The Imperfect God

[_moksha]

An unwillingness to intervene in the natural processes of this world, although such an intervention would signal God's existence, it would still fall short of being a proof of perfection.

God inhibiting the chaos and entropy of the Universe would seem to be the true test of limitless power.

[_Franktalk]

When we have kids at some point they are ready to make that first step. They struggle and the feet and legs are unsure. Then the first fall happens as we look on. Just how is this different than Father in heaven looking at His spirit children? If we prevent our child from falling they would never walk or play baseball. If Father did not let us fall would we learn the difference between good and evil? We as parents have great power over our children but we set boundaries and choose when to intervene. We have to balance the learning experience with safety. This is done to ensure that our children develop in a normal way. Another way of saying that same thing is we keep our child on a path that they may learn. It is the same with God the Father. He has set the environment for us to learn in. He has supplied us with the design of our bodies and mind. We as parents and God in heaven make a choice not to exercise our great power over our children for a purpose.

If God makes a choice not to exercise His great power does that mean that He lacks the power? Can God be viewed as a paper tiger? I know many people who refuse to believe in God because He is distant to them. But God is going to remain who He is no matter how man tries to define Him. If one believes in scripture then we have God Himself saying He mostly stays out of the way. Let ask everyone a question. Do we really want to see first hand the power of God in melting the elements and disassembling intelligences? Living in a small amount of fear of a potential is different than living in fear as a life style.

How do we measure the imperfect God? Do we compare His choices with our own and if He disagrees with us we call Him imperfect? How does one measure God to even see if He is imperfect?

[_quark]

A parent will let their child fall when learning to walk, but there comes point where a parent will intervene to protect the child from harm or death.

I ran out of time. Mass starts in 30 minutes!

[_huckelberry]

I think Stak presented important problems with the idea of imperfect God.

I understood him to ask if God is unable to stop evil now that would be reason to wonder if he could stop evil in an after life. I think his question about worthy of worship depends upon the question of Gods power and goodness, aspects thought of as part of Gods perfection.

The word imperfect implies further related problems to my understanding. I God is not perfect then God would likely be subject to change and eventual dissolution. If God is not all powerful is it meaningful to think of God as creator? After all creating heavens and earth is no small project.

I posted the propostion that the decsion to create started a limitation to the otherwise all powerful God. He had to work with the specifics of a real creation where in squares are not circles and bad creaturely decisions have consequences.

I think that the opening post has a good point even though I think the phrase, imperfect God, to be unacceptable.

I am not comfortable with the simple freeagency statement but I think they contain some validity. I find very problematic your propostion that God could have created a world where all free choices are good but by implication choose not to. (traditionally,perhaps to desplay his hostility to evil through its punishment) I do not see that it is clear that such a choice, a world where all free choices are from the beginning for the good, is at all possible. Sure it is a what if that could be logically considered.

Seeing the evil choices free agents make in creation is evidence that such a limitation on Gods project exists. It is not proof that it does. Two considerations. Having all power and the perfection of being eternal and the cause of things ,not caused, I do think means there is power to do anything our language can imagine. It is Christian tradition to understand God as choosing how and what to create. I do not see that as meaning the possiblities are infinite. Second I suspect that the closer the created creature is to the quality of God himself the more design would a matter of shared experience than forced arrangement. I think this openness to shared experience creates the possiblities for bad choices.

[_bcspace]

God does not generally have the power to stop bad stuff from happening because such destroys agency and eliminates necessary consequences.

This is manifestly false. Of all the possible worlds God had to choose from, God could have picked the world where every agent freely chose to do the right thing.

ETA- I’m not saying this for Space’s edification, I just wanted to let it out there that the Free Will Defense for the problem of Evil isn’t the best defense.

It's the only "defense". It's the only reality the makes sense in light of the evidence.

[_ludwigm]

... Of all the possible worlds God had to choose from ...

He didn't choose one of many. He created a special one.

SOLE SOLUTION by Eric Frank Russell

He brooded in darkness and there was no one else. Not a voice, not a whisper. Not the touch of a hand. Not the warmth of another heart.

Darkness.

Solitude.

Eternal confinement where all was black and silent and nothing stirred. Imprisonment without prior condemnation. Punishment without sin. The unbearable that had to be borne unless some mode of escape could be devised.
No hope of rescue from elsewhere. No sorrow or sympathy or pity in another soul, another mind. No doors to be opened, no locks to be turned, no bars to be sawn apart. Only the thick, deep sable night in which to fumble and find nothing.

Circle a hand to the right and there is nought. Sweep an arm to the left and discover emptiness utter and complete. Walk forward through the darkness like a blind man lost in a vast, forgotten hall and there is no floor, no echo of footsteps, nothing to bar one’s path.
He could touch and sense one thing only. And that was self.
Therefore the only available resources with which to overcome his predicament were those secreted within himself. He must be the instrument of his own salvation.

How?
No problem is beyond solution. By that thesis science lives. Without it, science dies. He was the ultimate scientist. As such, he could not refuse this challenge to his capabilities.
His torments were those of boredom, loneliness, mental and physical sterility. They were not to be endured. The easiest escape is via the imagination. One hangs in a strait-jacket and flees the corporeal trap by adventuring in a dreamland of one’s own.
But dreams are not enough. They are unreal and all too brief. The freedom to be gained must be genuine and of long duration. That meant he must make a stern reality of dreams, a reality so contrived that it would persist for all time. It must be self-perpetuating. Nothing less would make escape complete.
So he sat in the great dark and battled the problem. There was no clock, no calendar to mark the length of thought. There were no external data upon which to compute. There was nothing, nothing except the workings within his agile mind.

