THE ARGUMENT FROM PERFECTION:

libertarianbob01 · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:41 am Post subject: THE ARGUMENT FROM PERFECTION:

THE ARGUMENT FROM PERFECTION:

A DISPROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

©1997 by Tim Gorski

God(s) may or may not exist depending on how one defines a deity. To the people of biblical times, for example, an educated and accomplished individual of today might well appear godlike. Likewise, a race of extraterrestrials far more technologically advanced than we are would probably satisfy most if not all of the traditional criteria for divinity.

From our modern perspective, moreover, the gods of the Greek and Roman pantheons and others are dismissed without a second thought. Using modern methods of investigation, there is no reason to suppose that any of the "miracles" claimed by the ancients in diverse texts from the Bible to the works of Tacitus and Herodotus could not be easily discredited. Even today, the tricks of god-men and "psychics" and other pretenders have been and continue to be systematically exposed. Under controlled conditions, the "miracles" simply fail to happen.

But other contemporary believers in god(s) have gotten much more sophisticated. Now their god(s) don’t live in the clouds, on mountaintops, inside volcanoes, under the sea or beneath the earth or even on the other side of the solid dome of the biblical firmament. Now Yahweh and Allah and Jesus and Jehovah live in some other dimension, outside of space and time. Now they are physicists who are alleged to be capable of controlling, with a thought, the laws that govern matter and energy as easily as an investigator in the laboratory controls the temperature and pH of an experiment.

The proponents of this or that deity have also given up proving the truth of their claims by stopping the sun or changing sticks into snakes or bringing dead people back to life several days after they’ve died. Now, when modern believers claim miracles, they invariably point merely to events that are known to happen occasionally and are fully consistent with objective understanding of physical laws. Far more troublesome to contemporary theists are the very many theological conundrums that arise from their doctrines: an "Original Sin" that is supernaturally "inherited" from generation to generation, a God that must sacrifice Himself to Himself in order to forgive sin, a God that orders genocidal exterminations and Himself establishes the institution of slavery, etc. All these are dealt with by a variety of clever means, none of which are justified except as a means to preserve the viability of the faith they defend. Likewise, even the very apparent contradiction inherent in the claim of god(s) being both omnipotent and omnibeneficent is glossed over as having to do with "mysterious" divine purposes that everyone will have to die before they can truly understand.

These sorts of modern excuses for god(s) effectively remove theological questions into the realm of metaphysics, a sanctuary in which they are safe from the prying investigations and corresponding threats of scientific inquiry. Instead of refusing to look into the telescope, theists now say that the evidence of the senses is irrelevant to their claims. This approach has etherealized the idea of the divine and of divine attributes. But there remains one characteristic of god(s) which cannot be so obfuscated without doing real harm to the bare essential of the concept of a deity, and especially a singular deity who is said to be the Creator and Master of all that exists.

For all those who assert the existence of god(s) also unswervingly assert the absolute perfection of their god(s). Indeed, the notion of a god as a perfect being is virtually the only anchor that maintains the concept of divinity in the realm of human understanding. Everything else about god(s), one or another theist have insisted, cannot be grasped by the supposedly limited human mind. Perfection is the only criterion which, even if a divine perfection has otherworldly interpretations and ramifications besides, any god(s) must satisfy.

But what is perfection? Perfection is the possession of any attribute to such an extreme degree that there can be no improvement on it. It is to be incomparably excellent. Since believers insist that their God is perfect in every way, this means that their God is incomparable in every respect. There is nothing about Him which can be in any way criticized, much less improved. This is also perfectly in keeping with the belief of theists that their god(s) are unchanging and immutable. Even the writers of the Bible expressed this opinion at Malachi 3:6: when God is made to say, "For I am the LORD, I change not."

This presents an obvious difficulty, because all god(s), including the biblical deity, clearly do change. At one time, for example, God is supposed to have created Heaven and the angels. Then He became unhappy with an angelic revolt and created Hell. Later, he created the Earth and human beings and "saw that it was good." But He soon became unhappy with Earth and its inhabitants as well, it being said at Genesis 6:6 that, "it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." The story goes on and on, of course. First God makes a present of land to Abraham and his descendants. Then He allows His "Chosen People" to languish in slavery. First he hardens the heart of Pharaoh and then he smites the Egyptians for their divinely ordained intransigence. The story goes on and on and, according to believers of all varieties, it is still unfolding. How can a perfect and unchanging deity be doing all these things?

