Christians who say “God is not a moral agent” mean that God isn’t bound by moral rules the way humans are. Moral rules like “don’t kill” or “don’t lie” apply to creatures with limited knowledge, power, and authority, while God is understood to be the source of morality rather than someone who must obey a higher standard. The idea is that God creates moral law and embodies perfect goodness, humans are the moral agents who must follow God’s commands, and God’s actions can’t be evaluated by the same rules because He has no obligations to an authority above Himself. In short, God is goodness itself, not a being judged by external ethical rules.
CLAIM: Some argue God is not a moral agent because he always knows what to do and cannot deliberate, yet they also claim he cannot do or endorse evil.
→ This still treats God as bound to what is morally right.
CLAIM: Many say God owes humans nothing and thus has no moral obligations.
→ But lacking obligations does not mean lacking moral agency; it simply means having different obligations.
If God owes us nothing, that is already a moral position: it claims that, according to the moral order, God is exempt. If God can harm or neglect us because he has no obligations, that is a moral description, not a departure from morality. Thus, saying God owes us nothing still places God within a moral framework—it merely assigns him a status of total privilege within it.
CLAIM: Humans are considered moral agents despite having no moral obligations to lower creatures (e.g., ants). God would be the same.
→ Therefore, God could still be a moral agent even if he owes humans nothing. If anything, the creator of moral beings carries greater responsibility, because those beings’ capacities, inclinations, and moral challenges come directly from that creator.
CLAIM: Appealing to “God is not a moral agent” is used to excuse divine involvement in harmful natural realities (e.g., disease, genetic predispositions).
→ This creates inconsistencies in how moral accountability is assigned.
CLAIM: Humans are blamed for actions that fall short of what they ought to be, yet God is exempted from the same judgment.
→ This creates a double standard: actions called sinful for humans are reinterpreted as good when attributed to God.
I'd add that as projection of yourself is involved in how you see God, this is inexcusable for it reflects on you. You are outsourcing a wish to see some "might is right" unto God. If God encourages you to blame people, not him then he is responsible.
CLAIM: If murder or harm is morally wrong, then it is wrong regardless of who performs the act.
→ Exempting God from moral evaluation undermines moral consistency. It shows the God-narrative is what matters to you, not morality so much.
SO?
If God is not a moral agent, then a God who is a moral agent would be morally superior and a better basis for ethical life.
A non-moral God cannot serve as a moral role model, making devotion to such a God irrelevant to becoming a good person.
It is inconsistent to claim that belief in God honors goodness while portraying God as beyond moral agency and therefore unfit to guide moral behavior. This includes when God supposedly makes the people in your life the reflection of his love and mercy.
AND:
If God is said to be beyond moral obligations, then:
Any level of suffering becomes permitted simply by fiat.
No evil event can ever count as evidence against God’s goodness.
No moral judgment about divine action is possible.
But then moral language becomes meaningless. Saying “God is good” reduces to:
“God is whatever God is, and I approve of it regardless.”
This is not morality—it’s deference.
APPENDIX:
You can’t say God is not a moral agent and still call God “perfectly good.” That requires that God stands in some meaningful relation to moral norms. Otherwise the word good is emptied out. Clearly, you have turned good from good into your own notions - projection is happening. It is done to good and it is done to God.
If you think moral relativism is bad, or moral nihilism is bad, how much better are you?