Imperefct God

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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Jori
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Imperefct God

Post by Jori »

Many philosophers offer solutions to the problem of evil while maintaining that God is perfect. They reconcile evil with an all-powerful and all-good God by such concepts as free will, uniformity of nature, and that this is the best possible evolutionary world.
However we can also explain evil with an imperfect God. Evil exists because God is not all-powerful, not all-good, or both. But philosophers cannot accept an imperfect God. God must be perfect. Why? Can you accept an imperfect God, like those in Greek mytholgy?
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Re: Imperefct God

Post by attofishpi »

Jori wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 7:55 am Many philosophers offer solutions to the problem of evil while maintaining that God is perfect. They reconcile evil with an all-powerful and all-good God by such concepts as free will, uniformity of nature, and that this is the best possible evolutionary world.
However we can also explain evil with an imperfect God. Evil exists because God is not all-powerful, not all-good, or both. But philosophers cannot accept an imperfect God. God must be perfect. Why? Can you accept an imperfect God, like those in Greek mytholgy?
1st. Define perfection
2nd Define God.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Imperefct God

Post by Dontaskme »

Jori wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 7:55 am Many philosophers offer solutions to the problem of evil while maintaining that God is perfect. They reconcile evil with an all-powerful and all-good God by such concepts as free will, uniformity of nature, and that this is the best possible evolutionary world.
However we can also explain evil with an imperfect God. Evil exists because God is not all-powerful, not all-good, or both. But philosophers cannot accept an imperfect God. God must be perfect. Why? Can you accept an imperfect God, like those in Greek mytholgy?
Philosophers cannot accept an imperfect God, that’s why the world is perfectly imperfect.

If philosophers just admitted to themselves that reality is just perfectly imperfect, they’d stop questioning and pondering it, and just get on with living it…not like they ever had the choice to live it.

In knowledge…evil and goodness exist as complimentary opposites. Who has overall authority on whether reality is ruled by an evil force or a force for goodness?

Pick your poison…for you are stuck with both, since there’s no way to avoid them, since knowledge aka in knowing …is all you can experience.

.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Imperefct God

Post by Immanuel Can »

Jori wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 7:55 am God must be perfect. Why? Can you accept an imperfect God, like those in Greek mytholgy?
You're mixing concepts, Jori. The concept "a god" is different from "God." I know that looks odd, but it's the reason that writers conventionally mark the former with a lower-case "g" and the latter with an upper-case one. "God" doesn't denote something like the Greek pantheon, with many "gods" of limited power and duration. Rather, the convention is that "God" marks the singular Supreme Being, the First Cause of Reality itself, and it's only in regard to Him that the term "perfect" applies.

Zeus was not perfect. Nor was Poseidon, or Athena, or any collection of multiple "gods." Their mythologies tell of their origins and their endings, as well as their flaws and peccadillos. Zeus sprang from the head of Chronos, it is said; and as for the Norse Pantheon, they were all to be doomed at Ragnarok. Such "gods" were much more like a squabbling soap opera on a mountain than anything. And that's how the Greeks and Norse saw them, too.

It's a little hard to see how having flawed "gods" helps with the question of evil, anyway. It seems to me that it just makes the situation worse; it supposes that not only is evil a permanent and natural feature of the order of things, but that agencies of significant power and undetermined duration are also producing it. That would seem to put us, as humans, in a rather bad position. And it explains why polytheistic societies are characterized by both fear and shamanism -- one has a problem navigating the realm of the supernatural when nothing is predictable, which is the product of the "gods" idea.

So it's not about what a person can or cannot "accept." We can accept belief in anything, if we wish. It's more about whether or not it's true, in the first place, and afterward, whether or not it's possible to live with the implications. But whatever is true or not true about the existence of "gods" or "God," the facts about that will remain unchanged whether we refuse to believe them or not.
Jori
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Re: Imperefct God

Post by Jori »

I see. the concept of God with the capital G is perfection. God must be perfect, otherwise he is not God. I remember someone saying that God is beyond time and space. If not, then he is not God. That is why philosophers refute (not cannot accept) that God can be imperfect.

