Perfection May Actually Be Very Overrated
And what the heck is a “flaw”, anyway
By MARTIN REZNY
I must say I’m not convinced at all that a god is inevitably made lesser by being “imperfect”, especially if you think about what we consider to be necessary prerequisites for greatness in humans. But before I delve any deeper into this philosophical quandary, two important facts relevant to this ancient debate: The assumption of various kinds of perfection attributed to Christian God is an invention of the philosophers, not coming from scripture; and as it is pointed out in the latest Asimov Memorial Debate, perfection is death.
What the second point means exactly is that in a world that’s perfectly symmetrical, no living entity can exist — symmetry must be broken in order to get stuff in motion, for anything interesting to happen. Why do we even consider symmetry to be synonymous with perfection in the first place? Likely because a symmetrical face in a human signifies health, but that’s an evolutionary accident. On a more abstract level, perfection tends to have a connection in our minds to order, but it is chaos that’s a lot more interesting.
And not just because a lot more is happening or possible in a state of chaos and imbalance. Chaos means higher stakes as well, through adversity and peril. Which entity is greater? An entity that faces no threat to its existence, or an entity that strives and triumphs continuously against mortal danger? A clear favorite winning, or an underdog winning? Or an underdog trying and failing? Maybe the creator of this universe is the greatest and most interesting entity because he’s deeply flawed and had to overcome and sacrifice much.
The maxims of divine perfection presented by the classical philosophers are quite suspect by themselves just on the level of basic logic. Take omnibenevolence — what if there isn’t any single absolute good? How can any entity then be all-good? Humans intuitively don’t consider single-minded fundamentalist zealots to be the most perfect of thinkers or moral creatures. If on the other hand god is perfect at always doing the relatively best thing in any given situation (assuming good is relative), it would make him spineless.
Either way, to have a nuanced, but inescapably personal position, would be seen as imperfect in that context, while exactly that is the most perfect expression of the most complex and most authentic of human beings. The adjective “human” as used in the previous sentence actually means a supreme quality of character in common usage, when you understand “human” as the opposite of mindless drone, evil carricature, or base animal. If god was perfect in that nothing could phase him, wouldn’t he/she have to be an emotionless husk?
As for the other perfections, they all seem almost irrelevant in contrast to the quality of character, and surely would have to be secondary in the divine decision making process. Just like a programmer relates to a game he or she created, they technically can know every possible state of it, past, present, or future, and technically have the power to remake anything anywhere anytime, including time, but they won’t always exercise all-power on the basis of all-knowledge. God being able to do anything doesn’t make him do anything.
Personally, knowing that this world was created by a being that does second-guess itself would feel much more reassuring, just like it would make it more worthy of respect if it somehow had to have earned its position, knowledge, or power, and can conceivably lose it. It would also make much more sense in that case that such a god, an ultimate, greatest being, somehow still needs us or even cares about anything that happens to us. Even assuming there’s only one creator responsible for our world, why must he/she have no peers or betters?
Who knows, maybe stuff could have been much worse without him/her around. Just think about the various kinds of game creator or player personalities, or about people who took it upon themselves to rid the world of games, or their creators and players. Maybe the greatest and most perfect level of benevolence is not always somehow doing the right thing, but always trying to do the right thing. Maybe the greatest and most perfect level of knowledge is that of one’s fallibility, and the greatest and most perfect power is restraint.
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