And one thesis: no problem is beyond solution.
He found it eventually. It meant escape from everlasting night. It would provide experience, companionship, adventure, mental exercise, entertainment, warmth, love, the sound of voices, the touch of hands.
The plan was anything but rudimentary. On the contrary it was complicated enough to defy untangling for endless aeons. It had to be like that to have permanence. The unwanted alternative was swift return to silence and the bitter dark.
It took a deal of working out. A million and one aspects had to be considered along with all their diverse effects upon each other. And when that was done he had to cope with the next million. And so on ... on ... on.
He created a mighty dream of his own, a place of infinite complexity schemed in every detail to the last dot and comma. Within this he would live anew. But not as himself. He was going to dissipate his person into numberless parts, a great multitude of variegated shapes and forms each of which would have to battle its own peculiar environment.
And he would toughen the struggle to the limit of endurance by unthinking himself, handicapping his parts with appalling ignorance and forcing them to learn afresh. He would seed enmity between them by dictating the basic rules of the game. Those who observed the rules would be called good. Those who did not would be called bad. Thus there would be endless delaying conflicts within the one great conflict.
When all was ready and prepared he intended to disrupt and become no longer one, but an enormous concourse of entities. Then his parts must fight back to unity and himself.

But first he must make reality of the dream. Ah, that was the test!

The time was now. The experiment must begin.

Leaning forward, he gazed into the dark and said, ‘Let there be light.’

And there was light.

God created the universe because he was bored and lonely.

[_MrStakhanovite]

So, let's discuss the idea is that a perfect being is worthy of worship and an imperfect being is not necessarily worthy of it.

On reflection, an imperfect being is not necessarily unworthy of worship it seems, but that hinges on what you mean by worship.

Can you explain what you mean by worship, and what it is supposed to accomplish?

Ok, you mention Jehovah's Witness as a religion with Gnostic influence. That is a big surprise.

Egads! No way. I just mentioned the JWs as an example of a group that would fall under the umbrella of “Christian”.

[_cksalmon]

God does not generally have the power to stop bad stuff from happening because such destroys agency and eliminates necessary consequences.

Even if God's prevention of bad stuff "destroys agency" (but that's an imprecise phrase), it doesn't follow that God, therefore, lacks this power. Unless one conceives of "agency" as an overriding principle, more foundational than mere deity, to which God is beholden and which delimits the set of God's possible actions. Is that your position? Based solely on a look-around-town epistemology, that seems to be a respectable Mormon view.

ETA- I’m not saying this for Space’s edification, I just wanted to let it out there that the Free Will Defense for the problem of Evil isn’t the best defense.

As a defense against the logical problem of evil (à la Plantinga's Free Will Defender), it ably succeeds. But that's a pretty low bar.

[_Aristotle Smith]

What if bad stuff happened to people simply because God did not have the power to help them? What if he/she desperately wanted to help, often tries to help, sometimes inadvertently makes things worse, but in the end, cannot do it all?

If that train of thought interests you, you might try Process Theology or Open Theism. Both depart from classical theism, but can still be within the bounds of orthodox Christianity, if that appeals to you.

To be honest I found those approaches much more appealing as a Mormon and they don't interest me much any more. I think at least part of the reason for this is because Jesus, the incarnation, and atonement work much differently in orthodox Christian thinking than they do in modern LDS thought. Because of the strict separation between members of the LDS Godhead, it leaves God the Father as being aloof and kicking the crap out of Jesus as substitution for sins. Having Jesus and God the Father much more intimately connected (i.e. the Trinity) personalizes this as adds a human dimension to God. On the Christian view of things God does help and does makes things better, but only by becoming human, suffering how we suffer, and dying ignominiously.

by the way, you can still see vestiges of this in early Mormon thought. For one reference, see the passages in the Book of Mormon that talk about the condescension of God.

Am I alone in thinking this God would be more loving and empathetic than the popular God of today? I can relate to and look forward to meeting this God.

I don't really know what the popular God of today is like, but I'm wagering it's nothing like the God of classical theism. My guess is most people see God as part Charlton Heston, part Dr. Phil, and part Mr Cunningham from Happy Days.

But to get back to your original point, the God of classical theism can seem remote and some senses not the God of the Bible. I don't think this is necessarily the case, but I see the point. One way of overcoming this is through limiting God's power or knowledge in some way. I understand why people do that, but like I said I think the orthodox Christian conception of Jesus does a lot to overcome/undermine some of the perceived aloofness of the God of classical theism.

[_MrStakhanovite]

As a defense against the logical problem of evil (à la Plantinga's Free Will Defender), it ably succeeds. But that's a pretty low bar.

I use to think so too, but I’ve come to change my mind on this. In Plantinga’s case, I think his use of middle knowledge leads to some problems, I think that counterfactual creaturely freedoms wreck havoc on the traditional God of Theism, and his sovereignty, because in the end, God cannot actualize the world he would really want.