To put our question another way: Are good works essentially good regardless of who does them—that is, a believer or an unbeliever? 

The short answer is that a work may be called a “good” work to the degree that it conforms to, or reflects, or (as a Platonist would say) participates in the being of the Good. 

That might seem unhelpful at first. However, when we think through this, we will see why we need this language to frame any mature summary. Part of the definition problem is that Christians have varied concerns about the “good” of good works.

Some Christians tend to look at this from the perspective of the nature of goodness per se, whereas others tend to look at this from the spiritual perspective of God’s enabling power and proper chief ends. One thing we can say at the outset is that we ought never to pit these against each other. To side with nature against grace would give us a Pelagian goodness, and to side with grace without respect to nature would give us a Gnostic goodness. But the Christian ought to see those as both being square-circles.

Motive and Consequences

From the side of a good work’s nature, we are asking in the most basic way: What makes an action “good.” Clearly here we are speaking of moral goods, or virtues, rather than merely those goods which are really pragmatic efficiencies. From the latter perspective, anything from a knife to napalm to AI has been considered good—that is, “good for the job.” What about in the case of a man intervening in a subway train to protect passengers from a man who has been threatening them with physical harm? To make the situation more complex, suppose that the man has good reason to suspect that he will be punished for helping, especially if he is effective at it. What then is good? Regardless of one’s particular answers, anyone who answers that one should help, even at the risk of danger to self, will have to make some appeal to the value of human life. One is either duty-bound or else conceives of it in terms of his care for those people. Even in the case of duty, we might ask: Duty to what or to whom? 

In other words, there must be some moral object that transcends the particulars of the situation to which the good act conforms. Let us simply call it The Good.

While space permits a detailed argument for transcendent moral grounds, let’s at least examine a few passages that will help us skip ahead to our answer. A series of texts speak of love as having a central or foundational place is all of the other virtues. After his threefold “If I … but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:1, 2, 3), the Apostle Paul concludes the famous chapter, “but the greatest of these is love” (v. 13). Or elsewhere,

“Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10).

“And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col. 3:10).

We might also add that Paul places love at the front of his list of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), which fruit is in the singular (karpos). Consider also the Greatest Commandment in Matthew 22:37-39, and how it structures the two tables of the law—love of God and love of neighbor.

What does all of this teach us? It is simply that to love another is to be moved to do that which is good concerning them. Here is where motive and consequences are harmonious. If I love someone, I will not merely do that which feels right to do for them, but I must care about that which actually is right. Sometimes, analyzing the consequences can be antithetical to the right, such as in our example of the man on the train. One set of consequences exalted above another is the root of cowardice; yet another set of consequences in the same place calls forth the virtue of courage. But then this summoning of right feeling and action, and the clear sight of the best ends—these are not merely natural, certainly not for sinners who are left to mere self-love. 

Ability and Ends

I mentioned the fruit of the Spirit as one of several texts that provide a framework for understanding the good in any action. To call them the “fruit of the Spirit” in opposition to the “works of the flesh,” as Paul does there, is to suggest that these are supernaturally given. They are not produced by an unregenerate person. How one stands in relation to grace also determines how one understands the nature of it. Take for instance the rich young ruler. He came to Jesus asking,

“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich (Lk. 18:18-23).

A few observations from this text: (1) Far from denying that He was God, Jesus was exposing this man’s cavalier attitude toward what is good. He knew that the young man did not think he was speaking to anyone higher than an earthly rabbi. (2) This low attitude was confirmed by the young man’s boast that he had kept all the commandments from his youth. (3) In all of the diversity of “good things” he was said to lack “one thing.” (4) That “one thing” was not counted by the young man as worth gaining in exchange for his many things.

Taking these four points together, the reflective reader may be prepared to make a leap in theological insight. What if it is precisely the one thing that unifies the many things? In all good particulars, there is a universal that we call goodness. We have already seen this with love. But we also often use the word “good” in terms not only of virtue but of value. A good is not only a duty, but a treasure—not only something we ought, but something we want. Yet the story of the rich young ruler actually treats these as if they are intimately related.

It is as if losing all else in order to follow Christ would, in some way, do better at obeying these commandments than the kind of box-checking the young man had been assuming. It should at least be clear that Jesus was not affirming that this individual really had kept these commandments and really did have only one box left to check. In fact, he was not able to truly care about the Good, skimming the surface as he was: the surface of his own heart, the surface of the law’s intent, the surface of his neighbor’s needs. 

For many among the Reformed especially, the answer to our question will revolve entirely around this point of soteriology. The young man could not be good—would not be good—because his heart was not good. That is quite true; and yet focusing on this in a one-dimensional way never gets around to answering the question. Although it is an equal and opposite mistake to speak about virtues without recourse to their Author and chief end. As Augustine called the virtues of the pagan “splendid vices,” so the good works of the unregenerate are like headless heroes, going through the motions, unthinking about a trajectory that transcends the nearest payoff. 

This is not only of soteriological importance, but ethical. Chesterton wrote,

“The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.”1

To fixate on a good which is not consciously driven to the glory of God, nor consciously thankful of the grace of God in its reception, is to guarantee that one will soon be looking at a spoiled good and eventually a more alluring evil. 

The proper ends of good works are objective. That is true even of the subjective valuation kind mentioned in consideration of the rich young ruler. But at the end of the day, we were made to do what we do because of what it says about God, not because of what it says about any lesser thing.

Jesus gave us a very objective standard when He said, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mat. 5:16). How do I know that I am looking at a “good work”? One part of the answer is whether the act has the tendency to cause others to pay attention to God. The best human moral actor would be a pure window to his Maker. These words of Jesus set a sharper distinction between the good works of the Christian and those of the non-Christian. The latter does not know God as Father, and will not consciously attempt to point in His direction. So the value of his works are fleeting and even deluding. It is not that there was no reflection of the Good, but that, like Milton’s Eve, falling in love with one’s own reflection, what remains is spoiled. 

So there are different routes of “participation in” the essence of good. It can be how the action most nearly copies the essence itself: e.g., a courageous act being nearer to true courage and not a mere adrenaline rush or the chasing of temporal glory. Or it can be how the fruit of the action will last for Christ’s kingdom, and how conscious the moral actor was in rendering that honor to Christ. But it is not as simple as to restrict a good act’s goodness either to its nature or to grace, purely and simply. Here too, grace perfects nature, and the nature of it was all about God in the first place. 

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1. G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York: Image, 1990), 30.