Problems With God's Perfection.

At least you’re honest enough to admit it. The world would be a much better place if more people were willing to do the same. Debates would certainly be a lot less interesting (and funny), but we would certainly get along better. You certainly don’t hear any mention of anybody writing anything until Paul’s letters, do you? If more people paid attention to stuff like this, we wouldn’t have trouble with people claiming the Bible is perfect, infallible and written by the Hand of God, would we? There’s a reason the different parts of the Bible are called “books”: they were written separately and were not originally intended to be compiled into a single, coherent volume.And, because they weren’t intended to be a single, definitive volume, they can’t be viewed as a comprehensive textbook for the practices, doctrines and truths of Christianity. This would be akin to compiling several hundred random letters and essays by scientists through a certain period of time and tauting them as the fundamental principles of science.Therefore, I must agree with you that my former appeal to the Bible as backing up God’s perfection is a logical fallacy and a complete non sequitur. The Bible is not proof that God is perfect. In fact, if He wrote it, I would say it is very good evidence to the contrary. Well, this is always a possibility, too. From my viewpoint, though, once you start interpreting things in the Bible as metaphors, you begin to realize that the line between literal and metaphorical is a little hard to resolve, and you can’t really be certain that anything in the Bible isn’t a metaphor (including God Himself). That, I think, is why the “biblical literalist” school (including everybody’s favorite wacky PhD, Ken Ham) doesn’t want to delve into possible metaphors in the Scriptures. Yet, these people still translate “Children of God” as something other than a father-son sort of relationship, which wouldn’t be a literal translation.Metaphorical interpretations add another layer of potentially confounding information to Critical Rationalist’s list: maybe God’s perfection is only a metaphor. Maybe references to His perfection are only a teaching aid, or a motivational gimick to get us to be good and to believe that God can save us. If God weren't perfect, He would certainly benefit from the support this would give Him, right?

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There was a point to this [post], but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind. -modified from Life, the Universe and Everything, Douglas Adams

So have we come to a place now in this discussion where we want to say that we don’t really know what Gods perfection is in the true original context? Therefore we can’t make any steadfast comments on its plausibility?Question: imagine, that we were back in time and we had for instance a Paul with us and we could understand his language in its original context, how do we know that what he is saying is correct?The above assumptions/questions are based on the last couple replies which are dealing narrowly with Christian tradition. Do we also agree that the idea of Gods perfection is flawed and indefensible, even more so when looked at in a general sense without dogma to support it?If not why not? Edited by Critical Rationalist, : No reason given.

You excluded God acting in contradictory fashion in your OP - indicating contradiction to be imperfection. You have been presented with perfect forgiveness that doesn't contradict.?

Not to get too far off topic, but the one thing that always struck me about the claim of divine scriptural origins is, why all the induendo, metaphor and veiled references that leaves everyone guessing? I would think a divine being would spell it out so folks would not still be debating and questioning intent and meaning thousands of years later. No disrespect or insult intended to any believers, but IMO, I would think a divine being could do a better job of relaying information about himself. Edited by Grizz, : No reason given.

You would have to define God as a perfect being and define what it means to be perfect, then accept that as your axiom. I think it is something you will either accept or you won't. Like most religious or theological precepts, it's really not a matter of proof, but of faith and acceptance.

...and leave no means of escape from his clutches?That wouldn't be fair.

How is knowing the truth putting you in anybody's clutches? Isn't knowing the truth equated with freedom (John 8:32)? Why on earth would you withhold the truth, just so people could be free to not believe it? That doesn't make any sense (unless free will is as important as I argued it was in our first discussion together). What wouldn't be fair is to withhold the truth from everybody because some people want the opportunity to escape from it.But, is fairness part of perfection? Does God have to be fair to be perfect? I mean, despite what religions and motivational speakers insist, everybody is not equal, and you can't really do anything you set your mind to: there are limitations, and they don't always balance out with your strengths (nor do they always balance out with other peoples'). Maybe, then, He doesn't tell people the whole truth because it would be unfair to the people who don't have the intelligence or capacity to understand the deeper parts. His rules are also set to the least common denominator of the populace so that individual limitations wouldn't be as big a factor in determining salvation. In other words, He's trying to be fair. Maybe this is "perfect fairness."Edited by Bluejay, : No reason given.

