Thoughts as God as the perfect standard -Need feedback

[jgrdaniel]

As Catholics,we believe that God is perfect:
He is perfectly moral- He cannot sin.
He is perfectly good-He cannot do evil.
He is perfectly loving.
In total, He has all the positive qualities ad-infinitum.

But my question is, what is perfection? Why is God perfect?
If we say God is perfect, to what standard do we hold him to be perfect? None, because He is the standard. Then if we try to prove Him perfect, we have to use His own standard, and that is circular reasoning - Am I wrong in saying this?
If we prove it by our own standards of perfection, then we become the judge of God, which is absurd.
This made me uneasy. Perhaps, I though it unjust for Him to be perfect by using His own standard. But then again, we cannot blame reason, for example, by proving its “reasoness” (I just invented the word it seems) with reason, and perhaps that is the nature of being the standard, you measure it against its own standard.
What is evil then? Evil, as St. Augustine said, is a subtraction of good. So evil it seems, is not necessarily what goes against the ultimate Good (i.e. God), but what we do without the nature of God. So Good is the nature, or part of the nature of God, and Evil, is what is done without it. There is no pure evil, it seems.

But this made me, for some odd reason, extremely uneasy. I felt that this definition took away from the concept of perfect good. Good is simply what God has as His nature, but since He is the standard of it (He can’t measure His goodness by another standard other than Himself) the Ultimate Good is God’s (or part of His) nature. In the end, He made it all, and so He decides the rules. So what we consider good in this world, is measured by that Standard, which is Himself. Evil is good subtracted. God did not create evil. Evil is a consequence of us looking an identity away from Him. So good, I think, its not in our actions alone, but in our source. Our actions, even if they are judged by others as good, are not in themselves good. They are good because they come from the source of the Ultimate Good, which is God. The source of my uneasiness is uncertain. I think, on reflecting on it, that it comes from deducting good as God’s nature. It is not an accomplishment of God, but it is His nature. To make you understand this, let me put an example of this, and this is where I need your help:

-Imagine yourself as the only eternal being, with power to create a world and its inhabitants.
-Your attributions are the same you now hold. Forget of imperfections, they aren’t because there is no standard to measure them against. Only you exist.
-You create the world, and its inhabitants, and implant in them a moral law. They are fulfilled when they act upon it, and when they don’t they aren’t.
-This moral law will reflect your attributes. You inhabitants will regard you as perfect. You will be perfect. You will be the standard upon which that moral law is measured.

My discomfort comes from this notion that anyone, as long as he is eternal and creates inhabitants in his nature, would be perfect, independent of his attributes. So, this forces me to conclude that perfection, it seems, comes from being the only eternal, and not from attributes alone. God is perfect because He is the eternal being, powerful enough to create us. Good is simply a name we attribute to His nature. Maybe this is the case, as we can’t say that by simply being good, perfectly good, then one becomes a god (God forbid the thought!). Even if we can become perfectly good we wouldn’t be gods, as we lack the other attributes of God, eternal and power. What do you think of this? Am I wrong? Are these thoughts sinful? If not, what is perfection and why do we attribute it to God?

 

[warpspeedpetey]

As Catholics,we believe that God is perfect:
He is perfectly moral- He cannot sin.
He is perfectly good-He cannot do evil.
He is perfectly loving.
In total, He has all the positive qualities ad-infinitum.

But my question is, what is perfection? Why is God perfect?
If we say God is perfect, to what standard do we hold him to be perfect? None, because He is the standard. Then if we try to prove Him perfect, we have to use His own standard, and that is circular reasoning - Am I wrong in saying this?
If we prove it by our own standards of perfection, then we become the judge of God, which is absurd.
This made me uneasy. Perhaps, I though it unjust for Him to be perfect by using His own standard. But then again, we cannot blame reason, for example, by proving its “reasoness” (I just invented the word it seems) with reason, and perhaps that is the nature of being the standard, you measure it against its own standard.
What is evil then? Evil, as St. Augustine said, is a subtraction of good. So evil it seems, is not necessarily what goes against the ultimate Good (i.e. God), but what we do without the nature of God. So Good is the nature, or part of the nature of God, and Evil, is what is done without it. There is no pure evil, it seems.

