Being Perfect is Not Necessary for Being God Article (Web of Science)

abstract

  • Classic perfect being theologians take ‘being perfect’ (or some careful variant thereof) to be conceptually necessary and sufficient for being God. I argue that this claim is false because being perfect is not conceptually necessary for being God. I rest my case on a simple thought experiment inspired by an alternative I developed to perfect being theology that I call “functional theology.” My findings, if correct, are a boon for theists since if it should turn out that there is no perfect being, there could still be a God.

publication date

  • 2019

number of pages

  • 21

start page

  • 43

end page

  • 64

volume

  • 11

issue

  • 2