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Author: EKHAYEME GODWIN WEMYS
Posted to the web: 2/11/2009 6:02:02 AM

GOODNESS.
In religion, ethics, and philosophy, GOODNESS refers to the location of objects, desires, and behaviors. GOODN means being morally positive. 'Good' is a broad concept and is difficult to define, but typically it deals with an association with life, continuity, happiness, desirability, or human flourishing. Evil is more simply defined: the opposite of good. Depending on the context, GOOD and EVIL are based on personal judgments, societal norms, or claims of absolute value related to human nature or to transcendent religious standards.

There is no consensus over whether either good or evil are intrinsic to human nature. The nature of goodness has been given many treatments; one is that the good is based on the natural love, bonding, and affection that begins at the earliest stages of personal development; another is that goodness is a product of knowing truth. Differing views also exist as to why evil might arise. Many religious and philosophical traditions claim that evil behavior is an aberration that results from the imperfect human condition. Sometimes, evil is attributed to the existence of free will and human agency. Some argue that evil itself is ultimately based in an ignorance of truth, that is human value, sanctity, divinity.  Mark Twain once wrote that it is 'very wearying to be good'. It takes work to be consistently good, because it's so thoroughly against our natural inclinations.

 
 
WHO IS A GOOD MAN.

Is a good man  that which have the right or desirable quality in the sight of God and man or the absence of evil in his nature. The big question is; what really is good, and what really is bad, what do people find good, and what do they despise and what judgement is it based on.

The good was defined by many ancient Greeks and other ancient philosophers as a perfect and eternal idea, or blueprint. The good is the right relation between all that exists, and this exists in the mind of the Divine, or some heavenly realm. The good is the harmony of a just political community, love, friendship, the ordered human soul of virtues, and the right relation to the Divine and to Nature.

 

A religious man would  confidently say a good man is the man who has followed the tenets and teachings of his religion accordingly. And will further argue or stress that Outside of God's grace, there is no goodness in man whatsoever.

 

However, like the word ‘Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder’ same could apply to the ‘good man’  Mr A can say another is good because he possesses the qualities that he termed good, while Mr B dpoesnt see the goodness in the for him to be branded a good man. St. Augustine claimed that  evil is not something positive and God is not the cause of evil, because evil is not a thing. His whole answer on the problem of evil is related to God. he believed God did not will moral evil in any sense but only permitted it for the greater good that could not be obtained by preventing it. That is why he made man free . while Plato asserts that God and goodness are not one and the same; Plato does not directly state that goodness is good, but that God is good, since he exemplifies the idea at the top of Plato's hierarchy. In short, God does not equal goodness, but God encompasses it better than any other being. This could mean that,  not that God is perfect, but that God's intentions and actions have good aims - goodness may emerge from other sources besides God point of view but from a moral and rational one as well.

 

Since man cannot be God and man is man in own right, there are some qualities that he possesses which can qualify him to be called  a good man in the face of his fellow man at that point in time.