But this made me, for some odd reason, extremely uneasy. I felt that this definition took away from the concept of perfect good. Good is simply what God has as His nature, but since He is the standard of it (He can’t measure His goodness by another standard other than Himself) the Ultimate Good is God’s (or part of His) nature. In the end, He made it all, and so He decides the rules. So what we consider good in this world, is measured by that Standard, which is Himself. Evil is good subtracted. God did not create evil. Evil is a consequence of us looking an identity away from Him. So good, I think, its not in our actions alone, but in our source. Our actions, even if they are judged by others as good, are not in themselves good. They are good because they come from the source of the Ultimate Good, which is God. The source of my uneasiness is uncertain. I think, on reflecting on it, that it comes from deducting good as God’s nature. It is not an accomplishment of God, but it is His nature. To make you understand this, let me put an example of this, and this is where I need your help:

-Imagine yourself as the only eternal being, with power to create a world and its inhabitants.
-Your attributions are the same you now hold. Forget of imperfections, they aren’t because there is no standard to measure them against. Only you exist.
-You create the world, and its inhabitants, and implant in them a moral law. They are fulfilled when they act upon it, and when they don’t they aren’t.
-This moral law will reflect your attributes. You inhabitants will regard you as perfect. You will be perfect. You will be the standard upon which that moral law is measured.

My discomfort comes from this notion that anyone, as long as he is eternal and creates inhabitants in his nature, would be perfect, independent of his attributes. So, this forces me to conclude that perfection, it seems, comes from being the only eternal, and not from attributes alone. God is perfect because He is the eternal being, powerful enough to create us. Good is simply a name we attribute to His nature. Maybe this is the case, as we can’t say that by simply being good, perfectly good, then one becomes a god (God forbid the thought!). Even if we can become perfectly good we wouldn’t be gods, as we lack the other attributes of God, eternal and power. What do you think of this? Am I wrong? Are these thoughts sinful? If not, what is perfection and why do we attribute it to God?

perfect generally means, complete, lacking nothing. though i have no problem assigning G-d the attribute that He says He has in Scripture. Just as if i told you, i was so tall, i weighed so much and my hair was such and such a color. the same way with G-d.

the disconnect may come from some discomfort with the idea that moral authority should be separate somehow from G-d. that good should be good irrespective of G-d, but why should that be the case? i mean, if G-d were to commit acts that are evil in relation to the things that we think are good now, then wouldnt “good” just be what those acts are? and therefore our idea of good is dependent on what G-d says is good?

morality isnt about objective/subjective as many would divide it, but rather from authority. G-d has the legitimate authority of the Creator, over the created, just as you would have authority over things you had created.

 

[Eucharisted]

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

39 In defending the ability of human reason to know God, the Church is expressing her confidence in the possibility of speaking about him to all men and with all men, and therefore of dialogue with other religions, with philosophy and science, as well as with unbelievers and atheists.

40 Since our knowledge of God is limited, our language about him is equally so. We can name God only by taking creatures as our starting point, and in accordance with our limited human ways of knowing and thinking.

41 All creatures bear a certain resemblance to God, most especially man, created in the image and likeness of God. the manifold perfections of creatures - their truth, their goodness, their beauty all reflect the infinite perfection of God. Consequently we can name God by taking his creatures" perfections as our starting point, “for from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator”.15

42 God transcends all creatures. We must therefore continually purify our language of everything in it that is limited, imagebound or imperfect, if we are not to confuse our image of God --“the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable”-- with our human representations.16 Our human words always fall short of the mystery of God.

