“Hear, Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” – Deut. 6:4 (NASB)
What is God’s most basic identity? Theologians have debated this for centuries. In Chapter 5 of “The Soul’s Journey into God,” St. Bonaventure considers this question. He points to two main answers. One is that God is Being itself. He links this to God telling Moses “I am who am” in Exodus 3:14. In other words, in this view God is first of all the source of all that exists. The other view is that God is goodness itself. This is rooted in Jesus saying that “No one is good but God alone” in Mark 10:18 and Luke 18:19. In this line of thought, God is the source of goodness and the way that we know the difference between good and evil.
The remainder of the chapter considers these two ideas and argues that God’s primary identity is Being itself, or the base of existence. There’s no need to get into the philosophical and theological nuances of his argument here. If you are interested I’m happy to discuss it with you (I did a doctoral comprehensive exam on the historical development of this topic) but for most people the details are an unhelpful exploration of weeds. Basically, the idea is that existence is more basic than goodness.
To expand a bit more, God is like a fountain from which all of creation flows. The fact that anything is here at all is because God is continually creating and sustaining the world. Creation is not just about the first moment of the universe, but more importantly something that God is always doing. God is continually creating the next moment. All things that are right now and all things that have ever been were able to exist because God is that fountain and also like a net that holds everything. God brings forth the world and keeps it from falling apart. This comes before any qualification like good or not good. All things – all planets, people, animals, plants, elements, minerals, and so forth – flow from God’s creativity and are held in God’s embrace. God is not separate from creation but the fabric of the universe. Most fundamentally this is who God is.
From there, God also determines what is good. We know goodness through God. We know that goodness means loving, compassionate, seeking the best for all, joy, and so many other things. This is God’s desire for us and the whole universe, that it be filled with goodness for all. However, God is still present with that which is not good. God is still the God and creator of all, with us even when we encounter tragedy, hurtful behaviors, pain, suffering, and many other things that are not the goodness God desires. Goodness is secondary to existence. This is what Paul is getting at in Romans 11:36: “For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever.” God is the fount of all creation first and second the guide for what within it is good.
Why does this philosophical debate matter? I would say that it tells us that God first and foremost is present in all things. If we put goodness as God’s main characteristic, then we would have to wonder where God is when bad things happen in our lives, when people who do bad things get ahead, and when we ourselves sin and fall short of God. If God is most fundamentally goodness then all that is not good is outside of God. If God is fundamentally existence, though, then we can be confident that God is still present in all of those times and situations. God does not desire things that are not good, but God is still the God of all and still present no matter what. That is a worthwhile promise to hold onto.