That’s debatable. It’s true that there are certain measures that not only can we determine empirically but it makes sense to say we got a “perfect” score, and then there are other measures which we can’t determine empirically and we can question whether it makes sense to have a “perfect score” (what does it really mean, for example, for a god to be omnipotent).
Still though, I don’t see why the definition of “perfection” must change in this case. It seems that “being the highest on such-and-such measure possible” works in both cases.
Resorting to dictionary definitions is kind of an amateurish move in philosophy–not necessarily invalid, but amateurish–dictionary definitions don’t determine the meanings of our words, rather they reflect them. We determine the meanings of our words–in conversations, in reading books, in observing the contexts in which they are used–and only afterwards do certain people take those meanings and write dictionaries. Bringing up dictionary definitions is useful if you think a person is misunderstanding the meaning of a word, but I find that most of the time, people just have their own meanings that aren’t necessarily shared by everyone.
You’re talking about the way concepts evolve, not what must be true of the concept. I agree that the concept of ‘god’ evolved along the lines you’ve described, but this is driven by competition and politics between two or more contending religious groups. They’re trying to out-argue or out-justify their competition. But that doesn’t make their arguments so. Imagine that Hellenism was the one true religion. The gods consist of Zeus, Athena, Apollo, Ares, etc. None of them are absolutely perfect in the sense that the Christian God is “omnipotent” but they are the real gods. Do you think different religious groups wouldn’t still try to out-argue and out-justify each other? Wouldn’t they still push their conception of their god towards being the ultimate, most powerful god there is?
So how are we defining an “empirical” God? Here, you seem to be saying if the god is anthropomorphic, then he is empirical. I take this to mean that if he has a physical body (which is what “created in our own image” implies), then he should be empirically observable. However, earlier you seemed to be defining empirical as measurable along some trait (like a test score) for which it is possible to measure the “highest” possible score. If a god has a physical body, he may be empirically observable, but he may still have non-empirical powers, like being all powerful, or all knowing, or all good, etc.
Well, in that case, here’s my definitive case against Anselm’s argument:
If you’re only point is that this is the way the concept of god naturally evolves, and is driven by competition and political motives, then I agree. But I don’t think it means that for a god to exist, it must have all these perfect characteristics.
There is a range of perspective to ‘perfection’ e.g. empirical, empirically possible, etc. which are subjective and open to various interpretations. This is why the term ‘absolutely perfect’ is introduced to reinforce this specific perfection as unique, unconditional which do not give any room for it to be outdone in any way. Such an absolutely perfect quality is attributed to God only.
In a way an absolutely perfect God is merely a shared-idea driven by psychology but impossible to exist as real in empirical-rational reality. There is no way it can be rationalized and justified empirically.
The word and concept “perfect” merely means “matching a chosen ideal”.
A “perfect God” is merely a God that matches in characteristic to whatever the valuer believes to be the Ideal, most preferred God, an “Ideal God”, whether that be most powerful, most wise, most beautiful, most dangerous, most irritating, whatever.
The word “perfect” is a RELATIVE term.
So this whole argument has been silly.
As I had stated there are various meanings and perspective to the term ‘perfect’.
In the case of empirical, ‘perfection’ is always relative and qualified to something. Empirical things cannot be absolutely perfect [I have demonstrated this].
In the case of the non-empirical, e.g. God can be assigned qualified perfection but the idea of perfection MUST [I had demonstrated why “MUST”] ultimately be absolute, i.e. unqualified, thus absolutely perfect.
Thus God must ultimately be absolutely and perfectly good, but the fact is evils exist, i.e. contradictory, and thus God is an impossibility.
Even with philosophy, we must start with the general understanding of the term and filter it for philosophical contexts.
Most of the replies, note especially JSS do not take into account [ignorant perhaps] of the other meaning of perfect as absolute, total, unqualified which is relevant to my argument.
One point is the ‘idea’ of God is not a ‘concept’ [Kant’s argument].
To differentiate, a ‘concept’ has an empirical base, e.g. table, apples, beauty, etc.
An ‘idea’ [philosophical sense] is a thought without any empirical qualities, e.g. eternal soul, God and the Whole-Universe. These are transcendental illusions.
Because philosophical ideas are not concepts, they cannot be held to be true as real [empirical-rational] at all.
This is why non-empirical philosophical ideas, e.g. God is impossible to real within an empirical-rational reality.
Zeus, and other Greek gods are not real per se, but if they are claimed to have an empirical base, then it is possible for them to be empirically real, but based on current knowledge the probability of them being real is 0.00…001%.
But as I had pointed out, the evolution of the ideas of God is inevitable leading to 5.4 billion out of 7+ billion people to a monotheistic God toward an absolutely perfect God.
