Why We Are, and Forever Will Be, Imperfect

[Purple Rabbit]

So God is a truth then?

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Thomas Aquinas said:

The ancient philosophers did not attribute that which is Best and highest to the First Principle, because they considered only the imperfect material principle. god is Perfect, because He is the First Efficient Principle, supreme in Actuality, and, therefore, supremely Perfect. In Him are the perfections of all things, for whatever perfection exists in the effects must be found in the efficient cause, and thus they exist in God in a more eminent manner than is the case in creatures. For God is His own very Existence of Himself, and hence it must be that He contains all perfection of being, for perfection is identified with being. The creature is like to God, because God is the Efficient Cause of all, and every agent does a work like unto itself in proportion to its actuality. If an agent is one in species with its effect, there is likeness between them in species, as man generates a man; and if they are not one in species, there is likeness, but not in species, as those things which are generated by the sun’s heat are like to the sun in some degree, but they do not receive the form of the sun in specific likeness, but only in generic likeness. If there is an Agent outside of Genus, the effect has a more remote likeness to it; for the likeness is not based either on genus or species, but only on analogy, inasmuch as both have being. In this way creatures are like to God, the First Natural Principle of all.

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Theologically God is perfect. It's how he's defined and this isn't just pulled out of a bag... it's consistent with the thinking around the problem of the creation of the universe.

This isn't to say other theories would be incorrect. Just that this one is internally consistent.

This is an excellent example of imperfect beings trying to give a perfect definition of god, not of the final proof of the existence of a perfect being. In fact it shows a deep flaw in the attempt: forgetting about the fact that manmade definitions are still manmade definitions and therefore possibly imperfect. It truly leaves without explanation how imperfect beings with imperfect knowledge and imperfect faculties could ever lead to something perfect in an absolute sense. Iow how can imperfection lead to perfection in a theological framework where the 'ex nihilo nihil fit' argument is treated as a basic truth?

Possibly through the years we are witnessing the religious analogon of evolution: evolution of attempts to come up with the perfectly adapted definition of god by theological selection, where every habitat (~ religious creed) can hold it's own "perfect" definition.