There is No “Common Good”

What is beneath the label of the common good? It is being held up by a foundation of something that is common, but not good.

Anything that is societally common in our world is not usually spiritually good, and spiritually good things are not usually common in society. Spiritually good things come only from the Godhead, Father, Son and Spirit.

Without much discussion, we will mostly agree that the necessary good born out of need is essential to sustain society; consider traffic signs. However, the common good born out of systems benefits some at the expense of others; consider slavery.

Therefore, the concept of the societal common good is an anomaly. It cannot exist without being driven by something evil, thereby rendering it not good.  Solomon affirms, “there is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men” (Eccl 6:1). This evil is the foundation of the common good.

The first warning God gave Adam and Eve is not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:17). God knows that amidst the good there is always evil. Amidst good intentions there are always evil intentions. Amidst good thoughts are evil thoughts. Good and evil are intertwined, and this is evident even before the scenes of the Garden of Eden. Lucifer, as a covering cherub, while ministering in heaven in the highest good and in the holiest place, harbored evil thoughts (Ez 28:13).

How can this be? A perfectly created being, surrounded by holiness, purity and absolute good become the devil, the Satan, so evil and corrupt.

Jesus gave us the answer, “there is none good, but one, that is God.” (Mark 10:18).

Therefore, when it comes to humanity, there can be no common good, if none of us are inherently good.

At least five times in scripture we read “there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Psalm 43:1). The Bible does talk about a “good man” but where does this man get his goodness?  “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way” (Psalm 37:23).  Any bit of goodness that is us humans, comes from the source of goodness, our God.  “Good and upright is the Lord: therefore, will he teach sinners in the way” (Psalm 25:8).

We naturally want common things, but we will never agree on which things qualify as good. We are divided by culture, by religion, by reason, by money and by passion. As selfish beings, everyone wants what they believe is good for themselves and their families.  “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 2:25)

We do not want the same common things because we do not have shared beliefs. As independent beings, everyone wants to make their own decisions about their lives. We do not want to be on the same level as everyone else, having the same status, living the same lifestyle… some of us want to be higher than some.

We have a desperately wicked heart, in which even our best good is evil. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing…For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do (Rom 7: 18, 19)

When politicians, states and organizations want the “common good” for the people, it cannot be one that is universally agreeable, it will be one that is forced by law in the name of good, by the hands of evil.  Search history, search the scriptures, we will find out that the common good was good for some but not for others. Pharaoh forced slavery upon the Jews for the common good of the Egyptians. The common good of slavery was injustice to the blacks, and profit for the whites. The common good of the holocaust was murder of the some and dominance for others.

Every so-called common good came with force and more than likely preceded by wars or revolutions and then forced by law as a demand.

God did not make us to be selfish and neither did he create us to be independent, and neither did He create us for the common good. What God created us for is not common, but Genesis chapter one tells us, it is good. He created us for Himself. He created us for the eternal good, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).  The eternal good is not common “because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth to unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matt 7:14) Notice that we are to “find it.”

Things of God are neither common nor imposed. Things of God are sought after first by a call or the impressions of the Holy Spirit, then a personal individual decision to seek God with all our heart, soul and mind.

God already laid out the eternal good in His ten (10) commandments, and sadly, we have made them common. Some have their own gods and idols; some has their own day of worship, and some has their own interpretation of scripture, and everyone is guilty in at least one of them commandments, making us guilty of all.

Currently, we hear the cry for a “common good” from political, religious, environmental leaders.

Don’t be deceived, the common good, though seemingly noble, is neither good; and neither is it Biblical.