The God of the Bible, and, indeed, any sort of god(s) who takes any sort of action, no matter how small, is not an unchanging and immutable deity. Nor can such a God be perfect. For if He is perfect, then He is already lacking in nothing. He is utterly and absolutely complete in and of Himself and can want for nothing. Therefore, He can do nothing but exist, for there can be no reason for him to do anything else. His will cannot be more than to simply be. He cannot affect anyone or anything. And He cannot be affected by anyone or anything. A perfect God, even if He has a metaphysical existence, is necessarily a metaphysical cipher

Now it may be objected that God could be perfect and yet able to take action and possess a divine will. Perfection, it might be asserted, is not like a mountain top, a single static point, but more like a mountain range or a variety of extreme positions any one of which could be considered to be perfect. But this cannot be the case. For the claim of believers is not that their God is perfect in one respect but not in others. They do not say of their God that He is incomparable with respect to one or a limited number of divine attributes but in other respects can be considered as possessing qualities in a greater or lesser degree.

Rather, theists insist that for every attribute that can apply to their God, He is its absolute apotheosis. He is not just good, for example, but perfectly good. Nor can there be more than one state of absolute goodness (or anything else). For if there were, they would have to be distinguishable in some way in order not to be one and the same. But if they are distinguishable, then they can be compared with one another, which must necessarily render one or the other of them imperfect since the essence of the notion of perfection is that of incomparability. If God could possess an attribute to a greater or lesser degree and still be perfect, He could just as well also be more or less good, loving, powerful, etc. and still be perfect. But that is at odds with what believers commonly mean when they assert that God is perfect. Perfection implies uniqueness and the necessity of stasis, if not immutability.

Nor can God’s perfection be compared to what people commonly intend when they speak of the quite ordinary sort of "perfection" of some object or action in the human sphere of experience. For the essence of divine perfection is that it is not to be judged as a means to some end. Indeed, it cannot be so judged inasmuch as God’s perfection, according to theists, supposedly serves as the absolute basis for all other purposes and values. God is supposed to be perfect in every way. Accordingly, He cannot learn or think, because He already knows everything. Nor can he do anything because to do so would require that He had in mind some purpose, which is to say, some end which would improve His satisfaction. If He could be said to be sitting on a throne with his legs crossed right over left, for example, basking in His absolute glory of perfection, what possible reason could He have to uncross His legs and recross them left over right? If He is perfect, he can have no reason for doing so, because He is already perfect and cannot be improved upon. Therefore, a perfect God, having no motive for doing anything, and certainly being unaffected and invulnerable to any and all other forces (if any can be said to exist outside of Himself), can do nothing but exist.

Now it may remain a fair criticism to say that divine perfection really does not have and cannot have any clear meaning. There is certainly nothing in objective human experience that informs us as to the nature of such absolute perfection. But, then, the notions of God’s omnipotence and omniscience suffer from the same defects. If even God’s perfection has no practical meaning for human beings, then the last connection of the concept of divinity as a serious metaphysical concept to intelligibility is severed. And if the notion of god(s) as anything other than fictional entities is completely unintelligible, then the idea of God is certainly without any significance or importance for thinking human beings. If divine perfection does not require God to be absolutely immobile and inert, then it renders Him absolutely meaningless.

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libertarianbob01 · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:48 am Post subject:

As an incompatible properties argument the above seems to me to be near bullet proof. If the theist attempts to redefine perfection by assigning a humanistic quality to the alleged deity, she destroys the essential and necessary feature of the deity. For if the deity is not perfect in every way, then one or more of the assumed properties of the God of classical theism are compromised. What do you fine people think? Is this a good argument? Does Gorski need to revisit his essay?
_________________
"Bruno answered the sentence of death by fire with the threatening: "Perhaps you, my judges, pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it." He was given eight more days to see whether he would repent. But it was no use. He was taken to the stake and as he was dying a crucifix was presented to him, but he pushed it away with fierce scorn."

Moloth · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:06 pm Post subject:

dolenzia · Visitor Joined: 25 Jul 2007 Posts: 21 Local time: 5:57 AM

I don't know if this argument applies to other definitions of God.

I think if you look at a Naturalistic God, ie Einstein's God, that the very nature of God is the universe. So the definition of "Perfect" would apply to the perfect natural laws of the universe.