Test scores are merely an example of what is empirical.
When a god is attributed with empirical qualities, such a God logically cannot be all powerful because there is always the possibility of another empirical God which is greater or another empirical God that created that empirical god. So an empirical god would definitely lead to an infinite regression.
To stop this infinite regression, the solution is to introduce the idea [not a concept] of ‘a God than which no greater can be idealized,’ which is proven to be impossible within an empirical-rational reality!
You are merely supporting my point.
I argued the idea of God MUST ultimately be an ontological God, an absolutely perfect God than which no God can be more perfect.
You are arguing such a God is in a way, impossible, which support my argument.
Note mine is, the idea of God naturally evolves and it is driven by desperate existential psychological motives.
This evolution is natural and ultimately the idea of a God must exists as an absolutely perfect God to avoid an infinite regression.
In addition no theist would accept their God be dominated by another and conceding their God will have to kiss the ass of [be owned by] another.
There is no such thing as an objective perfection for the same reason that there is no universal Northward. You are a flat-Earther trying to argue about why it is impossible for the ground to reach the infinitely deep bottom of the universe.
In short, you are “preaching out of school”, not knowing what it is that you are actually speaking about and thus making silly arguments, whether your intended conclusion is correct or not.
At least learn to properly define your significant words.
I agree with the above, but you persistently [despite highlighting to you many times] the other meaning of ‘perfect’ = absolute, unqualified, etc.
Are you even aware of this point I made. Tell me why this other meaning ‘perfect’ = absolute, unqualified, etc. is not relevant?
I have argued it is natural, the belief in the idea of God will gravitate to towards an absolutely perfect God, i.e. absolutely most preferred God, an absolutely unqualified “Ideal God”.
An example of this is St. Anselm’s Ontological God, i.e. God is a Being than which no greater can be conceived.*
Philosophically ‘conceived’ is not the right word, should be ‘idealized’.
I have argued in an absolutely perfect is essential to stop any infinite regression counter thrown in by oppositions.
There is no “absolute, unqualified perfection”. The term itself is incoherent. It is like say the “universal perfect length”. It simply doesn’t actually make any sense. But uneducated people can easily accept the idea of an actual, objective perfection, even though it is nonsense.
If you want to state and argue that “a perfect God is impossible” and base your arguement on the fact that perfection is relative, THEN you have a case. But it is nonsense to say that the absolute, unqualified (“objective”) perfect God must have these impossible characteristics, because your adjectives are incoherent (they don’t fit together).
Straw man!
You don’t seem to get my point and you are grumbling and shooting at straw-men.
I do not believe in Universals like Plato’s Forms.
Where did I argue there is such thing as ‘objective perfection’?
What I am stating is, theists will naturally end up claiming an ‘absolutely perfect God’ exists as real. There are theists who are claiming such a proposition, e.g. St. Anselm, Islam, and others.
I do not agree that such a thing as an ‘absolutely perfect God’ exists as real, that is why I am proving such a God is an impossibility.
The term “absolute, unqualified perfection” make logical sense via reason but as I had proven it cannot be real within empirical-rational reality.
Yes, the term “absolute, unqualified perfection” is nonsense, i.e. impossible within the empirical senses, i.e. sensibility + rationality. However the term is logically valid based on thoughts and reason alone
When I argued an “absolutely perfect” is an impossibility within empirical-rational reality, it is implied it is a “non-sense” term as I had mentioned it is non-empirical [implied non-sensual] many times.
As I has stated perfection with empirical elements are always qualified, i.e. qualified to certain conditions. A perfect score of 100/100 in an objective test is qualified to those who set the question, the person who is marker, etc…
To claim a perfection that is not conditioned to any conditions at all, the appropriate term is to add “unqualified” to ‘perfection’, i.e. absolute perfection or absolutely perfect. In this sense it is obviously linguistically* logical and has been used by various theologians and accepted by many. QED.
I assume that you meant “qualified by certain empirical conditions”, which seems irrelevant to the issue, but of personal concern to you.
I believe that is the same as I defined “perfect” to be - suiting an ideal, in this case, the ideal of “100”.
And that is where you stepped into nonsense. First the “appropriate term” would by “unconditional perfection”, but that isn’t the issue. The issue is that the very idea of “perfect” already, inherently includes qualities or conditions that have to be met. If you took out ALL qualities, in what sense could anything be perfect? Perfect for what? Perfect in what way? 100% of what? You have removed anything for something to be perfect about.
It is like saying that item A is 100% pure black but item B is absolutely 100%.
