Is God Imperfect?

[Adriopium]

I am not sure if a thread like this was started yet. I think it's generally believed (by religious, primarily monotheistic people) that their God is the embodiment of perfection, and thus their word is immutable, and they are always morally right. Their word is the way nature is, how we should act, and such. Which is all good and all, but what if it wasn't?

I've started thinking, I guess the whole Christian concept of referring to God as "The Holy Father" and other such paternal terms, and us as his children made me think; what if God wants what's best for us, and wants us to blossom on someday, but he himself does not know or can perform the perfect way of doing it? We are made in his image, so it is said, so what if the imperfect image of us comes from another imperfect being? If you believe in both the old and the New Testament for example, the Old Testament God is much more jealous, firey, wrathful and strict. The one in the New Testament, whether or not you believe Jesus is God himself or seperate of God or whatever, seems much more accepting, inclusive, forgiving and benevolent. If the word and morals of God changed, then which one is perfect, if any at all? I do believe that our God is a wise God, and a generally just God, but if we are like him and him us, then he is imperfect. While we can learn from an imperfect parent, it is important to remember when they are not right, and when it is okay to do stuff on our own, go our own way, and other things.

Forgive me for my rambling OP, just the rambling thoughts of a guy at 2 in the morning.

What are your guys' thoughts?

[Constantinopolis]

God has not changed, we have merely encountered different aspects of Him and therefore described Him in different ways.

Are you familiar with the parable of the blind men and the elephant?

One version of it goes like this: Six blind men, who have never encountered an elephant before, are presented with an elephant and asked to describe what kind of thing it is. So they start touching it to figure out what it is, and they form their opinions accordingly. The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe.

Who is right? They are all right. They're just describing different parts of the elephant.

[Asigna]

No, if god exist, there is no human way of comprehending how his perfect existence works because human comprehension is imperfect.

[Olthar]

If God exists, I'd rather go to Hell. Satan seems like much better company.

[Arab Jamahiriyahs]

The concept of god has always proclaimed to be prefect.
I tend to view "God" as a concept more than an entity.

[Big Jim P]

No, I have been perfect all along. Only the infidels would believe otherwise.

[Big Jim P]

The concept of god has always proclaimed to be prefect.
I tend to view "God" as a concept more than an entity.

Hello, I am an entity, not just a concept.

[Greater Beggnig]

If God exists, I'd rather go to Hell. Satan seems like much better company.

http://i.imgur.com/eel51Uw.jpg

You forgot a few other people, and if you get bored, you can always throw rocks at Stalin and Mussolini for fun.

My thoughts on whether God is imperfect:

Well, if we are discussing the Christian God here, then I think he is since he is described as jealous, a trait which he forbids in humans in the Ten Commandments and which he describes as being mutually exclusive to love, yet claims to love us all perfectly, he is. But I don't believe in God, so for me it is not a problem, it is merely more evidence that the Bible is not divine revelation, but the writings were compiled by mere man.

[Sau Beiu]

Well if you've ever read the bible or, like me, read a general summary of it, you would know, there is absolutely no way that god if perfect. Like at all.

[Risottia]

If God exists, I'd rather go to HellSweden. Statan seems like much better company.

Fixed because ALL HAIL STATAN.

[Risottia]

If God exists, I'd rather go to Hell. Satan seems like much better company.

http://i.imgur.com/eel51Uw.jpg

You forgot a few other people, and if you get bored, you can always throw rocks at Stalin and Mussolini for fun.

My real problem would be Ayn Rand.

WTF LOCKED WITH AYN RAND FOR ALL ETERNITY WITHOUT MEANS OF ESCAPE NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Now I'm positively considering a conversion.

[Awesomeland]

Are you familiar with the parable of the blind men and the elephant?

I liked the one with the 6 blind elephants and the man. The first elephant says, "Men are flat." The other elephants agreed.

[Eastern Equestria]

http://i.imgur.com/eel51Uw.jpg

You forgot a few other people, and if you get bored, you can always throw rocks at Stalin and Mussolini for fun.

My real problem would be Ayn Rand.

WTF LOCKED WITH AYN RAND FOR ALL ETERNITY WITHOUT MEANS OF ESCAPE NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Now I'm positively considering a conversion.

But on the other hand, Sasha Grey

[Mefpan]

My real problem would be Ayn Rand.

WTF LOCKED WITH AYN RAND FOR ALL ETERNITY WITHOUT MEANS OF ESCAPE NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Now I'm positively considering a conversion.

But on the other hand, Sasha Grey

Oh, fuck.

Is it too late to become a pagan and live my life in the names of Odin, Thor and their buddies?

