Richard Swinburne - Is God Perfect?

What does it mean for God to be perfect? Perfectly knowledgeable? Perfectly powerful? Perfectly good? Perfectly free? Did God create the 'perfect world'? That'd be hard to believe.

[bluecircle]

By watching this I am actually farther from truth.

1) Why wouldn't a perfect God create a world where the mathemathics supports the possibility of a perfect world (defined by, say, the "perfect" number of humans)?
2) Why is having more humans morally better?

[Mastermindyoung]

God's perfection is nothing more than special pleading.

[radiophodity]

Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Voltaire [François-Marie Arouet]

The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.
Psalm 145:9 NIV

[jrcurious]

This discussion is based on an erroneous ontological conception. While objects and persons do have attributes or qualities, goodness is not an intrinsic attribute of anything. Goodness or evil is a value, an axiological entity that depends on its being on a relational reality of two beings, in which one can consider the other good, if the net effect of one increases the well-being or happiness of the other. Therefore, --aside from the issue of God's existence, not under discussion here--the concept of God's perfection, or for that matter any perfection, is absent in any real life situation. As logical positivists would put it, perfection is not a concept that describes any real entity encountered in human experience. The only accessible experience of perfection would refer to a set of intrinsic qualities of one object that satisfy the well-being conditions of another. And if we project these concepts towards the metaphysical or transcendent world of deities and perfection, we would have to conclude that God fails miserably in his goodness, because no rational being in this universe actually experiences happiness. Instead of postulating infinitely perfect gods and tormenting ourselves with "best possible worlds", our energies would be very best utilized if used to fulfill a much better world.

[MikeJunior]

0:22 if it is not logically possible for there to be a best possible world... then what in the FUCK is heaven?

[bonnieuk]

Mr Swinburne says God's morally perfect if he does nothing bad, ..punishing people in hell for eternity seems a bad move in my book. No sentient being ever born deserves a punishment that goes on 'ad infinitum' with absolutely no chance of salvation is bad to my way of thinking.

[BradHolkesvig]

Why ask these fools about God. They have never heard his voice and obeyed his commandments which is the only way to learn how we're created.

[salmanCCIE]

If Allah is perfect then why are there diseases, why do we have to use eye glasses, whydo natural disasters happen, ...? Because he willed to create such a world. He said to humans in the Qur'aan in chapter 21 verse 35, "كُلُّ نَفْسٍ ذَائِقَةُ الْمَوْتِ ۗ وَنَبْلُوكُمْ بِالشَّرِّ وَالْخَيْرِ فِتْنَةً ۖ وَإِلَيْنَا تُرْجَعُونَ

Every soul shall have a taste of death: and We test you by evil and by good by way of trial. to Us must ye return."

In Qur'aan, He does speak of a world that will be PERFECT, free of all kinds of sufferings, that will not have anything called death, in which everybody will be young, that will not have anything called getting old, that will not even require humans to eat and do any kind of work, that will be peaceful forever having everything for pure enjoyment. That world is known as Paradise that will be given to those who believed in Allah and are good and tried to bring good to the world and remove evil from it.

[markcollins]

can we get back to a serious discussion about reality

[greatray]

This apologist's resposes would have been more coherent if he would have said "yabb dabb doo" after ever question you'd asked him. His responses were just plain laughable.