I like the idea that if God is imperfect, then evil is permanent. If God is perfect, then evil can be overcome.

But what if the universe was created and "ruled" by a being, not God,. who is imperfect. I mean he doesn't have to be perfect; he just have to be capable enough to create and rule the universe.. Is that possible?
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Re: Imperefct God

Post by seeds »

Jori wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:07 am But what if the universe was created and "ruled" by a being, not God,. who is imperfect. I mean he doesn't have to be perfect; he just have to be capable enough to create and rule the universe.. Is that possible?
Of course that is possible.

Furthermore, what is it about the universe that implies that its Creator might be "imperfect" in some way?

In other words, what would its Creator have to do to the universe in order to make himself seem more "perfect"?
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Re: Imperefct God

Post by RCSaunders »

Dontaskme wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:36 am If philosophers just admitted to themselves that reality is just perfectly imperfect ...
"Imperfect," compared to what? If this were whatever you suppose a perfect world would be, how would it be different from the one that is?
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bahman
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Re: Imperefct God

Post by bahman »

Jori wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 7:55 am Many philosophers offer solutions to the problem of evil while maintaining that God is perfect. They reconcile evil with an all-powerful and all-good God by such concepts as free will, uniformity of nature, and that this is the best possible evolutionary world.
However we can also explain evil with an imperfect God. Evil exists because God is not all-powerful, not all-good, or both. But philosophers cannot accept an imperfect God. God must be perfect. Why? Can you accept an imperfect God, like those in Greek mytholgy?
Good and evil come together. They are both necessary for a healthy life. Imagine if it was very enjoyable to cut yourself to pieces!
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Imperefct God

Post by Immanuel Can »

Jori wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:07 am ...what if the universe was created and "ruled" by a being, not God,. who is imperfect. I mean he doesn't have to be perfect; he just have to be capable enough to create and rule the universe.. Is that possible?
The Gnostics thought that's how it worked. They thought the earth, and human bodies, flesh, were created by an inferior being called the "Demiurge." Above him was a hierarchy of other sort of "divine beings," with something at the top called "the Abyss."

But nowhere in that story was there a Creator who loves His creation, so it's quite different from, say, the Jewish or Christian understanding of the word "God." And certainly there was no issue of "perfection" in their thinking, except as it applied to human realizing that the Demiurge has them trapped, and then "enlightenment" and "transcendence" through following the world-despising teachings of a group of priests called "the Illuminati."

It's complicated, but that was it, in a nutshell.
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Re: Imperefct God

Post by gaffo »

Jori wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 7:55 am Many philosophers offer solutions to the problem of evil while maintaining that God is perfect. They reconcile evil with an all-powerful and all-good God by such concepts as free will, uniformity of nature, and that this is the best possible evolutionary world.
However we can also explain evil with an imperfect God. Evil exists because God is not all-powerful, not all-good, or both. But philosophers cannot accept an imperfect God. God must be perfect. Why? Can you accept an imperfect God, like those in Greek mytholgy?
there are what? 6? mainline Religions today - 6000 in preistroy - so which God are your refering to?

if we asume the Wstern one YHWH - that leaves out the 20 or so main ones in Hinduism - but whatever we can ignore those gods and the billons that worship thme i gues.

per YHWH - only the Christan view of the father is one that is pure good (so must have limited powers since they affirm Satan).

not sure ow Muslims viw the Father God - so will let any Muslims here inform me on that.

per Judaism YHWH is not pure good - he is "good but allows evil" - its written in the torah! so only the Christian have this view that evil is "bad" and god is limited and unable (I assume) to kill off Satan. the jews affirm that god is not pure good, and alllow evil via hmiself or via Satan - to act per YHWH's will - i.e. evil serves a greater good - one tha tman is not able to understand (assuming the jews view is that thier god is one of justice and so evil serves a purpose we just don't understand).

2-cents.
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Re: Imperefct God

Post by gaffo »

Jori wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:07 am
But what if the universe was created and "ruled" by a being, not God,. who is imperfect. I mean he doesn't have to be perfect; he just have to be capable enough to create and rule the universe.. Is that possible?
Sure is posible, millions of folks 2000 yrs ago thought just this - w call them the Gnostics.

