Basic Trope: A benevolent supreme being.
- Straight: God is the creator of the world and the designer of the human race, and the supreme power in the universe. He is a moral advisor and greatest force of good to all humans in their daily affairs and they all show gratitude for His benevolence.
- Exaggerated:
- God created the world for the sole purpose of giving humanity a life where there are absolutely no crime, traumas, hardships, conflict, catastrophes, sadness, despair, anger, jealousy, disease, or any other negative things; Everyone is incapable of sinning.
- God is the ultimate force of good who treats everybody like old friends, even Satan.
- God is synonymous with the very concept of good.note
- Downplayed: Despite His strictness with His laws, fiery temper, and indifferent atittude towards humanity, God is the greatest force of good nonetheless.
- Justified:
- As the Creator of all life, God possesses a deep love towards all of them and sincerely wants good things for them.
- God, being Omniscient, experiences all things. Thus, any suffering they were to inflict or allow to occur on anyone would be hurting themselves just as much. Thus, God only wants good to befall the people of the world.
- God can do anything, know anything, and be anywhere. He has no motivation to be evil, thus acts out of good.
- With the infinite knowledge of an Omnipotent creator, God can see beyond the immediate gains of evil acts and understands that acting good is more beneficial for everyone than being evil.
- Inverted:
- Subverted:
- God gives humanity an abundant life, but later decides to torture humanity by summoning catastrophic evils to befall the earth.
- Since God decides what is good then his claim of being good is based entirely on Circular Reasoning.
- God actually operates on Blue-and-Orange Morality, and thinks of Himself as Above Good and Evil.
- Humans indulge themselves in stories that portray that God Is Evil or a jerk (such as Gnosticism) or Classical Mythology) so they think God is a phony in being good, He HAS to be either a flippant jerk or a downright evil control freak. And there were disasters or some miseries that happened, so it has to be God trying to mess up with humans!
- Double Subverted:
- (first one) This was to test humanity's faith in Him. Because they have endured the trials and tribulations, God rewards humanity with more blessings.
- (also first one) This was because humanity corrupted themselves into sin. As they all have repented, God forgives them and everything is set right.
- Humans agree with the reasoning. Why argue with 'love each other' and other such benevolent ideas?
- The Blue-and-Orange morality in practice works out to the same love-and-mercy ideas that humans have of Him.
- God proves Himself to be the real benevolent deity, he's not a jerk or not evil. People think like that because He wanted them to get creative with their minds, why else did He give them Free Will? The humans were shamed and begged for forgiveness, and God granted them without any charges.
- Parodied:
- God gives humanity raining candy. They all thanked Him while being stuffed.
- God is Stupid Good.
- Zig Zagged: On one day God sends a Bolt of Divine Retribution to defeat the Monster of the Week; the next day He's missing entirely. The day after that He sends a Holy Hand Grenade and the day after that He does nothing but tell a Good Shepherd to fix the problem.
- Averted: God is neither good nor evil.
- Lampshaded: "Wow. God is such a Nice Guy, isn't He?"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited:
- God uses His benevolence to lure humanity to Him just so they can worship Him.
- Bob, a paladin, uses God's reputation for goodness to convince the locals to help him smite a local evil.
- On the villainous side, a Sinister Minister gets away with his actions because he claims to serve God... and God is Good, right?
- Defied:
- "I'm not going to let humanity enjoy their lives. I'm going to make them suffer!"
- A God of Evil (or a comparably powerful entity) manages to take control of the benevolent God, and starts using its powers to inflict harm upon its creation.
- Discussed:Bob: "God is good, isn't He?"Charlie: "All the time; all the time."Bob: "God is good."
- Conversed: "So Troper Show has a benevolent God-equivalent, huh? I wonder how the writers can do that without it being a Story-Breaker Power."
- Deconstructed:
- Good or not, people still find reasons to Rage Against the Heavens, to say nothing of people like the Sinister Minister, who distorts the perception of God in the world. Plus, there's no shortage of evil people in the world (up to and including a Complete Monster), so how good can God really be?
- God is good, but it's only according to His standards, which causes a huge split of opinions between humanity. One side disagrees with His ways, and argues that His questionable actions such as punishing people harshly for even the most minor crimes such as lying and sending people to Fire and Brimstone Hell for their lack of belief and obedience doesn't make Him completely benevolent whereas the other side argues that God's morality is perfect and humans can never comprehend it, so they should stop questioning Him and follow Him.
- Reconstructed:
- There still exists a being that wants what's best for the world, even if that includes bastardly humans. Things may look bleak now... but Hope Springs Eternal.
- The debates between mortals get heated but never violent because they all agree that God doesn't look kindly on murders. Only He gets to kill humans to punish them for the cardinal sin that is murder.
- Played For Drama:
- God regularly grants the heroes supernatural aid to fight evil but never enough to vanquish it. He doesn't tell them why and berates them for questioning Him. This creates daily conflict within The Team and eventually leads to betrayal, abandonment and death. God later explains His Omniscient Morality License; the betrayal was to convert enemies, the abandonment was to create allies for Gondor Calls for Aid and the death for coming back stronger. Some of the heroes call Him out for this.
- God is so good that He's benevolent to everyone, including the people who really don't deserve His kindness. As a result, the forces of evil succeed as often as the forces of good because He's being nice to both sides.
Back to God Is Good.