You have two errors. First there is no difference between being 100% and being absolute. Several people have explained that to you several times. But in addition, you have a quality in the first case, being 100% black, but no quality at all in the second case, just 100%, not of anything, just 100%.
Being 100% of no particular quality is nonsense. It is not “absolute perfect”. If you are going to leave out the quality (or “condition”) then literally everything is perfect. Everything is 100% of whatever it is, absolutely perfect.
Ridiculous. So far, you have presented NO “logic” at all. You merely stated two assertions. Obviously you have no understanding of logic or reasoning. And your second assertion happens to be false.
There is nothing logically valid about making two assertions, even if they were true claims. Logic involves “because A-N is true, then X must be true”. A logical proof is an explanation of the consistency in thought and/or language such as to reveal that a conclusion must be true.
I’m sure you did demonstrate all of this. Care to do it again?
I remember you mentioned the impossibility of a perfect circle in the physical world–is this an example of what you mean?
See, here you seem to be switching back and forth between two different arguments. Your last argument was that God being absolutely perfect is driven by competition and politics, not some logical necessity. Here, you’re arguing that the existence of evil is incompatible with God’s perfection (which isn’t such a bad argument, but it gets sticky where defining evil, perfection, in what way God is perfect, etc. is concerned).
True, bringing in dictionary definitions is useful if you want to show that a particular definition you are using is indeed a commonly used definition. And I’ll agree that one meaning of ‘perfect’ is: absolute, total, unqualified. This is a useful definition when we want to say that the closer one gets to one end of a certain measure (for example, the less evil you cause, the more benevolent you are), the better. In that case, ‘perfect’ just means as close to that end as possible, which, if the measure in question has no limits, can mean infinite.
I’ve never heard these definitions of ‘concept’ and ‘idea’ before. We can work with these if they are your (or Kant’s) definitions, but I don’t think it makes a difference. We could just say: there are empirical concepts (drawn from the physical) and there are non-empirical concepts (abstractions). Your point is that non-empirical things (abstractions) don’t exist, therefore neither does God. Doesn’t matter what we call such non-empirical things.
But it is a different argument from that which you were making before. Before you were saying that a god must be perfect (at least in terms of omnipotence) otherwise a greater god would destroy it, so if it wasn’t perfect, it would not exist. Unless you’re arguing this: the idea of gods always evolves towards perfection (by way of competition and political motives on the part of believers), and certain kinds of perfection are only possible in terms of asbolutes or infinities; this places them in the camp of abstractions, which are impossible, therefore such gods cannot exist.
True, but the point is that the drive to prove one’s god to be perfect is not logic or reason but competition and politics. Therefore, it is not logically necessary that the gods be perfect, which is what I was getting at with the Hellenistic gods. Of course, I don’t believe in them, but there’s nothing logically wrong with saying that they need not be perfect in order to exist.
No, it would just mean an empirical god would be imperfect. Of course, this depends on how you’re measuring perfection. I agree that in a physical context, it makes little sense to say that measures like the quantity of matter or energy are infinit. What does it mean to be infinitely powerful though? Doesn’t it just mean capable of doing anything? ← I think this is impossible too but not because of the limitations on physical quantities, but because of how the laws of physics work. However, a concept like omni-benevolence might be possible. All that would mean is that the god in question has not a single manevolent bone in his body. I don’t see why that’s impossible.
Again, the Hellenic pantheon is a good example of the idea of imperfect gods (at least in terms of omnipotence), some of which are more powerful than others, who get along without the most powerful one necessarily destroying the less powerful ones.
I may be supporting your point, but I wasn’t exactly saying that such a god is impossible. I was saying that the ontological argument doesn’t prove God’s existence. I was arguing that attributing existence to God (as part of what it means for such a god to be “greater than which cannot be conceived”) only forces one to believe in such a god, but belief alone doesn’t prove existence.
Yep. And your point is that perfection in such a god can only amount to absolute or infinite qualities (omnipotence, for example), which is necessarily abstract, which therefore doesn’t exist. ← Is that right?
I believe that is the same as I defined “perfect” to be - suiting an ideal, in this case, the ideal of “100”.
Again I insist your philosophical views are very shallow and narrow.
The term ‘absolute perfection’ is not mine but one that I inferred logically from the thoughts of theists and theologians.
The idea of the Ontological God, i.e. “God is a Being than which no greater can exists” represent an absolutely perfect God.
This ontological God is a result of a logical trend of progression in relation the idea [not concept] of a God because no theist would concede their God to be dominated by another God.
There is a range of perspectives and meaning for the term ‘perfection’ as qualified by various conditions.
To ensure God’s perfection is an unqualified one, theists need to insist their God is an absolutely perfect God, i.e. the Ontological God.