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There was a point to this [post], but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind. -modified from Life, the Universe and Everything, Douglas Adams

Faith, my good man. That's how you "know" anything and everything in western religions. The Mormon church has a prophet (considered by us to be the equal of Paul, Moses and all the rest in every way), and we believe that he has visions and revelations just like John and Isaiah. Of course, we can't really prove any of this (thus, we can't really "know" it, but we go ahead and claim that we do anyway).We also take God's perfection on faith. That seems prudent, right? If God exists, and if He did what He claims to have done (or something like it), we would do well to do what He says, yeah? If He wants us to believe He's perfect, and He can hold or "salvation" or "immortal soul" contingent on believing it, why not just do it? Ah, I see what you're saying. We've deviated considerably from your original intent with this thread. Let me go back and do a summary of what I tend to agree with from this thread.I think omniscience is theoretically possible for a being with infinite brain capacity (or equivalent measure). Infinite intelligence would also lead to infinite wisdom. Perfect fairness may be possible for a being with infinite wisdom and an intimate, perfect knowledge of each individual. Perfect forgiveness, as iano has put forth, is also likely from this. Ability to do absolutely anything is probably not: this would have too much potential for contradictions. A complete lack of restrictions would render most of our beliefs contradictory (God is just, but doesn't have to be if He doesn't feel like it) or meaningless.

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There was a point to this [post], but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind. -modified from Life, the Universe and Everything, Douglas Adams

It's not that the Bible doesn't contain truth. It's that the truth it contains can be written off as being such on account of it's being old. Or on account of it 'suffering' from translational issues (which disguise if not hide truth). Or on account of it being determined to have been written at times which don't tally up in the mind of someone who considers such things as a means to deny it's truth content. The person who is to be damned requires a fitting means whereby they can enable themselves to be damned. Means of persisting in denial of truth seem to have been provided.You don't need freewill in order to plump for damnation of your own accord (with an assist from satan) - as was argued in our first discussion. As to the other destination we can end up at? You say yourself that it is the truth that sets us free. Gods truth does indeed to that - with only our choice for it not to do so preventing it doing that.- I don't know if your familiar with Jaywill? If you are, you might know that he is a person who has spent the last 40 years or so unveiling truths in the Bible for himself. The way he describes it is as I find it at my earlier state in proceedings. We are both miners digging for gold nuggets. Although the gold might be buried in translational error, the problem seems to me to be more one of oversupply. Gold nuggets lie jammed in position by other gold nuggets.The truth is not so much withheld. Rather is it that people are blind to what is gold. Even an original copy of all the biblical letters placed in their hands wouldn't permit blind people to see any better than they already can't. Even those who were blind but now can see see as through a glass darkly. A lifetime spent studying Gods truth wouldn't reveal all there is too it.- The gospel is described as "the power of God unto salvation for all who believe". There doesn't appear to be any reliance placed on the persons ability to comprehend. The power running the salvation engine is Gods. Otherwise the unintelligent, the very young, the intellectually disabled, the deaf etc... couldn't be saved. Whereas God so loved the world..A simple reading of what constitutes perfect fairness would insist that everyone get the same chance as everyone else to be saved - irrespective of where or when they live. The gospel of God (power unto salvation) can do this and one of the delivery methods for the gospel of God is the written word of God. Not that that's the only means of delivery at Gods disposal.There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of understanding required in order that a person be saved. The stripped down truth a person needs to arrive would seem to be only this:"I need God"If this is what God is attempting to convince them of and if they believe God on this (even if they don't believe in God) then God will, as he did with Abraham, credit that belief as righteousness.No accurate translation required.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : tidy upEdited by iano, : No reason given.

