Good

Stoicism is in vogue right now, and in some sense that’s not a bad thing as it leans towards positivity, resilience, and change, however much of the stoical motivations tend to be paper thin when you dust off the surface: “Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.” (Marcus Aurelius). Exactly. But wait a minute, what exactly is a “good man”? Or more exact, what does the word “good” actually mean? … if we don’t know the answer to that key question, then Marcus’ grand statement, of “be a good man” is just words on paper, and how can you really build a meaningful life on that? Don’t get me wrong, this absence of understanding the true meaning of key words in their correct context is not limited to the Stoics, ask any atheist and similar platitudes like “working for the good of mankind” will be rolled out … again, with very little substance (or thought) to the definition of the word “good”. Like I said, there are many similar words that lack clear understanding when coming to motivational purpose and meaning philosophies – but let’s start with the word “good”, because answering this question will help shift our view of the world in a much more deeper perspective.

“Be good.”

One of my fondest memories of growing up is sitting in a dark movie theatre with my Grandmother who took my younger sister and me to see E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. I am 12 years old, sitting with ice-cream and the smell of the cinema in my nostrils. My Grandma proudly watches over the both of us, handing us popcorn as we sink into burgundy seats. The opening credits fade to a finish allowing us to enter into the cinematic world of a night-time alien chase through the dark damp forest. For a young boy, in an age absent of on-demand movies, it doesn’t get any better (correction: the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark the year before was way cooler). Spielberg’s classic alien movie has found a life-time cosy place in my memory, not only because of the fond memories of my Grandmother, but the movie itself is a classic. Instantly I can recall two sayings from ET’s croaky voice, “ET phone home”, and “Be good”. Both these sayings would be imitated for months afterwards in the school playground and throughout our childhood. “Be good” was ET’s parting words to the young Drew Barrymore, setting up the tear-jerking end-scene to close out the cinematic masterpiece. These two parting words made sense, especially when directed at the youngest innocent child, who is full of promise and potential, and yet intrinsically known by ET that life possesses many pitfalls to “not” be good; and if you’re not good, what happens to your potential?

I am reminded by this childhood memory more and more these days as the search for meaning intensifies and a call to find purpose in our lives grows louder and louder; we seem to be ship-wreaked off the coast of life after boarding the century long exploration into the self, only to realise that the self is not the answer, purpose is, to live a purposely good life that will make us happy, and so we struggle to shore looking for that purpose, beaten, exhausted, lost, looking for that one thing to point to that will make us happy, our purpose. And this is all very well and heading in the right direction, though for me there seems to be some important ideas and concepts left in the wake. As mentioned above, there are far too many ideals being sprouted about like “aim towards what is good”. But what is the notion of “good”? It seems to be a key part of finding the answer to the whole purpose equation and yet time and again it is glossed over, not defined, lending for a weak interpretation as something “positive” (rather than “negative”), and yet, understanding what “good” is couldn’t be more important – it has ramifications for how we view all aspects of life; what is your idea of love for example? Thomas Aquinas defines love as, “To love is to will the good of the other”. There’s that word again, in fact if you listen closely to any psychology, philosophy, or motivational discourse the word “good” will always pop-up. But what does it actually mean to be good? Or aim or strive for the good? To declare something is good for all? Or good for mankind? If this notion of good is not understood than grandiose statements or motivational speeches become shallow deep, leaving in danger the whole premises of what is trying to be conveyed – no matter how positive, to be missed altogether. Conversely, if there is a clear understanding of the word “good”, it can not only shed light on your relationships, but deepen them, radically change the way in how you perceive and interact with others, and ultimately help you realise your full potential that will provide a meaning to your life that is almost unfathomable. The good news (pun intended) is there is a whole historical understanding of what Goodness is and how it can be applied and where that leads to. 

“To be or not to Be – that is the question” (Shakespeare, Hamlet)

Hamlet continues on to say, “For who would bear the whips and scorns of time” Indeed. To live or die; which would be better? Especially when one is in an existential crisis that time inevitably bestows on us all. However, the question posed by Hamlet, “to be or not to be”, does point to a deeper definition of “good” more than just a pithy dictionary definition: “very satisfactory, enjoyable, pleasant, or interesting” (Cambridge Dictionary). However, the definition we are after is an ontological (philosophical study of being) one.  The Greek philosopher Aristotle determined that “Good” and “Being” are one of the same thing, “Everything that is, is Good because it is.” The extension of this logic for Aristotle is that Goodness (or Being) found via creation is derived from a Supreme Good. If it is created it is Good, and its Goodness comes from the supply of Supreme Goodness. Approximately 1,500 years later, St. Thomas Aquinas agreed with Aristotle that “Being” and “Goodness” are one of the same things, however for Aquinas the Supreme Good is God, who through His creation, diffuses His Goodness. For those not religiously inclined, the mention of creation, and in particular the creation story in Genesis, might find this enough to stop reading, however for a much deeper understanding of the word Goodness other than Aristotle’s it’s important to understand the concept of God creating out of nothing (Ex nihilo) as this was a major difference between Aristotle and Aquinas. Simon Oliver points out, “For Aquinas, all things (created) are teleologically (the end goal) orientated towards one focus, namely being itself”. God is all Being – He is all Goodness/ all Being, which is then given out (through love & grace) to all of His creation. Or to put it simply, nothing exists outside of God – creation exists only because of God, for Him, and for us to partake in His creation and ultimately His divine glory. On this basis the Genesis creation story of the bible can be outlined as follows:

