, could be adapted to be di-theistic (the first heretic, Marcion, was a di theist Christian), the "most absolute absolutism" status of Sikhism which I mentioned above does not allow this to be a plausible variant of Sikhism.

Answer 2

Here's the logical argument I'd give for why God's love and goodness reasonably follow from His other attributes. It does require a few other premises first, though:

1. That God is all powerful and all knowing;
2. That God is very life itself; and,
3. That God has so existed from eternity past.

As for definitions, I think "love" is properly defined as good will toward someone or something; with the "will" being composed of our desires and decisions. That is, to be entirely loving is to have a default disposition of desiring the good of others and the ultimate good of the world as a whole. (To clarify, though, under this definition "love" is not necessarily pacifist; it would make logical sense for someone who loves good to hate the evil that destroys it, and the Bible also argues this linkage, see Amos 5:15.) I believe "evil" is properly defined in a negative sense, as a destruction of what is good.

Given these premises and definitions, here is one argument for why God's love and goodness naturally follow, which, as I see it, is the reasoning the Bible uses, and I'll try to provide references. In essence, for God to have existed as omnipotent, omniscient, and full of life from eternity past, I do not think He could have any inconsistency to Him at all. In fact, the Bible makes the same argument--that "God cannot deny himself" (II Timothy 2:13). This makes sense if we think about it, because if fault lines of inconsistency ran through God's character, then throughout eternity we would expect these to lead to fractures, and ultimately, to implosion. But the fact is, He exists today still as omnipotent, omniscient, and full of life as ever.

In the epistemological realm, this perfect consistency correlates to absolute light (I John 1:5); that is, to God, everything is perfectly clear and apparent, with no self deceit or confusion on His part. In the realm of communication, He is perfectly true and cannot lie (I John 2:21; Hebrews 6:18). In morality, then, to be perfectly consistent and coherent, He must be absolutely good, loving, and just, because evil itself is a destruction of good. Any evil in God's character would be schismatic by definition. Since love is simply a will toward good, it is essentially a good will; and so love naturally follows from His goodness. The apostle John makes this argument by linking hate to death (I John 3:14), going so far as to say, "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." If we think about that for a while, it makes sense; hatred is a desire for evil toward others, or a destruction of their life, whether in whole or in part; and thus, a hateful heart is incompatible with eternal life at its core. Now of course, none of this precludes God from being just and judging evil, or becoming angry, or even from hating evil; in fact, it seems to me quite impossible for someone to love the good without hating the evil that destroys it. God would be less loving if He "turned a blind eye" to evil and atrocities; nor is He inconsistent for folding evil onto itself, the way one might fold a diseased cloth onto itself before getting rid of it. Yet God's character is fully goodness and love, nor do I think it could be otherwise, even in theory.

Answer 3

Ancient humans had a multitude of beliefs in all kinds of superstitions, there was not a single god or a single theory of the history of the universe.

From all those ideas, some became cults, and some cults became religions. What determines whether any belief would become part of a cult or which cult would become a religion is not a matter of philosophy, or even theology. Theology does not allow itself to ponder that process, it starts only much later with what's called revelation scripture or prophecy, pretending those would be starting points, with prior superstitions being irrelevant and pagan.

But in secular philosophy, cults and religions are seen as the result of continued refinement, social evolution selecting among all the multiple superstitions and ideas those which had the greatest power in being replicated. As such, none of the miracles mentioned in the scriptures of Abrahamic religions were first reported in the scriptures, those were all already reported about other people not even mentioned in the scriptures.

What makes any idea or meme become successful in being replicated is difficult to predict, similar as trying to predict which video will go viral among today's youth.

However the idea of loving God's was apparently more successful in persuading people to retell it compared to other concepts of gods, in many cults and religions. Given that cults and religions rely in a service relationship between the keeper of esoteric knowledge (the guru, the priest, the shaman...) and the layman, with the service provided typically being solace, a loving god would probably make for a service that customers would most be willing to return to.

Or in simpler terms: it was the scam that worked best.

Answer 4

One of the functions of a god is to provide a social relationship to otherwise unmanageable aspects of human life. For instance, communities need rain to grow crops and water animals, but wish to avoid damaging storms. Since they themselves have no control the weather, they might make appeals and offer propitiations to a god who (as a god) can control the weather. It's an effort to draw unpredictable external forces into social interaction where they can be negotiated with: a natural extension of the workings of human society.