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I think omniscience is theoretically possible for a being with infinite brain capacity (or equivalent measure). Infinite intelligence would also lead to infinite wisdom. Perfect fairness may be possible for a being with infinite wisdom and an intimate, perfect knowledge of each individual. Perfect forgiveness, as iano has put forth, is also likely from this. Ability to do absolutely anything is probably not: this would have too much potential for contradictions. A complete lack of restrictions would render most of our beliefs contradictory (God is just, but doesn't have to be if He doesn't feel like it) or meaningless.

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There are three types of obvious contradictions which can occur when using 'perfect'.Perfect is an absolute, any statement where there is an 'except' in it, is by definition not one relating to an absolute statement. For instance: God is perfectly forgiving, except to those who don't take God into there heart.There is another type of contradiction which can occur when talking about perfect that is two statements of perfection which are binary opposites: for instance God is not perfectly good and perfectly evil, because we put these two ideas on a continuum and they are opposites.The third kind I can see is sort of a child of the first two and I'm making a subtle distinction, where one type of perfection disallows another kind for instance: being perfectly fearless and perfectly courageous, because to be courageous you need to have firstly felt fear.Bluejay, I find your post somewhat curious, are you challenging Gods omnipotence?

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Ability to do absolutely anything is probably not: this would have too much potential for contradictions.

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...and don't perfect fairness and perfect forgiveness somewhat fall into the third category: God is fair, punishment and reward is dealt out in perfect measure for those who do good and wicked things (note: by the way this isn't the case in reality, bad things happen to good people) but if God is perfectly forgiving then he need not punish at all.I think you have already created some ideas that answer/fulfill/disable my argument in many ways and they are old 'rocks' of theology.1. Faith
2. Epistemology, We don't know we know?...and the first one leads the second one, we don't know about Gods perfection, we have faith in it.For me this directs to something else, we may put our heads together and by using reasoning figure out some solid, logically consistent, irrefutable ways which God can be perfect and if need be create the ground rules, dogma, by which they are consistent. We would have to probably up date our definition of God and clearly define all the syntax we were using to make it work.But is there any point? Would not this be a somewhat artificial process and wouldn't, the rocks above still apply in many ways?I think we might only come to one conclusion that we can't really logically accept a blanket 'God is perfect' statement without leading to problems and contractions in the ways I’ve outlined above. What do you reckon?iano, I'm sorry if your finding it frustrating that I'm not really responding to your comments but we are speaking two different languages my friend and you are not going to convince me of anything speaking the language of dogma; talking about sin and indebtment to God and the word of the Bible... this is true of, I would think, many agnostics, atheists and critical rationalists. I feel that dogma creates a straw man. I do find it acceptable sometimes to use such things such as; to use examples from the Bible; without bringing 'the full spiel' to bear, when you interpret the evidence to the extent of extracting the logic out of it and applying it in a general sense. I think logical general questions, like mine, need logical general answers.Lastly, I have a new query in a new thread called ”Problems with God and Freewill’, and I would love for all who have participated in this thread to be involved with my new thread.

You asked for some qualities of God that were perfect and I supplied a couple (justice and forgiveness). You said this about them: In response I went on to explain how there was no contradiction, which involved explaining what forgiveness is (no matter who is doing the forgiving) and what perfect forgiveness is (no matter who is doing the forgiving). One could call that dogma or one could call it mechanics of rational approach: seeing where forgiveness fits in a larger mechanism and how it works perfectly within that larger mechanism.If not employing such an explanation then we are left with a contradiction arising out of (I suspect) dogma of another type. Take this dogmatic statement for example: The speed of light from my lightbulb is an (effective) absolute except when the light switch is turned off. Does the inapplicability of the speed of light in the turned off situation impinge on it being an absolute when applicable? Clearly not.You would need to to examine what forgiveness is in order to see whether is it applicable and whether there can be talk of it being perfect or otherwise. If my friend who trashed the M3 nipped around to the garage and bought a replacement before I got back then there can be no application of my forgiveness. And no talk of levels of perfection regarding it.It simply doesn't exist in order that it be examined. Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

iano, I realise my post was somewhat antagonistic, you've done well to keep you're reply civil. Baring some new interjection of brilliance this idea is resolved as far as I can see. So why not discuss this.

