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My life as a Wayland
Intoxication not advised

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Late night philosophy/"I smote him. I smote him good"

I've just had this thought, and I found it interesting. I can't think of a way to disprove it at this late hour, so I leave it to you to do so:

A perfect being is incapable of creating imperfection, as this would contradict the definition that this being is not capable of imperfection (as this would render it imperfect).

Humans are not perfect, as is evident in everything around us.

Hence, no perfect being created humans.

Therefore there does not exist a God, as God is by its own definition perfect.

Actually, looking back on it it's not so disprovable but I'll leave it as a late-night challenge nonetheless.

Enjoy!

EDIT [5.59pm 04/10/05]:
I realised that I can already spot many holes in the above statements hence I will make a slightly longer post on this very topic (i.e. expand this post) in the near future (after I watch The Simpsons).

[Edit 6.31pm 04/10/05]:
Here are the amended arguments:

God by definition is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.

To satisfy these conditions, God must be perfect, as an imperfect being would not be capable of satisfying all three states at the same time (at least in my opinion- for example only a perfect being can be omnibenevolent).

Alternatively, if God is omnipotent then He has the power to become perfect (assuming He is not already), and thus He would as this would prove that He has that power. If He is not perfect how can we know that He is omnipotent? However, this creates a paradox, as in this argument God has the ability to infinitely improve Himself, hence He can never achieve perfection as He will always become greater than He currently is (and there may exist another being that is greater than He). HENCE to avoid this problem, God must be perfect to begin with, therefore eliminating this problem because there is nothing greater than God hence He has nothing to improve.

Therefore God should be perfect (in order to be
omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent).

A perfect being is incapable of creating imperfection, as this would contradict the definition that this being is not capable of imperfection (as this would render it imperfect [Edit: or not totally/always perfect hence it is not perfect]).

Humans are not perfect, as is evident in everything around us.

Hence, no perfect being created humans.

Alternatively, why should we worship an imperfect God?


Enjoy again!

This might be amended again in the future, don't hold your breath (unless You're God, in which case do what you want, I can't stop you...please don't smite me)

[Edit 10.30pm 04/10/05]:
Perfection as I see it is a state in which absolutely nothing new can be introduced into a system that would improve the overall functionality/appearance/usefulness etc of that system. Taking the example of omnipotence, if a being is omnipotent there is nothing that can be done to make this being more powerful as it is already "all-powerful" (and if it can be made more powerful then it cannot possibly be omnipotent). This would mean that saying "perfectly omnipotent" would be tautologous by my definition so I haven't stated it.

There would be a similar line of reasoning for "omniscience" and "omnibenevolence".

Now, for the case of a perfect being creating imperfect beings I would argue thusly: if a perfect being decides to create an imperfect being, then it would be a flawed process. This flaw can easily be improved on by the perfect being deciding to create a perfect being. Hence, something can be introduced into the system to improve the outcome and so this being is not perfect as it is capable of actions which can be improved upon.

So I guess the end-point of this is that I see perfection not as an analogue system (where there are shades of grey) but rather as a digital system (black or white, on or off, you've either got it or you don't).

[Final edit 11.00pm 04/10/05]:
I have just come to realise that if an omnipotent being is incapable of creating imperfect beings because of my restricted definitions then that being no longer holds the title of omnipotence. Perfection does not require omnipotence, but God does so this would blow my arguments to bits.

I conclude that I have bitten off more than I can crap out and so should leave all this stuff to the philosophers.

[Final edit part II 11.05pm 04/10/05]:
I have come up with something else: if God is supposed to be omnibenevolent then He is incapable of 'bad' actions, hence He cannot be omnipotent as well. But his may be countered by the argument that many believe God to be beyond morality and all that good vs. evil stuff. And I can't be bothered trying to find/think of a rebuttal for that so I will let it be.

Also, can God, if He is omnipotent, destroy Himself? If he can't, is he not omnipotent? If he can, is he also not omnipotent?

This stuff gets too confusing and I've got uni and other things to worry about. Consider this post closed (after numerous edits- a PB I think).

5 Comments:

  • Define perfection.

    Counter-ranted by Blogger Jimmy at Tuesday, October 04, 2005 9:33:00 pm  

  • ...please?

    I mean, if we are all perfect, then what will differentiate each of us individually?

    Humans has always competed against each other for jobs, money, women, etc. We all want to be better than everyone else. Ultimately, it is a strive for 'perfection'; something we will never achieve.

    But say we did reach perfection, what do we do then? Would there still be a meaning to life?

    Ok, I suppose this really hasn't got anything to do with God, but I just think that perhaps there isn't such thing as 'perfection' per se.

    Imperfection is what makes us perfect.

    Counter-ranted by Blogger Jimmy at Tuesday, October 04, 2005 11:54:00 pm  

  • Everyone holds different views on "perfection" so really there is no universal definition, is there? Not even everyone will agree there is such a thing as "perfection".

    In terms of lack of perfection and the meaning of life, I dig Camus (borrowed the article on Absurdism from Wikipedia, of course):

    Humans historically attempt to find meaning in the universe, according to Absurdism. Yet, the world is irrational and does not conform to the standards or wishes of mankind and so this search is inevitably in vain. The search traditionally leads people down one of two paths: the conclusion that life is meaningless, or the filling of this vacuum by some artificial means (such as religion). The thoughtful human being who recognizes this scenario is then met by the impending philosophical question of 'should we bother living at all, or simply commit suicide?' It would appear that due to the subconscious drive of humans to avoid violent death, suicide has traditionally not won out in this equation.

    Counter-ranted by Blogger JingleBells at Thursday, October 06, 2005 10:01:00 pm  

  • Gold stars to anyone who actually bothered to read this entire post! Edits and all!

    Counter-ranted by Blogger Wayland at Thursday, October 06, 2005 10:16:00 pm  

  • Well let me be the first to say i havent read your who post. I'm saving it for a day when i'm actually thinking about something other than teeth... so it might be a while :P

    Counter-ranted by Blogger Unknown at Friday, October 07, 2005 9:50:00 am  

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