“God saw that the light was good …”“God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.”“The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good”.“God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.”.“So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”“God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.”“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”

It was “good” because it came into Being out of nothing. It was “very good” because creation had come into perfected Goodness whereas before it was “formless and empty”. It was perfect because it was harmonious with God, meaning both creation and God were harmoniously Good. Of course this perfected Goodness was altered with the Fall, which is nothing other than a deviation away from the perfected harmonious Good – evil is anti-Good. However created things are still intrinsically Good, because Being is the same as Good. The difference after the Fall is that our Goodness now has potential to become perfect Good.  In other words, things created like, dogs, birds, fish, trees, rocks, are all Good (and have the potential to reach perfect Being) even though nature can be viewed sometimes as anything but Good; in some respects it can be viewed as violent and unforgiven. A fully grown lion hunting and killing an antelope, is perfected Good – it is acting out its perfect Being. Man however is different, we have been blessed with choice (free will), we are not robotic, we hang between the gulf of the material world and spiritual world, so we need to address our Goodness both materially and spiritually. On this note the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that, “By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth (found via the intellect) and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed towards God, our beatitude (our happiness)”.

“It is not by the individuality in us that we approach truth; it is in virtue of a participation in the universal. This universal, which is at one and the same time the true and the good, cannot be honoured as the true – we cannot enter into intimate union with it, discover its traces, and yield ourselves to its mighty sway – unless we recognize and serve it equally as the good.” (A.G. Sertillages)

A.G. Sertillanges wrote in his classic book, The Intellection Life that Truth and Goodness are aligned – the closer you get to the Truth the closer you are to Goodness, and vice-versa – the more Goodness you enact, Truth will be just on the other side of the summit. It is our intellect that enables us to seek both Truth, and Goodness – we engage the intellect through contemplation arriving at Truth, and engage the intellect through virtuous living, arriving at Goodness. At the apex, where Truth and Goodness meet, we find Beauty. And it is at the summit we find that God is the fountain of all Truth, Goodness, and Beauty – if we engage the intellect towards Truth and Goodness we are also becoming spiritually awakened, and in doing so we can see Truth, Goodness and Beauty in all of creation. It is this ability of man to use his intellect to discern what is Good and what is not that assists us in motioning towards our perfection.     

“It is clear that we lack an adequate concept of evil … because we lack any adequate concept of good.” (Alasdair MacIntyre)

How do you discern evil if you have little concept of what Good is? This is a paramount question, because free will means you have control over your life – you are not programmed to automatically love God, you are not programmed to automatically act towards your true nature i.e. Goodness. We have choices. For Aquinas, evil was not something created in and of itself, it was the loss of a quality or attribute that was originally present, in other words, evil is anti-Good, it is a corruption of the created Good. This is a key thing to realise because for both Aristotle and Aquinas creation is in motion, meaning it is moving towards something – its telos, it has a beginning and an end. This means that everything has “potential” to realise its full Being, for example an acorn seed has unpacked “potential” – it can grow into a sapling, then into a small tree, and finally its full potential (it’s Being / perfected Goodness) grows into a large oak tree.  Likewise, humans have their “potential” Good at conception, motioning towards foetus, baby, toddler, child, teenager, and then adult, arriving at our full potential in life after death – where we find beatitude (happiness) with God. This “potential” however is reliant on other factors, for the oak tree, the amount of water and sunlight it receives plays a part in whether it reaches its full Goodness. Likewise for human beings, the choices we make will play a large part on reaching our full Goodness. The more choices we make that motion us away from our natural nature of Goodness (God), the less we realise our full human potential. In other words, not motioning towards the Good is participating in anti-Good (evil), sinning against God, against Goodness Himself – it is heading in the opposite direction of our purpose to be human.