Sophie was the good God her son was YHWH and her other son was Jesus. she sent her latter son to save men from her imperfect son YHWH who created the earth and all other matter.

her lesser imperfect son thought he was born without his mother mom god sophia, e asumed He was God and created the universe and man. but he was imperfect and evil, so his mom had to sand her other Son Jesus down here to save man from the clutches of YHWH.

of course The Church "removed" the gnostics - both figuratively and bodily - the last were the Cathars in 1230 AD "kill them all and let God sort them out" - in southern France/Northern Spain.
gaffo
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Re: Imperefct God

Post by gaffo »

seeds wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 3:11 pm
Jori wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:07 am But what if the universe was created and "ruled" by a being, not God,. who is imperfect. I mean he doesn't have to be perfect; he just have to be capable enough to create and rule the universe.. Is that possible?
Of course that is possible.

Furthermore, what is it about the universe that implies that its Creator might be "imperfect" in some way?

In other words, what would its Creator have to do to the universe in order to make himself seem more "perfect"?
_______
per the Gnotic's theology - make a universe (and men - like jesus who did not have a body) without matter

similar mindset to Plato's (mattar is a lesser form of the immaterial "thing in heaven")- there is cultural/historical linkage.
gaffo
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Re: Imperefct God

Post by gaffo »

bahman wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 5:57 pm
Jori wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 7:55 am Many philosophers offer solutions to the problem of evil while maintaining that God is perfect. They reconcile evil with an all-powerful and all-good God by such concepts as free will, uniformity of nature, and that this is the best possible evolutionary world.
However we can also explain evil with an imperfect God. Evil exists because God is not all-powerful, not all-good, or both. But philosophers cannot accept an imperfect God. God must be perfect. Why? Can you accept an imperfect God, like those in Greek mytholgy?
Good and evil come together. They are both necessary for a healthy life. Imagine if it was very enjoyable to cut yourself to pieces!
you must be jewish.
gaffo
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Re: Imperefct God

Post by gaffo »

Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 6:21 pm
Jori wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:07 am ...what if the universe was created and "ruled" by a being, not God,. who is imperfect. I mean he doesn't have to be perfect; he just have to be capable enough to create and rule the universe.. Is that possible?
The Gnostics thought that's how it worked. They thought the earth, and human bodies, flesh, were created by an inferior being called the "Demiurge." Above him was a hierarchy of other sort of "divine beings," with something at the top called "the Abyss."

But nowhere in that story was there a Creator who loves His creation, so it's quite different from, say, the Jewish or Christian understanding of the word "God." And certainly there was no issue of "perfection" in their thinking, except as it applied to human realizing that the Demiurge has them trapped, and then "enlightenment" and "transcendence" through following the world-despising teachings of a group of priests called "the Illuminati."

It's complicated, but that was it, in a nutshell.
i posted my reply prior to seeing yours - i se you too know some of the Gnostics.

they had many sects - lik early chrsitains - some were jewish, others christian and others greek with 360 gods one for each day and jesus was on of 360. so they were not a monolith per dogma, but per a genral understanding - that the "god of this world " is not the True god would be apt to all of them.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Imperefct God

Post by Dontaskme »

RCSaunders wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 6:04 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:36 am If philosophers just admitted to themselves that reality is just perfectly imperfect ...
"Imperfect," compared to what? If this were whatever you suppose a perfect world would be, how would it be different from the one that is?
Conceptual knowledge...aka knowing...demands that 'imperfection' is 'perfection'...how could 'perfection' be anything other than what it is?

How could that which is 'perfect' not be perfect? ..at the same time, what gives meaning to the word ''perfect''? ...is found in it's opposite meaning... without an opposite to relate to, no conceptual word has any meaning whatsoever.

In the same context..Not-knowing....is knowing....how could knowing not ?

Knowledge is the duality of complimentary opposites. A concepts 'meaning' can only have siginficance in association with it's complimentary opposite.

The truth that reality is nondual which is unknowable, means knowledge can only ever point to the illusory nature of reality.

Lanugage is tricky...because it's a duality within what is essentially a non-dual reality.
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