Proof that the Perfect cannot change and therefore has no will, short version:
The Perfect cannot get worse, by definition.
The Perfect cannot get better, because that would imply a better existed, which would mean the Perfect isn't perfect. Proof by contradiction.
All change is either getting better or getting worse, or we contradict the proposition that non-identical things are non-identical.
The Perfect cannot change.
The Perfect cannot make decisions. (A fortiori: decisions are themselves a change from a pre-deciding state.)
The Perfect has no will.
The Perfect is not alive.
Flaw in argument: there is more than one perfect thing, more than one state of a perfect thing. Example: a perfect appleseed and a perfect apple tree.
ReplyDeleteFlaw #2: God is metaphorically perfect = flawless, but not literally perfect = finished (only created things can be finished). The argument seems to apply to God, but it does not.
If there are two perfect things, neither are perfect.
ReplyDeleteA thing can be better by including both. This is better than perfect, meaning it was never perfect in the first place - it could be improved.
Flawless and finished are identical. Pretending they are not is incompetent ignorance or intentional falsehood. I cannot argue into having been born competent. I cannot wake you if you're pretending to be asleep.
From Léon Bloy's "Exegesis of Commonplaces" published 1902 (THE PERFECT IS THE ENEMY OF THE GOOD — Le Mieux est l’ennemi du Bien):
ReplyDelete"If the Perfect is the enemy of the Good, then the Good must necessarily be the enemy of the Perfect, for philosophical abstractions have no more truck with forgiveness than with humility. A person might answer hate with love, but an idea never will, and the more excellent the idea is, the deeper it digs in its heels.
What is being affirmed, then, implicitly, is that the Good loathes the Perfect, and that the two are divided by fierce hatred. It’s kill or be killed, until the end of time. But then, who is the Good and who is the Perfect, and what was the origin of their conflict? What does this grammatical Manichaeism demand of us?
Is it good, for instance, to be a dunce and perfect to be a genius? When we say everything God has done was for the Best, i.e. in the name of Perfection, am I to understand he’s done nothing for the merely Good? In what metaphysical cave did positive and superlative declare war upon one another? It’s enough to drive a person crazy.
...Okay, we said or heard that the Perfect is the enemy of the Good, wasn’t that it? Yet if Good has an enemy, surely that would be Evil, wouldn’t it? And therefore what is Perfect is identical to what is Evil...
Yes, but if what is Perfect is truly Evil, we’re going to be forced to recognize that what is Good is also, by the same token and quite indisputably, Evil, since everyone agrees that Good is better—that is to say more perfect—than Evil, which is Perfect, and that, consequently, it is better—that is again to say more perfect—than what is Perfect—better than what is Best—and therefore... the Worst!!!???"
"If there is no such thing as God, God doesn't exist. Therefore God doesn't exist. Everyone who doesn't see the truth of my super-duper flawless (perfect!) syllogism is an idiot."
ReplyDeleteWhich is par for the course, atheists being stupid and combative.
But how the counterexample of a seed and a full-grown tree being both perfect, and in fact being different stages of the same perfect life can just whoosh over your head is beyond me.
> A thing can be better by including both.
ReplyDeleteThen it would not be alive. You're just begging the question in multiple ways.
Liar.
ReplyDelete"What is being affirmed, then, implicitly, is that the Good loathes the Perfect"
Nope. Incompetence or lying.
In Reality the perfect doesn't exist. It's only Satanists that get upset about things that aren't real.
"Which is par for the course, atheists being stupid and combative."
A man chooses. A Sophist projects. I didn't know you were an atheist. I also don't care, so you could have kept that to yourself.
"Everyone who doesn't see the truth of my [...] syllogism is an idiot"
A Sophist projects. Sorry, you don't get to pretend you didn't start doing exactly that.
"being different stages of the same perfect life"
It's true that I didn't consider it. It's so dumb that, now I've considered it, my head hurts. Fractally wrong.
To consider me stupid enough to take this brain damage seriously is rather insulting.
Again, no: I will not pretend this is even remotely intended in good faith. Get thee behind me, Satan.
The joke is the last place you want Satan is behind you, where he can easily backstab you. The book is a joke book, right?
ReplyDeleteIf he's close enough that it matters which direction he's in, you want him in the front where you can point your blade at him and keep him from getting any closer.
The other joke is that it's laughable to think demons and the demon-possessed are even the tiniest threat to me. Worry instead about the reverse. I come not bearing debate, but a sword.
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When something is fractally wrong that means you have to be either a drooling idiot - not even remotely tall enough for this ride - or actively avoiding thinking about what you're saying. Fractal errors == lots of errors, meaning you should have run across one just by chance.
This may or may not be a flaw in your definitions, but in discussions of "the perfect," which are necessarily theological, it is an error to exclude the miraculous, the impossible, the paradoxical, etc. Cut the Gordian knot all you like, it remains undissolved. As you point out, "perfection of the living" = stasis = death, but also: God = perfect. The only question then is whether God is living, and perfect, or (as you would seem to have it) perfect, and therefore dead.
ReplyDeleteLogic supercedes any form of divinity. It is not an error to exclude the impossible. That's what impossible means. If deities are supernatural, logic is superdivine.
ReplyDeleteWhatever you refer to by "God" it either doesn't exist or isn't perfect - thank God, as the imperfect is superior to the perfect.