Problems With God's Perfection.

First Post. Hello.
I’ll get straight into it.I’m not saying that I do or don’t believe in God, but I thought of this argument the other day and was wondering what others thought of it and what flaws they could see in it?

1. People are individuals and have different perspectives on issues.
2. God is perfect.
3. God can do all things which are not a contradiction in terms.
4. Therefore, a perfect God would be different according to people’s different perspectives. (1,2)
5. Therefore, God cannot fulfill all people’s requirements of perfect as this would inevitably lead to contradictions. (3,4)
6. Therefore God does not exist. (2,5)

The key issue which this argument examines is Gods perfection. Perfect for who?For example: Some Christian fundamentalists would define a perfect God as one who punishes Homosexuals for eternity in hell. Others would define a perfect God as one who gives mercy to all. God cannot logically do both as this is a contradiction.Also is God perfectly forgiving? If so he must first have had to have felt to be wronged. Edited by Critical Rationalist, : No reason given.Edited by Critical Rationalist, : Is this to the forums satisfaction?Edited by Admin, : Fix list.

I've made the required changes is it all ship-shape? By the way this is not my first forum and I’ve looked around a bit so need not worry about me.

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that in all of its qualities, it possesses them in the utmost sense.

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I still don't really understand what the perfection element of God is; omniscience and omnipotence I can understand, but what qualities does he posses in the utmost sense?

Isn't this model of perfect justice and perfect forgiving exactly the contradiction which I have used as an example in my first post? How can God both employ perfect justice, by which there would be punishment, and forgiving by there would be no punishment?

'iano' you've made some interesting points but I have to say I think they're flawed at this point in time:Your model of the man who chooses his own destiny concurrently supports my inquiry. You state that 'perfect forgiveness' can be vetoed by Gods 'perfect promise keeping' this is still a contradiction in my logic, Straggler has pointed out why.

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Technically speaking, forgiveness eliminates sin from a mans life.

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I'm not sure I understand this, what do you mean by "technically speaking?" Although I am keen to keep this is as more a general theological, western monotheistic tradition, discussion without getting into specific dogma, I am interested to better know your point of view. Edited by Critical Rationalist, : No reason given.

Your point is well taken Bluejay and I've tried to, somewhat artificially, to create a response that would generate some further discussion.If then God is perfect by his own point of view, would not this then inevitably create a conflict with some persons point of view of perfection. Then it would be the case that the person(s) is wrong and it is possible that all people are wrong. So then could not all our ideas about acting 'good' with a propensity to be perfectly 'good' then be wrong anyway?

I'll reply with my thoughts on perfection tomorrow (its 10:36PM Brisbane time) when I can properly look over whats been said.Bluejay on a side note you say you're a Mormon, correct me if I’m wrong my education on the subject is basically that from which I can absorb from TV; but don’t Mormons believe that Jesus Christ went to America, practice polygamy and have some other bizarre beliefs? If so do you believe in these and why?Further more you seem to be very rational and intelligent and appear to have no proselytising inclination.

You know what I’ll stay up, it won't take me long as I’m asking questions.Perfection and Gods forgiveness have to me already thrown up some elements which are problematic and 'flimsy'.I want to ask a base question first before I leep into things, in what ways is God perfect?

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.

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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.

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.

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I would have thought that in order to discuss attributes of God that might or might not be perfect you would assume for the sake of argument that God exists. There is no need to believe that God exists in fact however.

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Yes and no, in many ways we were discussion if he did exist. Those who take the position of believing in God assume for the sake of the argument that he does exist. Those who are atheist would assume he doesn't but then make hypotheticals. Those who are agnostic, like me, sit on the fence and try and look at all the evidence.

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You would also need to have some idea of the God you wanted to talk about. For instance, you indicate God as a personhood who does things(in your OP). Where did you get this idea if not by assuming some or other dogma for the sake of argument?

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I was trying to talk about God in the most general way starting at the base elements that are largly agreed upon by western theologians: Omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence as well as the idea of perfection. Then through some logical steps examine this idea. Say you didn't know anything about Christianity and someone posed you this problem, it would be highly unlikly that you would create the institution of Christianity all the dogma within to explain it.

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The example you gave and I responded to didn't necessitate the introduction of Christian dogma (although I did expand in that direction).

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Case in point.

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...I'm not too sure what kind of discussion you want to have.

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See the one me and Bluejay have had.Edited by Critical Rationalist, : No reason given.Edited by Critical Rationalist, : No reason given.

For me this, the interplay of perfection, is resolved and to some extent the ideas of how we know anything about Gods attributes. I explained my conclusion in an earlier post.That conclusion being reached, baring the interjection of some new incite, made the topic stagnate. In the meantime me iano have been having a discussion on if dogma is good form.I think what you have proposed, Grizz, is a fine continuation of the theme.