So the argument may work against the Theistic God, such as many of the proofs that exist against the Biblical God.

Moloth · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 1:57 pm Post subject:

JCMac · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 2:19 pm Post subject:

God is nothing but just a name without the properties and attributes associated with it.
The label 'God' is interchangeable.
The statement "God is created in man's image" sounds more plausible than it's reverse.

We didn't discover an entity we called "God" out of some mysterious ethereal dimension, we made this idea up, assigned the properties, and thought that reality, things, events were made and governed by this idea. Actually, it is all just representation of whatever thing we like it to represent. It is all just an idea made on the back of our head, or inside the caves.
_________________
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

"Intolerance is the natural concomitant of strong faith; tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty; certainty is murderous."
-Will Durant

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. But I'm not sure about the universe."

WisdomManiac91 · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 2:28 pm Post subject:

JCMac · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 2:43 pm Post subject:

dolenzia · Visitor Joined: 25 Jul 2007 Posts: 21 Local time: 5:57 AM

libertarianbob01 · Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 9:58 pm Post subject:

Perhaps there is a way out of the perfection dilemma for theistic believers. What if instead of a single set of equations of State representing Perfection, there were instead a Landscape of Solutions. Imagine a multidimensional hyper surface or manifold. If the coordinates of each point on the landscape-manifold represents the members of a set of differential equations each of which corresponds to the characteristics of a particular model deity, then each point on the multidimensional manifold surface would be a set of differential equations providing a solution to the question of Perfection. Composed as it were of a multitude of points each of which representing a particular Perfect Deity, the manifold if somehow (insert ad-hoc assumptions here) related to String Theory's M-Space or Brane-Space would then infer Polytheism in a Multiverse. Such a pantheon of Perfect Gods might be somehow (insert ad-hoc assumptions here) identifiable with a mathematical proof of the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Physics. An easy check would be to determine if a Landscape or multi-hyper-dimensional manifold of solution sets could be constructed to allow falsifiable predictions. However, defining a set of differential equations (insert ad-hoc assumptions here) that represent the 23 or so characteristics of the God of classical theism (as describe in the Catholic encyclopedia) would be a daunting task in and of itself. Likewise describing a manifold like that I postulated above would be way beyond my abilities. Nevertheless, a polytheistic pantheon of Gods in a Multiverse where each God in each Universe being perfect and doing nothing save existing might let someone imagine (insert ad-hoc assumptions here) a sort of ultimate metaphysical enabling condition transcending M-Brane-Space to emanate penumbra like from the set of all Perfect Gods such that baryonic matter might be somehow inclined (insert even more ad-hoc assumptions here) to form self-replicating molecules. This could explain monotheism in each single Universe while also explaining the propensity to life in general and the symmetry of String Theory. If a landscape-manifold of Perfect Gods could provide falsifiable predictions and have explanatory power while maintaining at least some conservatism by keeping the ad-hocs to a minimum, then the believer could salvage her God while embracing the findings of modern physical cosmology.

Is this a way off the horns of the Perfection dilemma or merely an exercise in ad-hoc assumption insertion? I think it probably the latter. Nevertheless, I submit this mess with hope it will jog the imagination of someone way f-ing smarter than me.

libertarianbob01 · Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:54 am Post subject:

I remembered that Dr Michael Martin's essay, "A Disproof of God's Existence (1970)" bears relevance to the Argument from Perfection, for if the ambiguous term God is defined as something less than an incomparably (to human standards of perfection) perfect being, and if theistic believers do not mind accepting such an object of worship then Gorski's argument fails. That is his condition that essential and necessary properties of deity follow from his posited definition of perfection may not hold if theistic believers arbitrarily redefine their god as something else. Martin's 1970 essay makes the observation that "... it is not so obvious to me that most people in our culture who believe in God believe that God is a Perfect Being." This is important because the ordinary believer is not philosophically sophisticated. For your reading pleasure, I submit Martin's 1970 essay.
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A Disproof of God's Existence (1970)
Michael Martin

In this paper I present a disproof of the existence of God. Such a disproof does not disprove the existence of God in all senses of the ambiguous term 'God.' But no disproof does this. For instance what one might call the disproof of God's existence from the problem of evil, even if sound, presumably does not show that God does not exist if 'God' is meant to refer to some being that either is not omnipotent or not completely benevolent. Again, the so called ontological Disproof of God, even if sound, does not show that God does not exist if 'God' is meant to refer to some being that is less than perfect.

