Why must God be the Perfect Being

[Veritas Aequitas]

Why must God be the Perfect Being?
Matthew Barrett · March 11, 2019
https://credomag.com/2019/03/why-must-g ... ect-being/

Why must God be the perfect being?
Is God is someone than whom none greater can be conceived?
How does God’s perfection set the trajectory for all other attributes in God?
How does God’s perfection necessitate his infinitude?

In this new Credo video, Matthew Barrett discusses what perfect-making attributes must follow if Anselm is right that God is someone than whom none greater can be conceived.

Watch other videos like this one on the Credo Video page.
And if you enjoyed this video, check out Matthew Barrett’s new book, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Baker).

For too long, Christians have domesticated God, bringing him down to our level, as if he is a God who can be tamed.
But he is a God who is high and lifted up, the Creator rather than the creature, someone than which none greater can be conceived.
If God is the most perfect, supreme being, infinite and incomprehensible, then certain perfect-making attributes must be true of him.
Perfections like aseity, simplicity, immutability, and eternity shield God from being crippled by creaturely limitations.

At the same time, this all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-wise God exhibits perfect wisdom, holiness, and love as he makes known who he is and how he will save us.

When we need to be reminded of God’s magnificence, the attributes of God show us exactly why God is worthy of worship: there is none like him.

Join Matthew Barrett as he rediscovers these divine perfections and finds himself surprised by the God he thought he knew.

I believe while it is not explicit, the most critical reason 'Why must God be the Perfect Being?' is this;
".. how he will save us"

save theists from what?

The fact is theists want to be saved from the terrible exuding subliminal pains due to cognitive dissonances driven by an inherent existential crisis in ALL humans.
To be 'certainly' assured they will be saved against all other threats and odds, their God must be absolutely perfect, i.e. a God that no greater perfection can be conceived.

This is the reason why the God of the major religions, i.e. Christianity and Islam [comprising appx 5 billion theists] must be absolutely perfect. This is state of perfection is stated in their holy texts, Gospels [only not OT] for Christians and Quran for Islam..
Any erosion of perfection from absolute perfection will erode their confidence that they will be saved with eternal life in heaven and paradise.

ETA:
If God is not claimed to be absolutely perfect, then, such an imperfect God is subject to the following;

• 1. Such a God could be a 1 million times more intelligent Matrix God that is creating our current reality, and we are merely sort of brain-in-a-wat or a puppet-on-a-string programmed and controlled by that imperfect Matrix God.
  
  2. An imperfect Matrix God is subject to infinite regression, i.e. who created God and so on.
  
  3. An imperfect is subjected to be ridiculed by other theists who claim their God is of absolute perfection no greater can be conceived.

Believing in an absolute perfect God is so easy, i.e. merely believe without any need for proofs, the problem of 1, 2 and 3 is resolved.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Notes:
References from the Holy Book.

Christianity
What is the meaning of perfection in the Bible?
https://www.gotquestions.org/perfection ... Bible.html

Absolute perfection is a quality that belongs to God alone.
Yet only in Matthew 5:48 does the Bible explicitly state that God is by nature perfect: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
As God is the perfect being, all that He does is perfect: “He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4).
His knowledge is perfect (Job 37:16).
His way is perfect, and His Word is flawless: “As for God, his way is perfect: The LORD’s word is flawless; he shields all who take refuge in him” (Psalm 18:30).
God’s laws are also perfect (Psalm 19:7; James 1:25).
The apostle Paul describes God’s will as perfect: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2).

Islam
Declaring Allah's Perfection
by Amatullah

• In the Qur’an there are a few surahs that begin with tasbeeh, a declaration of Allah’s Perfection, known as Al Musabbihaat. These surahs begin in different forms yet they all point to the same thing: there is no Rabb higher or greater than Allah azza wa jal.
  