Who are you to decide otherwise for the theologians and the natural expectations of theists?
I agree theologians and theists can rationalize [purely] an absolutely perfect God but I am arguing such a God is an impossibility within empirical-rational reality.
I presume you meant,
It is like saying that item A is 100% pure black but item B is absolutely 100% pure black.
Note in the empirical world there is no possibility of 100% certainty.
Therefore ‘100% pure black’ is never a certainty and thus there are many other perspectives one can take ‘100% pure black’ to be as it depend on the criteria for ‘pure’ and ‘black’.
Is “pure” based on common observation, RGB codes, color wavelengths or what?
Pure black based on visual observations and confirmation by humans is obviously subjective so there can be disputes because humans has varied degree of color perception.
Thus to be more objective, can can determine pure blackness based on RGB codes or color wavelengths.
If color wavelength is the most objective, then we can say item B is absolutely 100% pure Black.
So there is a difference between 100% pure black and absolutely 100% pure black.
But as I had argued no matter how the term ‘absolute’ is used in the empirical world it is never unqualified.
However in the purely rational perspective, it is possible to used the term absolute in the sense of being unqualified or totally unconditional.
Now there is a difference between a ‘perfect God’ and an ‘absolutely perfect God.’
‘A perfect God’ is relative and has room to be dominated another more superior God.
As I had stated there is range of meanings and interpretations of ‘perfect’ by different people based on different criteria. Thus when someone claim their God to be perfect, another will claim his/her god is more perfect and so it goes on with other claims of greater perfection.
Therefore to ensure there no room for a more perfect God, the most effective theoretical term would be an absolutely perfect God, i.e. “a God than which no greater-perfect-God can be idealized.”
Get the point?
There is a refined difference between ‘a perfect God’ and ‘an absolute perfect God’!
Yes, the impossibility of an ideal-perfect circle.
Note a circle is an empirical concept but a theoretical ideal[perfect]-circle is an impossibility within empirical-rational reality.
God is not an empirical concept but a non-empirical abstract idea.
Yes there are two arguments which follows;
Argument 1
Absolute perfection is impossible - demonstrated.
God being absolutely perfect is driven by competition, politics, etc.
Therefore God is an impossibility.
Argument 2
God being absolutely perfect is driven by competition, politics, etc.
Absolutely perfect means absolute Good.
But evil exists
God is contradictory
Being contradictory, God [absolutely perfect] is an impossibility.
Actually my argument 1 is sufficient.
God is an impossibility so there no need to deliberate on God & The Problem of Evil.
This counter on a popular argument is just a additional reinforcement to justify why God is an impossibility.
The difference and nuance between a philosophical concept and a “philosophical idea” is very significant in a discussion of the idea of God, the independent Soul or the Whole Universe.
The point is abstractions can be related to
empirical elements, e.g. beauty, love, etc. which is empirically possible or
non-empirical elements like God, the independent Soul or the Whole Universe which is very distinct when attributed with the term ‘absolute’ or ‘unqualified’.
The drive to claim one’s god to be absolutely perfect is instinctual and inherent in human nature. As such is a logical necessity or rather a default.
Theists would not claim absolute perfection for their empirical-related god, e.g. monkey-liked[empirical] god [Hanuman]. There is no significant issue with empirical-liked gods where they can be accepted as imperfect.
The issue is with God in general which will gravitate ultimately towards an absolute perfect God naturally, inherently and be default as driven by instinct.
That is the point, as you said, the ontological argument does not prove God’s existence which support my argument.
My argument goes one step further, the ontological God, i.e. an absolutely perfect God [by pure reason only] is an impossibility within an empirical-rational reality.
Yep, the idea of an absolutely perfect God is a non-empirical abstraction and it is impossible to exists within an empirical-rational reality.
It is like “OUGHT” purely by itself cannot exists within an “IS-OUGHT” reality.
For someone who has displayed such extreme lack of philosophical education (don’t even know what an ontology is), your opinion on that matter means bupkis.
As you are constantly doing, you presumed incorrectly. I even explained precisely why I meant exactly what I stated.
Note that such is your theory.
According to your own theory, you cannot be certain that your theory is certain.
The number one fundamental error that you have been making since the start of this is that;
If something cannot be empirically proven, it is impossible to exist.
You keep presuming that as priori in all of your arguments, yet it is nonsense.
And by stating thatYOU HAVE RATIONALLY ERREDin the exact way that I pointed out, REALLY.
And there is only one “REALITY”. It is certainly rational in the sense of being logical, but “empirical” is a subjective issue. To be empirical means that it can be seen, and certainly not all of reality can be seen.