In order to tell what the relevance of such disproofs have to ordinary people's belief in God one must discern what the ordinary concept of God is. But this is sometimes difficult. We have a good idea what professional philosaphers and theologians mean by 'God' but what the theologically and philosophically unsophisticated mean by 'God' is often not so clear. For instance, it is not so obvious to me that most people in our culture who believe in God believe that God is a Perfect Being. One suspects that many religious believers have a more limited or modest view of God. If this is so, the above mentioned disproofs of the existence of God, even if sound, could hardly touch many people's religious convictions.

My disproof of the exisrence of God does, I believe, refute a belief in God that is based on a common concept of God, a notion of God that many people hold--although I am willing to admit that this God may not be the God of professional philosophers or theologicians. (The concept of God presumed in my disproof is not a Perfect Being and differs from the standard academic notion in other ways). Thus I will argue that 'God' in one sense that is widely accepted in non-academic circles is self contradictory and thus that God in this sense cannot exist. I will first give a rather informal exposition of the disproof, then I will give a more formal version. Finally, I will defend the disproof against possible objections.
Informal Statement of the Disproof

The ordinary man seems to believe that God is the most moral being in the universe. (Whether he believes that God is morally perfect we need not decide). Part of this belief of the ordinary man is that God does not have certain kinds of feelings. Although God may have the feeling of anger, God does not have the feelings of lust or envy. Moreover, part of this ordinary concept of God is that God knows more than anyone else. (Again whether the ordinary man believes that God knows everything we

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leave as an open question). In particular the ordinary man supposes that God knows (at least) all that men know. However these two beliefs, once correctly understood, are logically incompatible. Let me explain.

Philosophers in talking about God's knowledge almost invariably equate God's knowledge with what has been called propositional knowledge or knowledge that something is the case. This intellectual view of God does not seem to be shared by the common man. On his view God's knowledge includes other types of knowledge as well. The plain man certainly supposes that God knows how to do many things and he does not mean by this that God knows that certain things should be done in such and such a way; he believes that God has certain skills (procedural knowledge) i.e. at least all those skills that men have.

Moreover, it is not obvious that ordinary people suppose that man's or God's knowledge is exhausted by knowledge that and knowledge how. There is a use of 'know' in ordinary parlance which cannot be reduced to knowledge that or knowledge how. When one says "I. know Smith" one does not ordinarily mean merely that one has certain propositional or procedural knowledge concerning Smith. Usually what is at least suggested is that one has met Smith. In other expressions of the form "Person P know X" the meaning is changed only slightly. When one says "Jones knows sorrow" one does not usually mean only that Jones knows that sorrow results in such and such behavior or that sorrow is caused in such and such a way. One is usually suggesting rather that Jones has had the experience of sorrow. The same thing goes for the expression "He has known lust" or "He has known envy." A person who knows lust and envy has at least had the feeling of lust or envy. Since God has all of men's knowledge and more, he must know lust and envy. But to say God has known lust and envy is to say that God has had the feelings of lust and envy. But this is incompatible with God's moral goodness. Hence God does not exist.
FORMAL PROOF

Premise (1)

If God exists, God has not had the feelings of lust or envy.

Premise (2)

If God exists, God exists as a being who knows at least everything man knows.

Premise (3)

If God exists as a being who knows at least everything man knows, God knows lust and envy.

Premise (4)

If God knows lust and envy, God has had the feelings of lust and envy.

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(5) God exists.

By hypothesis.

(6) .: God has had and has not had the feelings of lust and envy.

By (1) - (5).

(7) God does not exist.

By (5) & (6)
Q. E. D.
OBJECTIONS TO THE DISPROOF

Objection (1)

God's moral goodness does not concern His feelings; rather they concern His action and the principle of His action. Thus premise (1) is false.

Answer:

Now it is true that sometimes in judging the moral quality of a person one takes account only of his action and the principle of his action. A person who did good deeds all of his life and who acted on moral principles would normally be considered a good person. But still we would consider such a person better if there were not envy or lust in his heart. In any case, it is inconceivable to the ordinary religious believer that God's good action and purpose should hide His feelings of lust and envy. People demand that in God at least--who is their moral Ideal--the feelings of lust and envy should not exist.