  Tasbeeh comes from seen-ba-ha (س-ب-ح) and it means to glorify, praise, magnify, extol Allah, by tongue or by heart. It includes:
  
  To say He has no flaw in His Perfection, that He is Far above any imperfection.
  He is far above and beyond any similarity to His Creation.
  He is free from and above all kinds of association (shirk) and any un-divine attributes.
  When one does tasbeeh, they negate any flaw and affirm all perfection in Allah azza wa jal.
  https://www.virtualmosque.com/islam-stu ... erfection/

Brahman
In the major Hindu religions, Brahman is considered to be the Absolute having the quality of absoluteness.

• PHILOSOPHY
  -a value or principle which is regarded as universally valid or which may be viewed without relation to other things.
  something that exists without being dependent on anything else.
  -ultimate reality; God.
  - Absolute;
  -the Absolute
  Google Dictionary

free from imperfection; complete; perfect:
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/absolute

[Veritas Aequitas]

The fact is theists want to be saved from the terrible exuding subliminal pains due to cognitive dissonances driven by an inherent existential crisis in ALL humans.

The Buddhists recognized the existence of such cognitive dissonances driven by an inherent existential crisis in ALL humans more than 2500 years ago.
Instead to resorting to an absolutely perfect God, the Buddhists resolve the cognitive dissonances via a non-theistic approach by addressing the root causes via psychological approaches.

Buddhism's 4NT-8FP is a Life Problem Solving Technique.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=25193
Unfortunately when this solutions was introduced 2500 years ago, it was too advanced for the lay people during that time.

However in recent years there is a trend of more and more people rational Buddhism leaning towards Buddhist philosophies and practices; many do adopt them without being Buddhist per se.

[Harbal]

Why must God be the Perfect Being?
Matthew Barrett · March 11, 2019
https://credomag.com/2019/03/why-must-g ... ect-being/

Why must God be the perfect being?
Is God is someone than whom none greater can be conceived?
How does God’s perfection set the trajectory for all other attributes in God?
How does God’s perfection necessitate his infinitude?

In this new Credo video, Matthew Barrett discusses what perfect-making attributes must follow if Anselm is right that God is someone than whom none greater can be conceived.

Watch other videos like this one on the Credo Video page.
And if you enjoyed this video, check out Matthew Barrett’s new book, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Baker).

For too long, Christians have domesticated God, bringing him down to our level, as if he is a God who can be tamed.
But he is a God who is high and lifted up, the Creator rather than the creature, someone than which none greater can be conceived.
If God is the most perfect, supreme being, infinite and incomprehensible, then certain perfect-making attributes must be true of him.
Perfections like aseity, simplicity, immutability, and eternity shield God from being crippled by creaturely limitations.

At the same time, this all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-wise God exhibits perfect wisdom, holiness, and love as he makes known who he is and how he will save us.

When we need to be reminded of God’s magnificence, the attributes of God show us exactly why God is worthy of worship: there is none like him.

Join Matthew Barrett as he rediscovers these divine perfections and finds himself surprised by the God he thought he knew.

I believe while it is not explicit, the most critical reason 'Why must God be the Perfect Being?' is this;
".. how he will save us"

save theists from what?

The fact is theists want to be saved from the terrible exuding subliminal pains due to cognitive dissonances driven by an inherent existential crisis in ALL humans.
To be 'certainly' assured they will be saved against all other threats and odds, their God must be absolutely perfect, i.e. a God that no greater perfection can be conceived.

This is the reason why the God of the major religions, i.e. Christianity and Islam [comprising appx 5 billion theists] must be absolutely perfect. This is state of perfection is stated in their holy texts, Gospels [only not OT] for Christians and Quran for Islam..
Any erosion of perfection from absolute perfection will erode their confidence that they will be saved with eternal life in heaven and paradise.

I don't see why anyone couldn't believe in a God that wasn't "perfect", but was still able to "save" them. There may well be some who do believe that; someone may even have written a book, or made a video, about it. Have you checked? I suspect not, because you are only prepared to look at what you want to see; that is evident in every thing you write. You probably won't even see this post, as I suspect you stopped acknowledging my existence quite a while back. Let's test that by seeing if you respond to it.