43 Admittedly, in speaking about God like this, our language is using human modes of expression; nevertheless it really does attain to God himself, though unable to express him in his infinite simplicity. Likewise, we must recall that “between Creator and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying an even greater dissimilitude”;17 and that "concerning God, we cannot grasp what he is, but only what he is not, and how other beings stand in relation to him."18

48 We really can name God, starting from the manifold perfections of his creatures, which are likenesses of the infinitely perfect God, even if our limited language cannot exhaust the mystery.

 

[NowAgnostic]

As Catholics,we believe that God is perfect:
He is perfectly moral- He cannot sin.
He is perfectly good-He cannot do evil.
He is perfectly loving.
In total, He has all the positive qualities ad-infinitum.

But my question is, what is perfection? Why is God perfect?
If we say God is perfect, to what standard do we hold him to be perfect? None, because He is the standard. Then if we try to prove Him perfect, we have to use His own standard, and that is circular reasoning - Am I wrong in saying this?
If we prove it by our own standards of perfection, then we become the judge of God, which is absurd.

Ah, the old Euthyphro dilemma.

It is resolved by understanding Divine simplicity. God has no “attributes” - it is not precisely correct to say “God is perfect” and “God is good” as though they were descriptives - it’s correct to say “God is perfection” and “God is goodness” - **identifying **God with those things.

If you say “God is good” then yes, you have the dilemma you just stated. Does the standard of “goodness” exist independently of God or does the standard of “goodness” exist because God created it. In the first case, God is not the standard. In the second, “God is good” is a meaningless tautology - it would be logically possible for God to command us to blaspheme and that would be “good”. Saying “God is goodness” however avoids both horns of the dilemma.

 

[PAboy57]

You are asking a question that has been asked throughout all history. Someone so good, so powerful and so perfert is far beyond our limited grasp of reality. We simply don’t have the capability to make the comparison. It is so frustrating being a mere human being

 

[jgrdaniel]

warpspeedpetey: Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut! You make an excellent point that morality is based on authority. After all, morality (that is the moral law) only exist for us, not for God. God doesn’t need to adhere to any law because He is self-sufficient. So the moral law did not exist before our creation, but was created as a manual for us, to deal with the shared nature of His (by shared nature I mean that we are created in His image and likeness). As st, Augustine said, and I paraphrase: You created us for Yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in You. And so, it is rightfully the place of God to decide what is good and what is not, because Good is His nature, and before all of creation, He was all that existed, nothing existed beyond Him, and nothing exist which He did not create. So let us place ourselves, if we can with our limited mind, before the creation of everything. There is God in His might, self-sufficient - and as you said, that is essence of perfection, not lacking in anything. It is impossible for Him to lack anything because there is nothing else to lack, He is all that is. If He lacked anything, then that anything existed outside of Him, and since He is all that is, that is impossible. So, it would be impossible for us to go back and see God before the creation of the world, but let us use our imagination and do so with our minds. Who could judge the nature of God and call it good or bad? No one, because He is all that is, the initiator of all. And since He is the starting point, He must decide what to create and how, and decide what is good and wrong in His sight and His sight alone, because there is no other. There is no other opinion prior His, no other standard. Seeing this, I can see that my question is meaningless. Akin to the question, “What was God doing before He created us?”

Eucharisted: Indeed, what the Catechism says is true! In trying to understand the nature of God, I can only see how little and limited my mind is! St. Thomas Aquinas was perhaps the greatest human mind that ever walked the earth (besides Jesus, of course, who is God), and even he could not grasp His greatness! When he got a glimpse of the greatness of God, he said that his genius works are nothing compared to Him. It is like an ant trying to figure out the greatness of the human being, it is impossible. I think that it is in our nature however, to wonder and marvel in His nature, His being. Our hearts forces us to, as He is our desire, and we long to understand Him better. I feared that this reflections could lead me to doubt, but I now see they only led to understand my limitations, and wonder at His greatness.

 

[jgrdaniel]

NowAgnostic: I see what you mean. That is one of my favorite of Plato’s dialogs. I never saw the distinction until now. Thanks for the feedback!

