If everything has a purpose then evil doesn't exist

[Anomalocaris]

I'm still not seeing it.  I think the inference is strained even in the case of natural beings.  There are plenty of things I personally do that have nothing to do with any limitation on my own "power".  Plenty of ways that I behave which are not compelled by overcoming limitations in some way.  I get that a limited god couldn't be said to be all powerful in the plainest or strictest sense, but it's not clear that acting any particular way implies limitations - though we could grant that acting some ways does.

You would not have done any of the things that had ever done were you not motivated by the neurological circuitry you have.    You came to have these circuitry because in the past of your genetic history your powers had been and continue to be extremely circumscribed and these circuitry allow had allowed your genetic li edge  to circumvent a tiny fraction of the overwhelming limits within which they had been compelled to operate. 

In other words, god would not have done any of the things ascribed to him if the propensity to do these things did not in his past help him circumvent a small fraction of the limits within which he had been compelled to operate.

[The Grand Nudger]

You're wedded to the idea that gods are like an animal with a brain, and as I said..I don't think you're saying much of consequence or anything strictly true even in that context.

[emjay]

You're wedded to the idea that gods are like an animal with a brain, and as I said..I don't think you're saying much of consequence or anything strictly true even in that context.

Even without that assumption though, it seems reasonable to say that 'want' and 'need' imply a lack, so an omni-everything God it seems would want or need nothing, and thus have no reason to create anything?

[The Grand Nudger]

Yet another common statement that I don't think makes sense. Needs, maybe... wants, no. At the bottom of the well, gods might do things for no particular reason other than that's what it wanted to do, or simply that x is what it does. Ultimately, though, I think it's likely to be pointless to argue over whether gods are all powerful in whatever sense a person prefers to use that term - as they're not generally described that way in any of the literature about them, and anything they don't do an "all powerful" believer will simply insist cannot be done.

[emjay]

Yet another common statement that I don't think makes sense.  Needs, maybe... wants, no.  At the bottom of the well, gods might do things for no particular reason other than that's what it wanted to do, or simply that x is what it does.  Ultimately, though, I think it's likely to be pointless to argue over whether gods are all powerful in whatever sense a person prefers to use that term - as they're not generally described that way in any of the literature about them, and anything they don't do an "all powerful" believer will simply insist cannot be done.

Okay, well I personally think 'want' does imply a lack... even if it's just something like relieving boredom, there's a reason for every act... so if you were Superman, you'd be not exactly all-powerful but pretty powerful, and sure you'd have wants, but those wants would still represent some lack... some purpose to fulfil, however small. Even if you scratch your arse, you're fulfilling a small purpose And if it's a reflexive act... ie 'simply that x is what it does', then that's not really what I'd think we're talking about here, because we're considering god to be some sort of conscious being making choices. But sure, if you're thinking of god in some other light, then maybe.

[Belacqua]

Even without that assumption though, it seems reasonable to say that 'want' and 'need' imply a lack, so an omni-everything God it seems would want or need nothing, and thus have no reason to create anything?

What you say here is the standard view of the theologians. God lacks nothing, therefore wants and needs nothing. 

Creation is explained through the idea of bonum diffusivum sui -- "goodness spreads itself." 

God is said to be goodness itself, and the nature of goodness is that it spreads goodness to others. (Someone who sat by himself all the time and spread no goodness to anyone else wouldn't be good. Goodness manifests by being good to others.) So they say that God created the world not because he needed something he lacked, but because he was superabundant and emanated the world from his goodness. 

This won't make sense to those who insist on anthropomorphizing God, but it is pretty much the standard view among theologians since Plato.

[Neo-Scholastic]

You're wedded to the idea that gods are like an animal with a brain, and as I said..I don't think you're saying much of consequence or anything strictly true even in that context.

Even without that assumption though, it seems reasonable to say that 'want' and 'need' imply a lack, so an omni-everything God it seems would want or need nothing, and thus have no reason to create anything?

Yes, limited creatures that have needs and wants, such as us, having difficulting understanding a purely creative act. Neo-Platonists have an problem as well. Creation as we undrrstand it is additive. That means the Totality grows. What is the ontological statis of that domian or 'space'?

[emjay]

Even without that assumption though, it seems reasonable to say that 'want' and 'need' imply a lack, so an omni-everything God it seems would want or need nothing, and thus have no reason to create anything?

What you say here is the standard view of the theologians. God lacks nothing, therefore wants and needs nothing. 

Creation is explained through the idea of bonum diffusivum sui -- "goodness spreads itself." 

God is said to be goodness itself, and the nature of goodness is that it spreads goodness to others. (Someone who sat by himself all the time and spread no goodness to anyone else wouldn't be good. Goodness manifests by being good to others.) So they say that God created the world not because he needed something he lacked, but because he was superabundant and emanated the world from his goodness. 

This won't make sense to those who insist on anthropomorphizing God, but it is pretty much the standard view among theologians since Plato.

Yeah, I guessed you and classical theism would have a different take on it, and here it is ;-) As always it's new to me, so thanks for that. The classical conception of god seems more like what TGN may be thinking of, ie something less anthropomorphized. That conception though, to me, comes across to me as pretty much static, and thus very hard to conceptualise.

[emjay]

Even without that assumption though, it seems reasonable to say that 'want' and 'need' imply a lack, so an omni-everything God it seems would want or need nothing, and thus have no reason to create anything?

Yes, limited creatures that have needs and wants, such as us, having difficulting understanding a purely creative act.

Fair enough.

[Belacqua]

pretty much static, 

Yes, it's a strange sort of idea. They say that God takes no action at all, yet causes all things to happen. 

This is because, as the Good, and the end point of all our desires, all our actions are aimed ultimately toward God. You were right, earlier, when you said that any action we take, even scratching, is aimed at achieving some kind of good result. It is our nature to move toward the good, so that even if the Good is static, it is the cause of our motion. Not as something that pushes us, but as something toward which we are motivated to move. 

and thus very hard to conceptualise.

Extremely hard! I agree!

We have to talk of it through allegory, symbol, what-it-is-like, rather than what-it-is. This is frustrating for people who want all truth to come through simple declarative sentences. 

Ultimately I think the apophatic Christians have the right idea -- they admit that they just can't say it. 

This is not only Christians, though. Kobo Daishi, who brought esoteric Buddhism to Japan, said that reading the esoteric scriptures was too hard, and that we understand it best through painting. Not because the paintings are diagrams, like Ikea instructions, but because they give us the image of the truth. (A year ago I visited Ishiyama Temple outside Kyoto and felt a kind of Platonic experience -- it was so fantastically beautiful that I felt I had understood something metaphysical, which I know I will never be able to verbalize adequately.)