[Iwannaplato]

VA has used Chatgpt as evidence so here's what Chatgpt has to say:

The question of the existence and nature of God is a complex and deeply philosophical one, with various perspectives and beliefs. Different religious traditions and philosophical frameworks offer different understandings of God's nature and attributes.

In some religious traditions, God is believed to be absolutely perfect, possessing attributes such as omniscience (all-knowing), omnipotence (all-powerful), and omnibenevolence (all-good). These traditions often argue that a perfect and supreme being is necessary to explain the existence and order of the universe.

However, there are also philosophical and theological perspectives that propose the existence of a deity who may not be absolutely perfect in the traditional sense. For example, some philosophical arguments suggest the possibility of a limited or imperfect god, who may have certain powers or attributes but is not all-knowing, all-powerful, or all-good. These perspectives allow for the existence of a divine being that is less than perfect, and potentially subject to limitations or imperfections.

[Iwannaplato]

This is state of perfection is stated in their holy texts, Gospels [only not OT] for Christians and Quran for Islam..

In the OT you have an often angry, surprised, veangeful, and at times regretful deity.

Is Noah's Flood evidence that God is fallible? How?

Yes. He changed his mind, didn’t he? But the Jews had no other choice because they only had one god. In the original story, Enlil was the god that tried to kill all humans and Enki was the one that saved King Ziusudra and his family. When the Jews copied that story, they did not have a good god and a bad god. They only had one. So they had to make their one god both good and bad. And so they made him change his mind not once, but twice. First the Jewish god changes his mind about humans and regrets that he had created them. Then he regrets that he had regretted that and restores everything to the status quo. If that’s not fallible, I dont know what is.

You have Jesus feeling abandoned in the NT.

Even Allah, in the one religion that comes closest to VA's ideal God, we have a deity that gets pissed off. Why would an omnipotent, all knowledgeable deity have any reason to get angry?

Yes, again, when pressed Abrahamists - representing their dominator transcendent deities - will say, yes God is perfect. But there own texts show their mixed feelings and beliefs.

And then individual believers in these religions can easily say that Allah and Yahwed and God are all the same deity.

And there are all the religions and deities that do not fit VA's schema AT ALL.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I have stated elsewhere, there are people who believe in gods e.g. minor gods who are not claimed to be perfect.
There are thousands [>50 thousands?] of different shades covering all aspects of life, e.g. eros - the god of love, sarawasti - god of knowledge, the various Greek gods, Chinese, Indian gods, pagan gods, etc. They are by default not claimed to be perfect.
In some cases they are the minor gods who are under the control of a major greatest God.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I wrote in the OP;

This is state of perfection is stated in their holy texts, Gospels [only not OT] for Christians and Quran for Islam..

For Christians the contractual terms between a Christian and God/Jesus is dictated by Christ only which is in the Gospels, not the Acts, Epistles and the overridden OT.

God is perfect and omnipotent, God can do whatever He wants and He is omniscient, thus knows what He is doing to achieve his purpose which believers are ignorant of. Thus some acts of Jesus may seem 'violent' like throwing tables, but that is hardly violent in any immoral way.

[Age]

This is state of perfection is stated in their holy texts, Gospels [only not OT] for Christians and Quran for Islam..

In the OT you have an often angry, surprised, veangeful, and at times regretful deity.

Is Noah's Flood evidence that God is fallible? How?

Yes. He changed his mind, didn’t he? But the Jews had no other choice because they only had one god. In the original story, Enlil was the god that tried to kill all humans and Enki was the one that saved King Ziusudra and his family. When the Jews copied that story, they did not have a good god and a bad god. They only had one. So they had to make their one god both good and bad. And so they made him change his mind not once, but twice. First the Jewish god changes his mind about humans and regrets that he had created them. Then he regrets that he had regretted that and restores everything to the status quo. If that’s not fallible, I dont know what is.

You have Jesus feeling abandoned in the NT.

