Good.

I wrapped up my last post with the observation that God is continuously calling His creations 'good,' and wondering if there is something tangibly good about creation that causes Him to keep affirming the fact that everything He has made is good. This blog is primarily about Christianity, so I don't want to get off topic too frequently, but I am also studying the scriptures of about nine other religions/spiritual practices, one of which is the Zhuan Falun - the primary text of Falun Gong. And I find it so interesting that the texts of all the different religions - while they disagree about certain details - seem to support each other in many ways and make what I consider to be a kind of comprehensive whole.

One example of this comes from the teaching in Falun Gong that the universe is made up of the principles of Zhen, Shan, Ren - or Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Could these characteristics (or something similar) be what God is referring to as He consistently calls His creation 'good' and 'exceedingly good' in some translations? Practicioners of Falun Gong feel that we have fallen, somehow, from our natural state of Zhen, Shan, Ren, and into this current state of disrepair. The ultimate goal of the Falun Gong spiritual practice is to assimilate ourselves back to truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance - which are three of the fruits of the spirit (if we put truthfulness into the category of 'goodness' and compassion into the category of 'kindness'). I find that this teaching from Falun Gong really resonates with the Christian teaching that mankind was once 'good,' but has fallen.

Perhaps, through the lens of the Zhuan Falun, we can speculate about what God meant as He continuously called His creations good.