J.L. Schellenberg - 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. Must God, in order to be God, be the greatest conceivable Being? Is there a difference between what is conceivable and what is possible, especially for God?

J.L. (John) Schellenberg is a Canadian philosopher known both for his atheism and for his defense of a broader skepticism compatible with atheism — a form of skepticism which, as it happens, opens a path to a new evolutionary brand of religion.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[antelopefreeway]

Would being or arriving at "perfect" mean frozen in place, unmoving, unchanging? After all, why move in any sense of the word if you have arrived at perfect? To move or change would mean you are still progressing, and have not yet have reached perfect, wouldn't it? Perfect would mean fit for any circumstance as you already are.

[davidrobinson]

I'm fascinated that Robert wants to believe in God. What lies behind his desire?

[dennishubbs]

Did the All Knowing, All Powerful, ever present God, know that his chief adversary Lucifer would rebel against him in the heavenly realm? And then allow him to deceive his first two people disguised as a serpent in the garden of Eden?

[offtheradarsomewhere.]

Is it not true to say the universal constants are perfect for all to exist.

[alexzicker]

The original meaning of perfect is complete.
From the Book of Exodus:
"I Am that I Am" - אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה‎‎
"I am who I am"
"I am what I am"
"I will be what I will be"
"I will become what I choose to become"
"I create whatever I create"

[thelionsam]

Always appreciate Lawrence's approach to questioning.

[infinitygame]

Yes Is God Perfect vast than humans understanding, God is that ultimate truth & love in reality, God is never a person but God is there in all person, the Fundamental true law

[artfuldp]

My god. How utterly and completely soul crushing would it be to answer the question by simply saying "I don't know."?

[shephusted]

perfect is subjective - the better question may be why does god have to exist - it is more of a wish by humans that god does exist and even if god does exist if god is not perfect does it even matter - god may be too busy to even worry about it. people are better if they pursue other options that matter more to their own and others daily existence - we can say that at least

[dondattaford]

What you perceive to be God and all great that's to interpretation like the smell of a rose that is the greatness of God the experience of being made aware

[TartempionLampion]

The concept of perfection exists only because the concept of imperfection exists as well. They cannot be separated, each one includes the other. Therefore "perfect" is a relative thing, thus imperfect.

[ResmithSR]

If you're a Pantheist and believe that God or Ultimate Reality is Nature or the Universe then you have no need to label God as perfect, good, loving, or any human or anthropomorphic concepts. God is not human "writ large."

[MBarberfanlife]

Anselm didn't think God was "a person", as if we were to wrongly suppose that he was a theistic personalist: he wasn't. Anselm was a classical theist

[heresa_notion_]

God's perfection (or not) is way out of my reach as a "punk" philosopher (an analogy to "anyone can play guitar"). However, the argument below seems to suggest that any religion that holds an axiom "God values us" as "true" cannot also hold "God is perfect" as "true". Or can you take issue with either my semantics, or the truth/falsity of the premises? Also I doubt this argument is original to me, as it seems pretty simple. Can anyone cite a reference?

1) If God were perfect, there could be nothing about our existence that God could value, given God has no want and no flaw, that could ever be addressed by either our existing or our not existing.
2) God does value us.
3) Therefore, God is imperfect.
4) If God is imperfect, the "Problem of Evil" is not such a big problem (for God, that is; it's still a big problem for us).

This argument actually bothers me a lot, if I put my Christian hat on, but not if I put my pantheist hat on. That is, if you are a pantheist, God can trivially value us, because we can value us (and God could only be perfect if the universe is, which I'd opine, probably it isn't). Premise 1-3 is the standard argument; however, adding premise 4), you get the "deluxe" argument.

[duncanwallace]

As people tie themselves in philosophical knots about god, the more obvious it becomes that god is a creation of the human mind.

[smailhamza]

I hear some people say: If God is perfect, why does Evil exist? but Good also exists and to understand the whole one must know the divine plan of creation, understand the duality in which it exists, understand life, death and what follows.
The True concept of God's perfection is only seen through a global vision of creation and the meaning of existence and it is God Himself who must reveal it to us if not the human as brilliant enlightened scientific philosopher or else has no chance of finding out. The Quran claims to be the latest updated revelation have you just read it while looking for the Version of Truth that it announces and everyone is free to believe or not

[SirLothian]

If there is a god, I have never understood why we think it must be perfect in any way. There are so many other possibilities other than perfect. Perhaps he has great publicity managers. IT seems to me that this is more a wish or desire than a fact.

[NothingMaster]

God is so perfect that he does NOT have to exist. Now, that’s a God that I can believe in. 😂

[sciencefirst]

No such thing as perfect or God. Besides... which God are we talking about?

[docdaytona]

There is no reason to believe that any intelligence that may have created the Universe is PERFECT. Extremely powerful, extremely intelligent (relative to us)? Most likely. But no more perfect than a master watchmaker or programmer.

We could just as easily be in a simulation run by some entity of any degree of imperfection, morally and computationally. Or we could be in the hands of a highly flawed or even downright malevolent supernatural deity. Until further evidence is presented, they’re all still very much on the table. Along with no maker at all.