Even Allah, in the one religion that comes closest to VA's ideal God, we have a deity that gets pissed off. Why would an omnipotent, all knowledgeable deity have any reason to get angry?

Have you EVER felt anger, frustration, unworthy, unwanted, or just not heard when not being listened to or not heard?

If yes, then these are some of the reasons why one 'gets' or feels angry.

Yes, again, when pressed Abrahamists - representing their dominator transcendent deities - will say, yes God is perfect. But there own texts show their mixed feelings and beliefs.

Is 'feeling an emotion' a sign of 'non perfection'?

And then individual believers in these religions can easily say that Allah and Yahwed and God are all the same deity.

Well, OBVIOUSLY, there can ONLY be One, right?

And there are all the religions and deities that do not fit VA's schema AT ALL.

[Age]

I have stated elsewhere, there are people who believe in gods e.g. minor gods who are not claimed to be perfect.
There are thousands [>50 thousands?] of different shades covering all aspects of life, e.g. eros - the god of love, sarawasti - god of knowledge, the various Greek gods, Chinese, Indian gods, pagan gods, etc. They are by default not claimed to be perfect.
In some cases they are the minor gods who are under the control of a major greatest God.

So WHY THEN is the heading of this thread, WHY MUST God be the perfect being?

[Iwannaplato]

I wrote in the OP;

This is state of perfection is stated in their holy texts, Gospels [only not OT] for Christians and Quran for Islam..

For Christians the contractual terms between a Christian and God/Jesus is dictated by Christ only which is in the Gospels, not the Acts, Epistles and the overridden OT.

Fine, then you have Judaism, which is a religion with God. So, you are acknowledging that the OT, or really The Pentanteuch, then, has a not absolutely perfect deity, your rule goes out the window. Jewish people have not decided to tidy up the Pentateuch.

And the OT is used all the time by Christians, who are, by the way, not a homogenous group. The Bible includes the OT and Christians priests and pastors, reverands and parishoners, with great regularity quote and use the OT as divine word including portions of the OT where God shows very human, mundane traits and limits.

God is perfect and omnipotent, God can do whatever He wants and He is omniscient, thus knows what He is doing to achieve his purpose which believers are ignorant of. Thus some acts of Jesus may seem 'violent' like throwing tables, but that is hardly violent in any immoral way.

Though Jesus, as I said, feels abandoned on the cross.

In Hinduism we have Shvia not recognizing his own son and a tiff between Shiva and Parvati. Shiva ends up killing Ganesh and has to get him a new head. Then pagan religions where gods and godesses get into all sorts of mischief and naughty to evil behavior. Origin stories include deities with all sorts of traits.

Further the omni-characteristic terms are NOT in the Bible and other texts. What you have in scriptures. These ideas were later interpretations by theologians. The Bible and other scriptures are written in poetic language and naturally praise their deities, but there is not reason to assume that some kind of mathematical perfect perfection is intended. But rather that God is vastly powerful and way beyond our ken, so to speak. This gets turned into these mathematically perfect (and thus problematic) qualities. And sure SOME theists, feel beholden to defend these as absolutely perfect

BUT

the psychology of many theists in relation to theists from other groups and how their psychology affects interfaith jousting
is not
a valid step in a deduction about the ontology of deities.

It could be a valid step in a discussion with a theist proposing an absolutely perfect deity, whatever that means, but it makes no sense in generating a proof there is no and can be no God.

You could have a diety. You could have theists who suss this out. Then many theists in some competetive way, yes, keep 'improving' the description of their God so it is better than others.

But there is a not absolutely perfect God, out there existing. The dominator religions and people who have been raised in them, not all of them but many of them, may find all this hard to believe.

But their psychology is not an ontological rule for anything else's existence.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Rarely do we hear of Jews claiming their God is perfect or absolutely perfect.
Regardless there are only around 10+ million Jews around the world which is not significant in contrast to the >5 billion theists who claim their God is perfect by default based on their holy texts.

