Can A Perfect Being Create the Imperfect?

Among the many challenges that atheists bring are ones based on philosophy. In my last post, I offered some thoughts in response to a question about God's limitations. The second part of the challenger's question went like this:

"If something is perfect, nothing imperfect can come from it. Someone once said that bad fruit cannot come from a good tree, and yet this "perfect" God created a "perfect" universe which was rendered imperfect by the "perfect" humans. The ultimate source of imperfection is God. What is perfect cannot become imperfect, so humans must have been created imperfect. What is perfect cannot create anything imperfect, so God must be imperfect to have created these imperfect humans. A perfect God who creates imperfect humans is impossible."

Here again, the challenger appears to be using valid logic. If something that is perfect can only create perfection, then the Christian God is disqualified. But the challenger's first sentence is not proven; it is simply an assertion. So too is the claim that what is perfect cannot create anything imperfect. So, for the argument to have force, there must be some support for the premise that a perfect being is "limited" in what it can do, namely, that it can only create perfection. But the very articulation of this notion betrays the problem embedded in the assertion: it purports to limit the power of a perfect being. In other words, immediately after acknowledging God's infinite power - his perfection - the skeptic, himself an imperfect being, attempts to limit the types of things God can do.

But how could he possibly know what God can or cannot do? On what basis can he conclude that a limitless, all-powerful being is constrained in the options available to him? Certainly, the possibility that a perfect being could create something less than himself is not contradictory. The opposite, of course, would be true; an imperfect being would be unable to impart to his creation something that he himself does not possess. So, it would be contradictory to claim that an imperfect being could create God. But why would a greater being be unable create something that is lesser than himself?

But there is an even greater flaw embedded in the challenge. That is, the skeptic assumes that God set out to create a "perfect" universe and somehow failed. But how does the skeptic arrive at this conclusion? What evidence is there of God's purpose or that God failed to achieve this purpose? To arrive at such a conclusion, one would first have to know the intent of the creator. Is not "perfection" in the eyes of the person setting the standard? After all, perfection denotes a quality or performance or attribute that cannot be surpassed. For example, perfect vision would mean vision that cannot be improved upon. But to know what perfect vision is, one would first have to know what is to be accomplished with vision. Is it simply seeing in daylight, or also in complete darkness or underwater? Only with a clear understanding of the designer's purpose could one know how close to the mark he hit.

The challenger would no doubt respond that this universe is imperfect under any definition. But by this he would mean that things break, that health suffers, that people do evil, or other things of this nature. But what was God's goal in creating this universe? Could it have been to allow for the development of beings who can experience true love, freely given? In other words, beings capable of exercising free will, and by so doing, necessarily capable of doing evil? Could the struggles we face in this broken world be part of a process by which we are developed, and refined? If so, then perhaps this universe is in fact a creation optimally designed to maximize the number of people who will freely choose to love God.

With sufficiently clear vision, it is possible to see that creating a universe filled with robots and other perfectly functioning things would not have accomplished God's purpose. Indeed, what God had in mind was far more ambitious - and wonderful - and creating something that fits our definition of perfection simply wasn't part of his plan.

Can A Perfect Being Create the Imperfect?