Good is God
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Divine nature transcends relative moral dichotomies, constituting absolute Goodness itself—the ontological ground of all moral valuation. While human conceptions of "good" and "evil" remain perspectival and contingent, God is ipsum bonum (Goodness as such), the transcendental source that confers meaning upon ethical discourse.
(Key references: Augustine's Confessions VII, Plato's Republic VI, Aquinas's Summa Theologiae I, Q6)
The Ontological Nature of Goodness and Divine Essence
Divine nature transcends anthropomorphic moral binaries of "good" and "evil" as conventionally conceived. Rather, goodness constitutes the fundamental essence of divinity itself. This distinction is critical: while moral valuations (good/bad) represent relativistic human judgments contingent upon perspective and circumstance, goodness as an absolute principle emanates from and defines the divine nature.
The relativity of moral terminology becomes apparent when examining competing value claims - what one constituency judges as "good," its opposition may deem "bad." However, metaphysical goodness (bonum in se) exists as an unconditioned divine attribute, serving as the plenitudinous source from which all particular goods derive their being and intelligibility. In this scholastic sense, God is not merely good, but is Goodness Itself (ipsum bonum), the transcendental ground that makes any moral understanding possible.
This position finds resonance in:
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Augustinian theology identifying God with the Good (Confessions VII)
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Platonic doctrine of the Form of the Good (Republic VI)
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Aquinas's treatment of divine simplicity (ST I, Q6)
The implication is profound: human moral language operates at the level of phenomenology, while divine goodness constitutes the noumenal reality that makes moral discourse meaningful at all.