PAboy57: It can be frustrating when we have such a curious mind as I do!

 

[geometer]

You make an excellent point that morality is based on authority.

No that is a very shallow idea. Moral precepts prescribe the health of the soul.

The ten commandments are valuable because they are deep insights into the nature of perfect health.

I had a cousin who would tell lies for no reason. Many times he would leave us dumbfounded for a reason as to why he had lied. He had an illness of his soul. He eventually killed himself.

Breaking any of the commandments will lead to a disordered soul.

 

[reggieM]

I thought this was a very insightful post – probing some difficult issues, but also showing admirable reverence towards God. That is rare to find.
I hope my remarks can offer something useful.

As Catholics,we believe that God is perfect:
He is perfectly moral- He cannot sin.
He is perfectly good-He cannot do evil.
He is perfectly loving.
In total, He has all the positive qualities ad-infinitum.

Right. But as mentioned before, these attributes are not external things that God possesses - like pieces to a puzzle that add up to God. In fact, God’s knowledge cannot be separated from his goodness or His love because He is a perfect unity of being.

But we have to separate the attributes in order to try to understand God. Why did God make it that way? Perhaps to help us remember that even though our minds are incredibly powerful, they’re still limited when coming to know the perfections of God.

In that – philosophy itself is a human instrument that is limited. We try to define the nature of God and His powers, etc. using philosophical tools but these cannot fully capture the supreme being. Philosophy has finite limits. If we could “fit” God into a philosophical system, then God would be limited by that system.

This is the same with perfection. Since we have imperfect minds (by that I mean, limited, finite, contingent), we cannot understand perfection. Our minds would have to be fully perfect in order to understand what perfection really is.

But that’s one bit of evidence about the existence of perfection. We know that perfection exists, even though we do not fully experience it. Perfection is the end point on a scale of values. Instead of a regression of causes back to the first, its a progression of values forward to the perfect.

If we say God is perfect, to what standard do we hold him to be perfect? None, because He is the standard. Then if we try to prove Him perfect, we have to use His own standard, and that is circular reasoning - Am I wrong in saying this?

I think you got caught in a philosophical loop. The target or subject of your inquiry is God. You can observe His various attributes and identify them - perfection being one. We might say “perfection is God”, but that’s only correct in the sense that “total perfection is found only in God”. It’s not correct in the sense of “perfection equals God”. That’s because “perfection” is an attribute that we understand as a separate thing – so we break the unity of God by thinking of it standing alone.

We can recognize the gradient of values moving upwards to various perfections. Perfection is similar to fulfillment or completion. So, we see things that exhibit partial values – if they’re partial, it indicates a fulfillment which completes the partialness.

This made me uneasy. Perhaps, I though it unjust for Him to be perfect by using His own standard. But then again, we cannot blame reason, for example, by proving its “reasoness” (I just invented the word it seems) with reason, and perhaps that is the nature of being the standard, you measure it against its own standard.

God is the standard and he permits us to use Him to measure various standards - including Himself. It’s the same kind of paradox regarding love, faith and grace. God gives us love, so we can love Him. God gives his Son, so we can offer His son to Him. God gives us Faith, so we can use that gift to believe in Him.

If we start to think about God as if he is a very big human being that possesses riches and then gives them to us in order to get them back, or he creates the standard and the we have to use that standard to judge him – then we’re drifting away from God and moving towards a naturalism or materialism. That’s where it gets very dangerous and it could be seriously sinful can cause a lot of damage. That is one of Satan’s greatest tricks – to move us through what seems like solid reason to a point where we become resentful of God and we think we’ve “figured Him out”.

That’s falling into one of those philosopical loops that can spiral into confusion. The best remedy to avoid that is to step back and take some time to pray – find some transcendence and then return to the study of nature.

So good, I think, its not in our actions alone, but in our source. Our actions, even if they are judged by others as good, are not in themselves good. They are good because they come from the source of the Ultimate Good, which is God.