Objection (2)

If God had the feelings of lust and envy and this affected Him, this would indeed detract from his moral goodness. However, God because of His great powers need not let these feelings affect Him. Thus premise (1) is false.

Answer:

It is difficult to know what 'affect Him' means here. Envy and lust are feelings that must affect the person that has them. One need not succumb to such feelings to be affected by them. By definition they do have some effect, i.e. these feelings involve certain strivings in the person that has them. Just because God may never be overcome by these feelings is not enough. The mere fact that He has had them would take away from His moral goodness on the common view.

Moreover, unless God sometimes did succumb to envy or lust this would detract from His knowledge and He would know less than some men. To say Jones has known succumbing to lust is presumably to say that Jones once experienced this succumbing himself, i.e. he once succumbed. If God lacked this knowledge, He would know less than Jones in one respect at least.

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Objection (3)

God's knowledge is only propositional knowledge. Thus premise (3) is false.

Answer:

This argument seems to me to be mistaken at least as far as a common view of God goes. Indeed, I would argue that the more personal a view of God one has--and most ordinary people have a very personal view of God--the more mistaken this retort is. People who tend to think of God as a person naturally tend to think of Him as having many characteristics of persons and this includes the sort of knowledge that persons have. And this knowledge includes more than propositional knowledge.

Objection (4)

Since God is all powerful he can know lust and envy without having the feelings of envy and greed. Thus premise (4) is false.

Answer:

As I have already mentioned I am skeptical that philosophers have adequately characterized the ordinary notion of God and thus I am not sure that omnipotence is a property that most people predicate of God. But, in any case, as I understand the expression "He has known lust" it would be logically impossible for God to have known lust and not have had the feeling of lust. Presumably, even on the academic notion of God, God cannot do what is logically impossible.

Objection (5)

Your argument is in fact a very ancient and well worn objection and neglects the classical replies that have been made to it. Thus your argument is without merit.

Answer:

It is true that an argument similar to mine is found in classical literature. The classical reply to such an argument was usually to point out that God's knowledge of lust and envy need not involve having these feelings. This answer is sufficient in the classical context to refute the argument since the traditional philosophical and theological intellectual notion of God was at issue. In this context only propositional knowledge was relevant. But in the present context such an answer is not sufficient since this traditional philosophical and theological notion of God is not under consideration. We are considering the existence of God of the ordinary man. Here the ordinary sense of 'know' is relevant. And in one ordinary sense of 'know' one does not know lust or envy unless one has experienced lust and envy. Thus my disproof is not in fact an ancient and well worn objection that neglects the classical replies.

Objection (6)

This argument, even if sound, refutes the belief in God of the unsophisticated person. But it is hardly surprising that such a person's view

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of God is inconsistent and that God in this cense dees not exist. Hence, this argument is philosophically uninteresting.

Answer:

1 have refuted a belief in God held by many philosophically unsophisticated people and this view of God may not correspond very well to what philosophers have meant by God. Nevertheless, this does not take away from the interest of the disproof. First of all, it may not be surprising that a common view of God is false. But that such a view is logically false is surely surprising--just as surprising as if one showed that people's ordinary view of morality or space was inconsistent. (One does not suppose these concepts are self contradictory in ordinary thinking although one may suppose they are unclear, ambiguous, and confused). Secondly, it seems to me that part of a philosopher's job (but surely not all) is to analyze and critically evaluate the views of people who are not philosophically sophisticated. This fact has been recognized at least since Socrates. Thus my disproof of God in the ordinary sense of 'God' does have some philosophical interest.

Objection (7)

There is no reason to suppose your analysis of God captures the ordinary sense of 'God' in our culture. In order to determine this sociological and anthropological evidence of a certain kind would be necessary. Since you do not produce such evidence one can well remain skeptical of your disproof of ordinary people's belief in God.

Answer:

It is true that I have not appealed to sociological or anthropological evidence to justify my thesis. No such evidence is available at the present time. The evidence that is available to me does suggest that I am correct. More reliable evidence when it is produced may change my mind. Meanwhile, one can at least evaluate the disproof hypothetically. One can ask: if this concept of God is the one implicit in ordinary thinking, is it true that God as is ordinarily conceived does not exist? The answer, as I have tried to show, is yes.

kmisho · Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 10:05 am Post subject:

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