One of the most common objections to Christianity is that God is not good. Critics point to passages of God’s judgment, his commanding the Israelites to engage in warfare, or a host of stories where God’s actions seem cruel or uncaring.

The attribute of God’s goodness is one of my deepest passions. It’s so critical that I have dived deep into these “problem passages,” even writing a book on them. After all, if we see God as good, we will give our lives to his purposes. But if God is not good, Christianity falls apart. No wonder this attribute has been subject to so much attack!

Yet despite the fact that we can discover God’s goodness when we dive deep, I believe such dives are not necessary to face this challenge. I’m serious. Keep reading to see what I mean.

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Many people—Christians and non-Christians alike—read the Bible assuming they get to determine whether God is good based on his actions. This is understandable. We have a God-given moral compass, and we use it to judge the conduct of others. But using that same compass to judge God’s actions in the Bible falls into a clear-cut logical fallacy.

Here’s the rub: the same Bible that contains God’s severe judgments also explicitly teaches about God’s goodness. By my count, there are 63 verses that speak plainly to the goodness of God. Psalm 100:5a, for example, says, “for the LORD is good.” The Bible doesn’t leave room for us to make our own judgments about God’s character; the conclusion is already made. One may choose to disagree, but doing so undermines the very text they use for their argument!

The error critics make becomes clear when spelled out in a simple deductive argument:

This statement is true by definition.

This is proven by dozens of clear teachings in the Bible, as mentioned above.

This conclusion follows logically from the first two premises.

Critics who use the Bible to argue that God is evil must first assume the Bible is true for their argument to have any weight. But once they assume the Bible is true, they are confronted with dozens of clear affirmations that God is Good! This doesn’t mean stories of judgment are false, but that a good God must have good reasons for those actions. This is the only possible landing point when the Bible is assumed to be true.

Granted, one may argue that God’s actions in the Bible are so clear that there is no possible moral justification. That is a dangerously bold statement to make! (See Isaiah 55:9, Job 38–41, and Ezekiel 18:25.)

But even if that were the case, the best one could say is that the Bible is inconsistent with itself and therefore can’t be trusted. That is a different issue from whether God is good. An untrustworthy Bible would mean we must suspend our judgment of God’s goodness, not affirm that God is evil.

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As you can see, we never need to be afraid of difficult passages overthrowing our understanding of God’s goodness. While this doesn’t address every concern (like the problem of pain and suffering), it provides a solid foundation.

Again, I would encourage you to check out my book on the subject—Why Did God Do That?—where I show how God’s goodness is proclaimed even in the hardest passages. But as you have seen, it doesn’t take a whole book to confidently share this truth! Just commit the general argument above to memory. While you’re at it, commit one of my favorite verses to memory for these conversations:

“Though he brings grief, he also shows compassion because of the greatness of his unfailing love. For he does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow.” (Lamentations 3:32–33 NLT)

That verse is just as true as any challenging passage you might stumble upon in the Bible.