[Threlizdun]

If one existed then it obviously would be one of the most imperfect beings in existence. Thankfully, such monsters almost certainly don't exist.

[Idzequitch]

I am not sure if a thread like this was started yet. I think it's generally believed (by religious, primarily monotheistic people) that their God is the embodiment of perfection, and thus their word is immutable, and they are always morally right. Their word is the way nature is, how we should act, and such. Which is all good and all, but what if it wasn't?

I've started thinking, I guess the whole Christian concept of referring to God as "The Holy Father" and other such paternal terms, and us as his children made me think; what if God wants what's best for us, and wants us to blossom on someday, but he himself does not know or can perform the perfect way of doing it? We are made in his image, so it is said, so what if the imperfect image of us comes from another imperfect being? If you believe in both the old and the New Testament for example, the Old Testament God is much more jealous, firey, wrathful and strict. The one in the New Testament, whether or not you believe Jesus is God himself or seperate of God or whatever, seems much more accepting, inclusive, forgiving and benevolent. If the word and morals of God changed, then which one is perfect, if any at all? I do believe that our God is a wise God, and a generally just God, but if we are like him and him us, then he is imperfect. While we can learn from an imperfect parent, it is important to remember when they are not right, and when it is okay to do stuff on our own, go our own way, and other things.

Forgive me for my rambling OP, just the rambling thoughts of a guy at 2 in the morning.

What are your guys' thoughts?

As far as the differences in the OT and the NT, I think we're just seeing different aspects of the same being. I am a perfectly pleasant person most of the time, but at times, I get pissed off, and 'I'm not so pleasant anymore. That doesn't make me a different person, it makes me a person with multiple facets to his personality, kind of like God, actually, which brings me to my next point.

The way I've been given to understand it, we are supposed to be like God, or at least modeled after him, But he isn't like us. Far from it. Our imperfection came from our own free will. Now, God's decision to give people free will, when he knew how they'd abuse it, you could question that reasoning. Does a lapse of judgment make him imperfect? Yeah probably, though whether that was a lapse of judgment is still up for debate.

Bottom line, from a purely Christian standpoint, I don't see any evidence to make me second guess the idea that God is perfect. However there are other perspectives that could make some good arguments, so take that as you will.

[Mnar Secundus]

Well, an imperfect God (in the way you mean it) is really the least offensive way to reconcile Abrahamic religion (more so the later versions, i.e. Christianity and Islam, since the Jewish God isn't actually benevolent) with the realities of the world.

This world is functionally completely "imperfect" from our PoV. If there were an assignment in a first-year engineering class to design a universe as perfect for life and specifically humans as possible and God were to take it, He would fail, big time - this is an objective fact.

Besides that, if God is benevolent, all-powerful, all-knowing and infallible, the problem of evil comes into play. How can He allow rape, torture and murder? The oft-seen argument of "God respects individual free will" is completely unsupported by Scripture, implies that restricting criminals' free will is a crime worse than genocide (which, IMO, is a frankly deranged and monstrous idea, and I would not hesitate to shoot anyone who acted upon it) and falls woefully flat when one gives it a smidgen of thought.
After all, take the situation where a "good" person is imprisoned and tortured by, say, a Nazi. The "good" person's freedom is being restricted, isn't it? Therefore, should God intervene to put an end to it, the Nazi's freedom would be restricted, but his victim's would be protected. The "amount" of free will being restricted is the same regardless of whether God intervenes or not, so He really has no reason not to. What do we get from that? We get that God favors the Nazi's free will more than the "good" person's. The argument of free will doesn't qualify as religious apologetics: properly thought through, it works against the "perfect God" hypothesis.
Also, the most basic and indisputable characteristic of the Abrahamic God is that He is omnipotent. He can do anything. That means that were this perfect God to exist, He could necessarily and undeniably end all evil in the world without restricting anyone's free will. Even if we were to actually engineer a situation where it is completely and utterly logically impossible to stop the evil taking place without restricting free will, God could do it anyway, because omnipotence isn't limited by logic - yes, this creates its own host of paradoxes, but if we were to adress all the paradoxes inherent to a perfect God we'd be here until Doomsday.

This argument cannot be brushed off by the usual non-argument of "God works in mysterious ways" (which is really an admission of defeat): there cannot be any "mysterious way" in which an omnipotent being would somehow be unable to solve a problem, any problem, without restricting free will. Similarly, there cannot be any way in which an omnipotent being would somehow need to tolerate some amount of evil in order to bring about a greater good: an omnipotent being can necessarily achieve any "good" objective, anyone at all, without tolerating any amount of evil, and indeed without working in any mysterious way. If an omnipotent being wants something to happen, it will happen instantly and without any delays or complications. If God exists, whatever evil happens in this world cannot be the result of anything but God's own direct will - His whim, more or less.

