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phil_five
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 29

Posted 11/19/2003 7:21 AM (GMT -6)

OK, So when discussing OV with a friend of mine he said something people often seem to bring up: If God is "learning" the future (our free-will actions) as it happens, then God can't be perfect.

Also along those lines, I have heard people say God can't be perfect if he wants a relationship, because perfect beings don't want.

Just wondering what everyone thinks...

Thanks,
Phil

Laika
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433

Posted 11/19/2003 8:13 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by phil_five

OK, So when discussing OV with a friend of mine he said something people often seem to bring up: If God is "learning" the future (our free-will actions) as it happens, then God can't be perfect.

Also along those lines, I have heard people say God can't be perfect if he wants a relationship, because perfect beings don't want.

Just wondering what everyone thinks...

Matthew 5:48 "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

What's their definition of "perfect"? Are they striving for that kind of "perfection"?

inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade

Alan Rhoda
Registered Member

Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680

Posted 11/19/2003 10:15 AM (GMT -6)

Phil: If God is "learning" the future (our free-will actions) as it happens, then God can't be perfect.

Alan: First, as Laika points out, your friend is presupposing some concept of "perfection" here that needs to be made more explicit. Second, in what sense does OT imply that God "learns"? Not in any objectionable sense, as far as I can tell. According to Doc's infinite intelligence argument God knows all possibilities and all antecedent probabilities sans creation. So the sense in which God "learns" on OT is that God's probability assessments get updated as decisions are made and that which is open becomes settled. Is this an objectionable denial of God's perfection? Only if one assumes that perfection requires absolute unchangeability, which is far from intuitively obvious. In fact, if the future is in fact partly open then wouldn't God be less perfect if He didn't know it as such?

Phil: Also along those lines, I have heard people say God can't be perfect if he wants a relationship, because perfect beings don't want.

Alan: The claim that "perfect beings don't want" is highly questionable. If this claim is correct, then a perfect God could not have wanted to create, which means either that he wouldn't have done so (which we know is false since we're here) or that he needed to create (which is contrary to Christianity's historic insistence that God did not have to create precisely because that would mean that God was essentially incomplete and not perfect). The right thing to say is that "perfect beings don't NEED", which is perfectly compatible with wanting.

Hope that helps,
Alan

rossfadeinout
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 428

Posted 11/19/2003 10:46 AM (GMT -6)

Just a quick comment...

quote:
Also along those lines, I have heard people say God can't be perfect if he wants a relationship, because perfect beings don't want.

This objection would apply to all forms of Christian Theism, not just the OV, right? God wanted to create in all orthodox views; he didn't need creation, and it wasn't a random event, so the reason that he created would be because he wanted to.

Ross

"Let us remember how common the folly is of going from one faulty extreme into the opposite." -Thomas Reid

Newcomb
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 116

Posted 11/19/2003 4:18 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by phil_five
If God is "learning" the future (our free-will actions) as it happens, then God can't be perfect.

This type of error and reasoning came from the Greeks who said something like 'the ultimate being must be perfect in every way' then provided the ways they expected the ultimate being to be.
'He must be in a sphere because that is the perfect shape. He must be in the perfect position because if he weren't he would not be perfect. In fact he cannot move into the perfect position because that would imply he wasn't formerly in the perfect position and therefore wouldn't be the ultimate being. He can't move out of the perfect position, or he would stop being the ultimate being.'
What got into our theology from here?
1) I can create any standard I want and require God to meet it,
2) I can claim he must be this way or he isn't God.
How often do we hear these type of fallacious arguments?
The Greek idea of "perfection" was rather odd.
The Judeo-Christian view means "complete." Adam was perfect even though he had a certain probability of sinning. Creation was "very good" even though there was a probability something could go very wrong.
To the Greeks, a marble statues could be perfect but not a human because they can change, so I would have to say that change was not part of perfection for the Greek nor for those who base their theology on their ideals.
God seems to like it, look around you.

"Neuk'em"

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