Here is ChatGPT view re Judaism in general:

In Judaism, the concept of God is complex and multifaceted. While there is a recognition of God's greatness and transcendence, Judaism does not explicitly claim that God is perfect in the sense of lacking any flaws or limitations. Instead, Jewish theology emphasizes God's attributes such as justice, compassion, wisdom, and sovereignty.

Judaism views God as the ultimate source of goodness and the creator of the universe. However, it also acknowledges that human understanding is limited, and our comprehension of God is inherently incomplete. Jewish thought recognizes that God's ways are beyond human comprehension, and some aspects of God's nature may remain mysterious and beyond human understanding.

It is important to note that Judaism places a strong emphasis on ethical behavior and moral responsibility. The Jewish tradition teaches that humans have free will and the ability to make choices that align with God's will and contribute to the betterment of the world. This implies that there is room for improvement and growth within creation, even though God is seen as the ultimate source of perfection.

Overall, Judaism's understanding of God is nuanced, and while it ascribes many positive attributes to God, it does not necessarily claim that God is perfect in the sense of lacking any imperfections or limitations.

Jesus was man and God, thus likely to manifest God's nature at times while being human at other times.

[Veritas Aequitas]

When the majority of theists [> 5 billion] claim that their God is real and absolutely perfect, as confirmed by their holy texts* which is from God, that is their real and only God ontologically.
* not theologians.
Since any real cannot be absolutely perfect,
then their claim is false, such a real and absolutely perfect is an illusion.

[Age]

When the majority of theists [> 5 billion]

WHERE do you get this, and your other, figures FROM, EXACTLY?

claim that their God is real and absolutely perfect, as confirmed by their holy texts* which is from God, that is their real and only God ontologically.
* not theologians.
Since any real cannot be absolutely perfect,

WHY do you KEEP expressing what you BELIEVE is true, but NEVER provide ANY ACTUAL PROOF for YOUR OWN BELIEF?

then their claim is false, such a real and absolutely perfect is an illusion.

Just like your OWN CLAIM here is False, and as such is just AN ILLUSION, and one of your OWN MAKING.

"veritas aequitas" you CONTINUALLY FALTER and FAIL here. But ARE to BLIND to SEE and to DISHONEST to RECOGNIZE.

[Iwannaplato]

When the majority of theists [> 5 billion] claim that their God is real and absolutely perfect, as confirmed by their holy texts* which is from God, that is their real and only God ontologically.

Their holy texts do not support this as pointed out elsewhere. And that's where we're dealing with Abrahamic religions, let alone religions that are not like those at all.

Since any real cannot be absolutely perfect,

and there again, you make the error. A bunch of people say X is like Y. So if there is an X it has to be like Y. Nope.

then their claim is false,

You made a claim, that if there is a God, God must be abolutely perfect. You weren't responding to a claim, you made your own claim. You are responsible for that claim.

And justifying that claim on a group of people who you think are deluded is a poor argument. An ad populum argment where you don't respect the populace.

You are an ex-theist.
You stopped believing one part of theism: that there is a God.
But you retained the assumption of the theists you knew: that if there is a God it must be absolutely perfect.

You dropped on belief, but you have kept others. It is not universal that God must be absolutely perfect. And believers and scriptures show this and/or at the very least mixed beliefs in their speech and texts.

such a real and absolutely perfect is an illusion.

It's just like Iambiguous. He used to be a theist. He's not now.
But he tells us that if there is a God only one religious path leads to that God.
Why?
Because most theists say their path is the only path.

Another category error.

You're confusing a point you can make in an argument with a theist who believes what you both say nearly all do
with
an ontological rule.

The rule being that a diety MUST be absolutely perfect.

A category error.

And you are also taking a subjective term, perfection, and turning it into some kind of scientific term.

Perfect for whom? in what context?

It's a value laden term, but you treat it as factual.

Your ontological claim that if there is a God, that God not only must be absolutely perfect, but in your interpretation of that phrase.

You have not in the slightest demonstrated this.

It's as big a claim as a theist's claim about the existence of God.