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One could call that dogma or one could call it mechanics of rational approach: seeing where forgiveness fits in a larger mechanism and how it works perfectly within that larger mechanism.

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You already cannot experience God through your senses and there’s a good many of us that would say, we either haven't, or contest that no one can experience God through the faculty of our mind; nor through the machine or the ghost. Dogma complicates the whole issue even further, it creates a set of rules, you have said mechanisms, by which we might discuss God. But in this frame work its impossible not to believe in God, because it has been set up in such a way that it is allegedly consistent; it has been produced in a way as to generate belief in a religion once someone takes on certain components of the Dogma. What’s the point of having a religion if no one believes in it?Here’s the part where it breaks down, much of the dogma can't really be experience through your senses either and so only resonates in the mind anyway. Take sin, sin is extensively evil, but what’s considered evil is culturally relevant, both in place and time, and if you contest its not it is a very ethnocentric idea. So then we are discussing something which can't be experienced using a set of rules which can't be experienced. Creating is I have said a straw man which one must first kill every time before being able to discuss the actual point of an argument.There are multiple sets of dogma as well this seems to me a very obvious reason why dogma should be not be included.Dogma is useful in private belief systems, proselytising of new members and creating reasons why people should be punished. It’s not particularly useful in making open thinking, religion nondescript, people take a point of view, because they like me see the many reasons why not to believe it.

I hope you see that the bolded phrases are complete contradictions of one another. This was exactly my point. Were you arguing with me, or agreeing with me? It felt like an argument, but you just said the same thing I said. But, this doesn't really answer any questions. "Calculator" is not the answer to "How is multiplication done?" This is only the way to reap the rewards without having to learn or even to think. It only tells us what we have to do, not how the whole process works. In other words, this is only watered-down truth, not real truth. It's the simple answer written for the least common denominator of the intended audience. That's what I said before. It's easier to explain "I did it," than to give all the details about how I did it, and it's easier to say "I am omnipotent" than to spell out all the things that I can and can't do, especially when the audience is never going to run into something I can't do.If this is the tenor of "truth" in the Bible (and I think it is), all creationists should shut up right now and close the DI and the ICR and the Creation Museum. Don't get me wrong: I think my religion is absolutely essential to my salvation and my family's happiness, but I don't think God has to be magic and all-powerful to be God.

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There was a point to this [post], but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind. -modified from Life, the Universe and Everything, Douglas Adams

Critical Rationalist: there's a little "reply" button at the bottom right corner of each post. If you use this, your reply will post as a reply to a specific message. Generally, it's better to use this one, because it's easier for your readers to tell who you're talking to.Also, use the "peek" button beside that "reply" button to see how I quote you like this: I thought you were challenging His omnipotence with your opening post.I explained in my previous post (to iano) the notion of narrow truth: what is written in the Bible is the truth as far as we need to know to reach salvation (i.e. it contains answers like "calculator"), but is not necessarily the entire mechanistic description of the universe.Therefore, God doesn't have to be "perfect" in every sense in order to be "perfect" as far as our salvation is concerned. It follows that He doesn't have to be "omnipotent" in every sense in order to be "omnipotent" as far as our salvation is concerned.Edited by Bluejay, : Capitalized "His": it's more respectful.

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There was a point to this [post], but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind. -modified from Life, the Universe and Everything, Douglas Adams

Fair enough. Good answer.