Being Perfect is Not Necessary for Being God

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 experim...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Diller, Jeanine (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: University of Innsbruck in cooperation with the John Hick Centre for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Birmingham [2019]
In: European journal for philosophy of religion
Year: 2019, Volume: 11, Issue: 2, Pages: 43-64
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Existence of God / Perfection
IxTheo Classification:NBC Doctrine of God
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary: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.
Contains:Enthalten in: European journal for philosophy of religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.24204/ejpr.v11i2.2970