The hierarchy of Goodness

As noted above, one of the gifts given to man by God, as a condition of free-will, is intellect. This enables man to decipher what is right and wrong so he can act towards the Good. For Aristotle, this engagement of the intellect was viewed as the highest Good available to man (his happiness), which meant there are other things that are categorised as lower Goods such as food and shelter. Aristotle argues that man must obtain enough lower Goods in order to relieve himself of the burdens of life so he has enough time to contemplate and engage his intellect. Aquinas would expand on this, noting that a lower Good, say food, could impede on a higher Good, or it could add to it, the saying “the wise man eats to live, the epicure lives to eat” is a case in point. Further to this, God is the alpha and omega of Goodness – Goodness flows out of God and returns to God. This meant for Aquinas the whole cosmos is “bound together in an indescribably complex system of mutual action and interaction” – or as the Catholic Encyclopedia puts it, “everything is good for some other thing, and that everything has its proper end in the great whole.” This idea of a hierarchal Goodness – beginning and ending with God, goes some way in explaining the troubling question of why God “let’s bad things happen”. In simple terms we, individually, have no view of the vast cosmos of Goodness and how one act of anti-Good can have in relation to the whole Good of the Cosmos, by way of the example, in the Acts of the Apostles, James is stoned to death for proclaiming Christ risen. Regardless of whether you are Christian or not, the act of stoning someone to death is horrendous. How could an all loving “Good” God allow such a thing to happen to one of his believers? The stoning of James was a turning point in Christianity – the act scattered the other followers of Christ (in fear) to all parts of the Roman empire, however in doing so the Christian message flourished rapidly changing the lives of millions for the better – Goodness will always out do evil in the end, even if at the time we can’t comprehend how, when or why. Look no further than the crucifixion as the meta-version of this concept – Goodness itself was insulted, beaten, flogged, and nailed to a tree to suffer an excruciating shameful death, only to defeat death, rise, and spiritually connect with us and save us via Grace, which is the other factor available to us in achieving fully perfected Goodness.  

“I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14)

Now all this might sound heady and abstract, but how does this play out practically? Both Aristotle and Aquinas pointed towards the virtues as the method to acting towards our true beings (this is also the source of our true happiness. Christ’s sermon on the Mount is His text-book teaching of the ultimate happiness that can be realised and should be strived for … it’s not an accident that each beatitudes begins with “happy are …”, or the divinely happy interpretation, “blessed are …”). This means that any one of our current goals, or our defined purpose, can still exist, however now we have the choice (free will) to overlay them with the virtues that are directed and aligned to the Good (i.e. God). In other words, if we are made in the image of God (Goodness), and God dispensed His Goodness throughout all of creation (as an act of love), our purpose and goals should also marry with the very idea of God's Goodness i.e. we should also dispense Goodness not inwards to the self, but outwards towards others. This is at the very heart of the Christian teaching – Jesus’ golden rule to “love one another as I have loved you”; the denying of the self. Given this, and our ontological understand of Goodness we can now to revisit Aquinas’ definition of love: “To love is to will the good of the other.” What depth this definition now has – to will the “Good” of the other, to want the most profound happiness for another found only in the creator – the ultimate happiness, for the other to fully realise their potential, what it means to be fully human, to be fully alive, and by extension fully loved by the divine creator. This “will the good of the other” is found embed in the seven virtues, the framework in which we can overlay our purposes and goals in life – the four humanistic virtues defined by Aristotle of Prudence, Justice, Courage, and Temperance, followed by the three Christian virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. All these virtues look outwards beyond the self to the other, they are designed to put others first and lift them up to their full potential.

So in practice – for the man or woman who has the defined purpose to be rich in life, be it for security, or power, or privilege, to attain the dictionary meaning of good, and find their riches as very “satisfactory, enjoyable, pleasant, or interesting”, if we instead replace this with the ontological Thomistic definition and apply the virtuous life to the same purpose suddenly the desire to be rich takes on a new persona – rich to lift others out of poverty, rich to support and assist others, rich to provide justice to those who have none, rich to partake knowledge in social projects – suddenly that purpose and meaning in life that we are all wanting is alive and has actual purpose, actual meaning, as it is not only directed towards others, but paradoxically makes you reach your full potential – your full Goodness.

To define Goodness or not to define? – that is the real question.

The century long exploration into the self is dead. To quote Bishop Barron, “your life is not about you”. Purpose and meaning in life is what we long for, we’ve just been looking in all the wrong places. Some will want to continue on this self-inward looking path, or not embrace the Christian notion of Goodness, perhaps stopping at Aristotle – which is start, I guess, however what that can be if God is not the fountain of all Goodness will ultimately be a definition that is paper thin. But time is short, our lives are lilies of the field, and there is a ready-made framework at our disposal that served Western man-kind for centuries. We stand in the 21 century on the shoulders of giants of antiquity who were much more intelligent and virtuous than ourselves, whose art, music, architecture, and daily lives were all directed towards the Good. And what accomplishments! What beauty! And yet here we stand, staring down an abyss of technology advancements we have little understanding of where it will lead. Artificial Intelligence is not by default Good (nor is it Intelligent), but if we as human’s have a clear notion of what Goodness is – than Artificial Intelligence could transform our world into a thing of wonder at the social level, like nothing history has every seen. But if we continue to grope around in the darkness trying to define meaning and purpose without a solid foundational understanding of Goodness – Artificial Intelligence can only lead one way, to a misery and hellish landscape the world has not even contemplated.  

To finish on a positive note – under the Christian framework we are all equal, there is no race or division or power or privilege, there is no reason for quasi-religious mantras like Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, because at the fundamental level we all have the embedded God-given-Goodness in us, meaning we are all naturally conditioned for Goodness. It is now time to embrace the things that make us complete humanBEINGS, to turn our potential into a fully realised purpose, of meaning wrapped in true love that puts the other’s Goodness first. This is not out of reach, it’s just something that needs to be proclaimed and adopted and lived and breathed. This is where purpose lies, meaning thrives, and true happiness reigns.