Goodness is that which is desirable, says Aquinas.
Goodness and being are really the same, and differ only in idea; which is clear from the following argument. The essence of goodness consists in this, that it is in some way desirable. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. i): "Goodness is what all desire." Now it is clear that a thing is desirable only in so far as it is perfect; for all desire their own perfection. But everything is perfect so far as it is actual. Therefore it is clear that a thing is perfect so far as it exists; for it is existence that makes all things actual, as is clear from the foregoing (I:3:4; I:4:1). Hence it is clear that goodness and being are the same really. But goodness presents the aspect of desirableness, which being does not present.
All well and good. The conscious being is attracted to the perfection in others, and desires the perfection of itself, the fulfillment of the various ends inherent to its nature. The actualization of its potential; the completion of its existence.
This notion of goodness is compatible with a completely secular outlook, something which Philippa Foot’s work on virtue ethics well exemplifies.
Russell’s “is-ought-problem” might rear its head at this instance, but it’s easily addressed both with the Aristotelian notion of inherent intentionalities (an ought inherent in the teleology of actual beings) as well as, separately, with the presence of God as a lawgiver. God is perfect ground of being, maximally desirable, maximally perfect, and therefore maximally good.
God is identical with the Good as such, and His actualized intentions actively maintain the essence of even the subjective intentionality of human persons, of the freedom of our will.
Thus, there’s an active divine intentionality behind our own secondary intentionalities and our free will that imbues them with an essential ought, such that there’s an immediate moral imperative at the depths of the ontology of our very actions as conscious persons.
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Still, there’s a remaining sense of incompleteness here. There’s something on the face of the purely formal convertibility of the transcendentals (good, truth and being) that invites an almost atheistic reductionism.
“Is that all goodness is?” the sensitive mind might ask itself. Just more of the same - a maximal actualization of the being we already are familiar with in its contingent manifestations?
Yet at this precise point, Christ reminds us that, really, nothing but God himself is actually good in the proper sense of the word:
And Jesus said to him, Why callest thou me good? None is good but one, that is God.
Mk. 10:18
This anchors our very notion of the good, the foundation of even the most insignificant ethics, in the incomprehensible mysteries of the transcent divine. The only perfect thing, the only truly desirable end-point of existence, the only true fulfillment of any end or potential whatsoever, lies firmly in the no-thingness of the transcendent ground of being.
The unbounded Absolute, devoid of the limitations of mere beings, of contingent and incomplete existence, even whose lofty excellences are really nothing but demonic when they serve as a substitute for the true God.
And it’s from this vantage point that the foolishness of the cross really begins to make its paradoxical sense.
Radical love.
For love is really nothing but the giving of oneself to another, the desire of the good of and for another, even to the exclusion of one’s own perfection and fulfillment.
And love in its most radical sense is the perfection of being since it inevitably transcends the contingent self.
Only with you as with friends of old
Are fleeting day dreams mirrored in the soul,
Only with you do the fragrant roses
Glisten for ever with tears of rapture.
From earthly markets, hueless and stifling,
What joy to behold the delicate tints
In your transparent aerial rainbows.
To me they seem blessings from a native heaven.'A. A. Shenshin
Such giving presupposes an actuality of being beyond the mere contingent, the overflowing of being, unto emptiness, into the Other.
Self-giving love is therefore the epitome of goodness since it's the perfection of being.
The good is love, ultimately, and self-giving love, kenosis, is a perfection beyond being, a love beyond love, a love so complete that it self-immolates, that it negates itself for the sake of another.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Jn. 15:13
And you can't really ask whether this is good or not. You cannot interrogate radical love through any system of ethics, through any mere formalization of norms.
For this is the root of the root and the bud of the bud. It’s the transcendent ground of being that goodness as we can know it is predicated upon.
The question of whether love can be reduced to an abstract notion of an absolute good that grounds our obligation in a rationalistic ethical system is fundamentally misguided.
The self-giving love namely does not reduce to the perfection of contingent being. It's the other way around. Radical, self-giving love is inherently other, inherently not of this world.
The question must thus rather be if what we think of as “good” is really derived from this ultimately divine self-giving love.
From “the unapproachable light of divinity, the utter fullness of an existence beyond being that really and fully contains and infinitely transcends the contingent goods of created existence.”
From a goodness beyond goodness.
And the kenosis of Christ is precisely the breaking into our world of a being beyond being, a transcendent meaning beyond contingent existence as such - and without anchoring goodness (and thereby all of ethics) in this deep mystery of divine love, it will ultimately always be fruitless.
And this mystery of self-giving love, insofar as it is present to us in and through faith, is the certain proof not only of God’s existence, but of His goodness beyond anything which we could fathom, for it immediately and tangibly opens the door to a being beyond self-contained and ultimately impotent contingency and its inevitable meaninglessness.
He put the cookies on the bottom shelf for us, friend.
Glenn Miller, “It's really MUCH simpler than it looks”
An I AM that can relinquish being itself and emerge victorious.
But thus grounded, the very least courtesy, the most insignificant of seemingly useless norms become resplendent with life, always animated with the light of its infinite source.
I keep thinking of John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme".
Conciousness is Love is Truth