Problems With God's Perfection.

Who said a God must be perfect or has to be? Interestingly enough, none of the religious texts of the world's monotheistic religions explicitly describe God as a perfect being incapable of error. Divine Perfection, omnipotence, omniscience, etc are all ideas developed through the ages by Theologians and Philosophers, not religious mystics, prophets, or scribes.One could infer from the Biblical story of the flood that God made a fallible error in judgement when creating mankind. "...God saw that man was wicked." If God was omniscient and omnipotent, he wouldn't have had to have seen that man was wicked, he would have known that man spelled trouble ahead of time and could have saved all the effort by simply not creating man to begin with. It's as if God was disappointed with his handiwork and was saying, "Bad idea...."

Hi,I meant perfect in this context to be omnipotent and omnisicient - not just error-free or scoring 100%.Regarding Mormonism, I know next to nothing about the belief system and you obviously now more than I. Since I trust what you say, apparently there are writings that explicitly spell out God's properties. I guess I was wrong.Regarding the Biblical quote provided, without knowing the translation from the extant texts, who knows what the context of the Greek word was that is used to denote 'perfect' in English. Only a reading in the original language would answer this definitively. Everything we read in the Biblical texts is simply the best attempt to translate meaning from one language to another. Some Greek words don't translate well to English, others are context-specific, and still others have no direct translation and are approximations of meaning. It gets even worse when things are translated from Hebrew to Greek to English or Aramaic to Greek to English.Without knowing the translation, I highly doubt the intention of the original author was to call for man to be a perfect being(omnipotent and omniscient). The verse is extolling man to do something -- this 'something' cannot be omnipotence or omniscience, since by definition man is capable of neither. In early Christian circles, I would think it would be rather blasphemous to suggest man could be like God, so I do not see this verse as an explicit statement of God's properties. Since I doubt the original community would endorse blasphemy, it must have meant something that was attainable by Man. Deferring to the theology of the early Christian community, I would say this was an attempt by the author to call for man to strive to live without sin, rather than a call for man to be like God. Although it would also be blasphemous to suggest man is capable of living without sin, calling for man to strive for this state certainly would not be.

Well, all we have to go by are the written accounts of the period. I am far from an expert on the subject but I do know Biblical scholars and historians have placed early Christian writings in chronological order and Paul's letters pre-date the appearance of the Gospels. Outside of a few sparse comments by Josephus, Paul was the first one to really write anything of significance about Christianity or Jesus. If we want to know what people believed, Paul is the source to go to.Scholars also believe prior to Paul's written works, everything was relayed by word of mouth, kind of like campfire stories - the 'Q' source. As more and more verbal information was circulated, there likely was editing and error in transmitting the information - no doubt a lot of 'tabloid' type stuff. There are tons of apocryphal gospels out there with some really wild stories and sayings mixed in with a lot of the common themes you see in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Even if one accepts the Canonical Gospels as inspired, one has to admit there were a lot of very active imaginations at work in some of the written accounts we know circulated.Since we don't have access to any verbal 'Q' source, the earliest and least 'tainted' written source available regarding Christian theological beliefs of the period is Paul -- he was obviously preaching to various established Christian communities scattered around Asia.Even though the figure of Jesus was the impetus for the belief and the existence of the movement, I would think it is proper to say Paul is really the individual who 'founded' Christian theology and gave it substance. Although Paul broke with many Jewish traditions(food, ritual, marriage, various theologies), the 'serious' prohibitions still applied -- idolatry, blasphemy, sexual practices etc. Given this, it would indeed be blasphemy for someone at the time to proclaim that it is possible for one to be equal to God or have the same properties as God. It is this reason that I think the word 'perfection' is probably an improper translation.Also, I think 'Children of God' in a theological context is simply a metepahor for a creative force that gives birth to something new, it does not imply a direct lineage or inheritance. Just my humble opinions of course. Everthing I am saying could be complete BS.

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.

Critical, I also am not sure where this thread is going either.Maybe we can start by asking how various faiths have arrived at notions of God's atrributes? Where did they get the idea that God is Omnipotent and Omniscient? Did we get these ideas from revelation or do we somehow think of them as logically neccesary attributes of God?