That is an excellent thought. Yes, that’s it. Our actions are good because they come from the Ultimate Good. At the same time, our actions are partially good – but they get better as we move little-by-little to more perfection in our life. The perfection comes from the Ultimate Good and the standard of perfection is also found there.

 

[reggieM]

My discomfort comes from this notion that anyone, as long as he is eternal and creates inhabitants in his nature, would be perfect, independent of his attributes. So, this forces me to conclude that perfection, it seems, comes from being the only eternal, and not from attributes alone.

Here’s a more complicated problem. If your hypothesis was right, then any eternal being that created a world would have to be considered the ultimate good, even if he wasn’t, just because his creatures had no other standard. But the problem there is that particular creator would be deceiving himself and his creation by claiming to be the ultimate good. If there is deception, then a greater good would have to exist (a God that didn’t deceive himself or others). This pseudo-god would be contingent can could not be the true God. In our case, we are creatures that recognize truth as a perfection – therefore, that could not come from a deceiver-god.

That’s how Christ proved His divinity. He said that he would rise. If He didn’t rise, then he would have been a false-prophet. But the fact that His words came true meant that He was not a deceiver. So, the apostles recognized His perfection through that…

 

[jgrdaniel]

No that is a very shallow idea. Moral precepts prescribe the health of the soul.

The ten commandments are valuable because they are deep insights into the nature of perfect health.

I had a cousin who would tell lies for no reason. Many times he would leave us dumbfounded for a reason as to why he had lied. He had an illness of his soul. He eventually killed himself.

Breaking any of the commandments will lead to a disordered soul.

So, can we say that the moral law is like a manual that guide us to deal healthily the imageness and likeness to which we were created, and that whenever we disobey it, we distance ourselves from God’s purpose, and our soul suffers from its unatural act?

 

[system]

Folks, please check out this site at www.johnthebaptist.us which is hosted by a Catholic man.

 

[jgrdaniel]

Here’s a more complicated problem. If your hypothesis was right, then any eternal being that created a world would have to be considered the ultimate good, even if he wasn’t, just because his creatures had no other standard. But the problem there is that particular creator would be deceiving himself and his creation by claiming to be the ultimate good. If there is deception, then a greater good would have to exist (a God that didn’t deceive himself or others). This pseudo-god would be contingent can could not be the true God. In our case, we are creatures that recognize truth as a perfection – therefore, that could not come from a deceiver-god.

That’s how Christ proved His divinity. He said that he would rise. If He didn’t rise, then he would have been a false-prophet. But the fact that His words came true meant that He was not a deceiver. So, the apostles recognized His perfection through that…

Thanks for your insightful post. You are right that Philosophy is limited, as it is a tool that cannot hold God. I want to deal with this part of your post, because I think you are onto something.

Not only do his creature have no other standard, he doesn’t have a standard because he is all that exist. He became an standard after he created the inhabitants (and I’m talking here of the pseudo-god, not the true God),if he had a standard, then that standard will be better than him, and so yes, he would not be the ultimate good. This is why I now think my question is meaningless. Good is simply a nature of God, not something that God accomplished, something outside of Him. He is the source of it, and we rightly use Him as the standard of good because there is no other standard. Good is then, what goes in sync with God’s nature. Good is a part of God’s nature.

 

[reggieM]

Not only do his creature have no other standard, he doesn’t have a standard because he is all that exist. He became an standard after he created the inhabitants (and I’m talking here of the pseudo-god, not the true God),if he had a standard, then that standard will be better than him, and so yes, he would not be the ultimate good. This is why I now think my question is meaningless. Good is simply a nature of God, not something that God accomplished, something outside of Him. He is the source of it, and we rightly use Him as the standard of good because there is no other standard. Good is then, what goes in sync with God’s nature. Good is a part of God’s nature.

That makes sense. In the end, there can be only one ultimate good – which is perfection. The pseudo-god could create himself as a standard but he would not be the ultimate good - and therefore wouldn’t really be God.