Perfection

How can perfection beget imperfection?

from JoeUser Forums
I always see a lot of believers claiming their god is perfect. For a long time I've wondered, and frequently asked, though never got an acceptable explanation, "How can a perfect being create anything imperfect?" For that matter, what is perfection?
philosophy
5,842 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
"How can a perfect being create anything imperfect?"


Anything imperfect in this world is the direct result of human beings.

Human beings were not created imperfect, but were given the free will to become so by willful disobedience.
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
Human beings were not created imperfect, but were given the free will to become so by willful disobedience.

So perfect things can choose to become imperfect? Wouldn't that mean their judgment was flawed to begin with?
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Good question, of which I have no answer. :)

By the way is that the Laughing Man in your avatar from Ghost in the Shell?

~Zoo
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
By the way is that the Laughing Man in your avatar from Ghost in the Shell?


Yep, cropped and shrunk it from a wallpaper I picked up off the internet at some point. I would be using a custom one my wife I made for me from another series and a heavily edited piece of clip art, but I always forget when I am around the machine it is stored on...this one seems to fit my current posting tendencies better anyway. ;)
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Awh, come on people, as much as I see this word thrown around, I would think someone could give their definition of it.

No, this is not a shameless bump...there was some shame involved. :NOTSURE:
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
I dunno if anyone has said it, yet, SetarcosNous, but welcome to JU. So far I've found all of your comments interesting and thoughtful.

So perfect things can choose to become imperfect? Wouldn't that mean their judgment was flawed to begin with?


I have yet to get a good answer to this, myself. Here's another spin on it. Supposing we started out perfect (Adam and Eve in the Pre-malum era, supposedly) and we were given the free will to screw it all up (which we were, supposedly.) Now what if...just what IF...they had never screwed up? How would that free will be detected if everything man willed was also what God willed? That thought isn't intended to prove or disprove anything, but it does lead to some interesting lines of reasoning.
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
Now what if...just what IF...they had never screwed up? How would that free will be detected if everything man willed was also what God willed? That thought isn't intended to prove or disprove anything, but it does lead to some interesting lines of reasoning.


I recommend Perilandra (or something like that) by C.S. Lewis. It explores this concept.

It is good to have the ability to choose, and still choose God's will instead of your own.

But you're right, how would you detect a free will if the choosers always chose to do God's will? I don't know if you could, as an outsider. But what would be important is that you know yourself that you have a choice, but have given it up.
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
I dunno if anyone has said it, yet, SetarcosNous, but welcome to JU. So far I've found all of your comments interesting and thoughtful.

Thanks and thanks.

But you're right, how would you detect a free will if the choosers always chose to do God's will? I don't know if you could, as an outsider. But what would be important is that you know yourself that you have a choice, but have given it up.

But how do you know you have the choice? How do you know you have not been manipulated into making that choice? People do a lot of things without fully knowing the reasons why; that is why self-knowledge is one of the most important kinds in my opinion.

More on topic: Perfection is in the eye of the beholder, far too subjective to individual desire to be broadly defined by any one person. ...

I mean more in the objective sense that those that use it all the time seem to imply.

And I certainly don't think that whatever created us is perfect and incapable of farking things up royally. One need only look around to see the truth in that. I simply refuse to bear ALL the blame for our human condition, as so many Christians would have me do. I didn't ask to be here, after all, so someone, something, somewhere screwed up before I had any choice in the matter. Original sin? Not mine, it ain't.

That is exactly my point. If this God people speak of is supposed to fit the definition of perfect I think of when I hear it said, it includes the adjective "infallible". If it is infallible, how did it create such fallible beings? Then the usual response is that the devil corrupted it. But didn't this infallible being create the devil too?