Thursday, August 4, 2016

Is Creation perfect or imperfect?

An entirely good Creator could not create an only partially good creation. I take this as a given. God could never have created a flawed world, for He is Perfect, as Christ could of never sinned, as He is perfect.
 So how can the world have the attribute of being flawed, or rather, seem imperfect? I think one needs to define what exactly evil is. It is the conscious, deliberate, and freely chosen act which is contrary to God's Will, Natural Law, the being's teleological purpose, all these being different names for the same thing. The key to this is that Evil is an act, not a characteristic. All of creation is good by its nature of being created by the Perfect Creator.
So again, why does the world seem imperfect? It seems imperfect because we mistake Unpleasantness for Evilness. Existence is a struggle for limited beings, as Freedom of Will means temptation, and possibility of failure. This possibility is necessary for us to be good, because a forced attribute is not worthy of recognition by God, Goodness must be freely chosen. Evil being an act, cannot materialize onto creation as a whole, it only remains the fault of the being doing the act.
The Book of Job best demonstrates this. The suffering God allows for Job is not evil, it is a righteous test, evil only manifests if Job falters and succumbs to Satan's pressures. No amount of unpleasantness or pain could overcome Job's holiness, the struggle only amplified his holiness. Suffering in itself is not evil, what matters is how the being suffering acts in relation to the suffering. If one is weak, he errors, commits an evil act, he fails. If one is strong, he chooses good, as Job did, his holiness is heightened. Suffering can be a blessing, the greater the struggle, the greater the success, the more likeness to God.
 The World is perfect, for all its perceived flaws are simply beautiful unpleasantries meant to be overcome, and all its pleasantries a reward. This conception of evil, coupled with Leibniz's Best of All Possible Worlds argument, that this world has the perfect balance of attributes to maximize goodness, dispels any criticism of Creation as flawed.

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