In polytheistic eras there were different gods to manage different external events, and few of those gods expressed anything that looks like love. There were gods of war to aid against external enemies; gods of death that limit our lifespan; gods of lust and wine to satisfy our carnal urges; gods of pestilence who must be appeased out of fear; gods of cities who jealously guard their people… But as cultures shifted from polytheism to monotheism, all these multifaceted relationships became integrated into a singular deity, and then the only aspect of God that mattered was that God showed warmth and care for those who followed. I mean, think about it… if there is one deity that controls everything outside of our own control, there are really only three possibilities:

• That deity is completely indifferent to us, doing whatever it wants to do for reasons unknown to us. That's scary.
• That deity is antagonistic to us, trying to trip us up at every turn unless we constantly appease it. That's terrifying.
• That deity loves us, trying its best to help us so long as we maintain a solid relationship to it, That's comforting.

So the monotheistic God is inevitably a loving God because that is the social relationship we humans need.

Answer 5

In philosophy some fundamental experiences are not subject to discussion. Eg. I am hungry, I am cold etc. I could be faking it of course but for myself if I am cold I am cold! Such experiences are called incorrigible.

Love is or at least comes close to being incorrigible. Yeah people will snarkily point to divorce courts as counter evidence! But love between parents and children comes closer:

Does your mother love you?
Do you need proof?
Can she give if you demand?

Love — whether one's mother's or God's — is not a meaningful subject for intellectual discourse and "logical proof"; you have it or you dont.

However the following analogy may show a way:

Analogy

A stool is stable on 3 legs. In the same way religious practice must engage mind, heart and body.

If youre a sikh this naturally expands as

Mind — Oneness of I-world-God
Heart — Love of God
Body — sewa to fellow beings seeing all as God only

You can translate sewa as service as long as the other two legs of the stool are not neglected!

Conversely, if the love leg is weak, the others can aid.

---

Added Later

Some Basic History

Sikhism follows the ten gurus from Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh (1469-1708). There was no strong demarcation between the sikhs and "normal" Hindus until the martyring of Guru Arjan Dev the 5th guru in 1606. However sikhism in its modern distinctive sense only starts with the ninth and tenth gurus after the second martyrdom of Tegh Bahadur (1675) when the last guru Guru Gobind Singh militarized the community to resist the atrocities of the mughal tyrant Aurangzeb and expecting no guru successor, 'nominated' the Sri Guru Granth Saheb (SGGS) as the eternal 'guru' from then on.

This history is needed to understand that the major author of the fundamental book of the sikhs, Guru Nanak, was very much a Hindu religious reformer, and was not trying to start some fundamentally new system. This can be seen in the fact the names he used for God in the SGGS are the standard Hindu names, Ram and Krishna (Gobind and Hari). It's true that the form of worship is different, with (normal) hindus commonly using icons for worship, whereas sikhism disapproves of idols. This disapproval too is completely in line with traditional Hinduism where name is considered to be higher than form and both name and form are the lower forms of God with pure Existence-Consciousness-Bliss being the higher form.

Once it is understood that sikhism is a reform movement within Hinduism, it can be appreciated that sikhism is in line with the primary Hindu teachings eg. of the Bhagavad Gita ie. (a) karma called sewa ie selfless action, (b) bhakti called prema is love, and (c) gyana is firm knowledge of non dual Oneness is the goal.

Path from service through love to wisdom/oneness with God

is described here:

This method of karam is acceptable, that which was instructed by Sri Bhagvan Krishna. By performing good actions —karam — one's mind becomes pure. Then a devotional spirit will reside within ones consciousness.

Sewa and prayer as a path to love

Just as a blind man may be cured by a suitable treatment a person without love can be cured by prayer and seva
SGGS Ang (section) 8

Sewa as a path to God

One who performs selfless service, without thought of reward, shall attain his Lord and Master.
SGGS

God IS Love

ie to love is to become God

Love is the Lord's Name, love is His form, love is His abode, love is His treasure.
Sukhamani Saheb from SGGS

Love is the Lord's essence, love is His form.
Asa di Var from SGGS