Therefore, it must be concluded that God is either nonexistent, so weak that there's no point in worshipping Him, incredibly stupid or profoundly, completely and irredeemably evil - and here we're talking about sheer, pointless, unadulterated evil, the kind of evil that would make Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined feel sick to the bottom of their stomachs, the kind of evil that would condemn millions of children and babies throughout the world for thousands of years to be slowly and agonizingly tortured to death by tumors and diseases just for the hell of it.
The kindest conclusion to take is that God, if He exists, must be very much imperfect (indeed, incompetent would be a better word). Of course, the most logical conclusion is that He simply doesn't exist, but that's irrelevant here, since the thread works on the premise that God exists. One could point out that it takes a lot of imperfection to fail at anything when you have omnipotence and omniscience, but then again, this isn't my God we're talking about.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

No idea. We tend to go by notions of what we consider perfect. And our notions, human as they are, are anything but perfect. Our understanding of such a being is flawed, imperfect. And since we're supposed to be created in his image, I conclude he is himself imperfect.

This, of course, would be so if he existed. As I don't know nor care if he does, eh.

[Idzequitch]

No idea. We tend to go by notions of what we consider perfect. And our notions, human as they are, are anything but perfect. Our understanding of such a being is flawed, imperfect. And since we're supposed to be created in his image, I conclude he is himself imperfect.

This, of course, would be so if he existed. As I don't know nor care if he does, eh.

I'm not sure I follow your logic here. If I was to try to recreate a dollar bill. Even if I copied the details of a real dollar bill, my version would not be anywhere perfect. Does this detract from the legitimacy of the real dollar bill? Of course not. Copies are never as good as the original.

In the same way, people are imperfect copies of the perfect thing they're supposed to represent (God).I have by no means concluded that God must be perfect, but I'm not sure that argument really holds water.

[Servica]

All gods that were ever invented and worshipped by the general populace reflected the negative side of human nature.
I object to even claiming that we humans have an objective idea of what "perfection" is. Ideal to the taste of the individual, perhaps, but not perfect. What's perfect for us is nothing with regards to nature and the universe; that's how shallow we are... and yet we worship things that we can be better than and without.

[Idzequitch]

All gods that were ever invented and worshipped by the general populace reflected the negative side of human nature.
I object to even claiming that we humans have an objective idea of what "perfection" is. Ideal to the taste of the individual, perhaps, but not perfect. What's perfect for us is nothing with regards to nature and the universe; that's how shallow we are... and yet we worship things that we can be better than and without.

Forgive me if I misinterpret you, but it seems your argument boils down to: We don't know what perfection is, therefore it doesn't exist. Far from a convincing argument.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

No idea. We tend to go by notions of what we consider perfect. And our notions, human as they are, are anything but perfect. Our understanding of such a being is flawed, imperfect. And since we're supposed to be created in his image, I conclude he is himself imperfect.

This, of course, would be so if he existed. As I don't know nor care if he does, eh.

I'm not sure I follow your logic here. If I was to try to recreate a dollar bill. Even if I copied the details of a real dollar bill, my version would not be anywhere perfect. Does this detract from the legitimacy of the real dollar bill? Of course not. Copies are never as good as the original.

In the same way, people are imperfect copies of the perfect thing they're supposed to represent (God).I have by no means concluded that God must be perfect, but I'm not sure that argument really holds water.

I never said my argument was either absolutely true or conclusive. I very much doubt that there's anything perfect out there, call it god or call it what you will. *shrug *

[Big Jim P]

I'm not sure I follow your logic here. If I was to try to recreate a dollar bill. Even if I copied the details of a real dollar bill, my version would not be anywhere perfect. Does this detract from the legitimacy of the real dollar bill? Of course not. Copies are never as good as the original.

In the same way, people are imperfect copies of the perfect thing they're supposed to represent (God).I have by no means concluded that God must be perfect, but I'm not sure that argument really holds water.

I never said my argument was either absolutely true or conclusive. I very much doubt that there's anything perfect out there, call it god or call it what you will. *shrug *

I just call myself "Jim".

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I never said my argument was either absolutely true or conclusive. I very much doubt that there's anything perfect out there, call it god or call it what you will. *shrug *

I just call myself "Jim".

That goes without saying.

[The Nuclear Fist]

Of course he is imperfect. How can you be the Blind Idiot God and be entirely on the ball?