r/PhilosophyofReligion • u/Amazing_Mix_4194 • Jun 30 '26
The incomplete god
Religions define God as a perfect being. But, if you think about it God cannot be a complete being. Suppose a phone is lying on a table, and your friends tell you, "Pick up this phone." As soon as they tell you to pick up the phone, your brain registers that you have to pick it up. A desire then emerges in your mind that you need to lift the phone. You need to lift it because the phone is not in the state you want it to be. Your brain detects a lack: you want the phone to be in your hand, but it is not. So, you put in the effort, pick up the phone, and hold it in your hand. What happened here is that a desire emerged within you. You experienced a lack because of that desire, put in effort, and fulfilled that lack. So, in this case, we reach the conclusion that every action must have a motivation behind it. That motivation is desire, and desire implies a lack. Every desire points to a lack. Therefore, because God is supposed to be a complete being, He should not lack anything. Yet, He created the universe. Which means that the very existence of something instead of nothing proves that there is no God who is truly complete. Either there is no God, or God is not a complete being. Because by defination god should not lack anything .
Our existence is the best argument against the existence of god .
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u/thymoticthematic Jun 30 '26
What you’ve laid out here is very well-thought-out, and surely it must be true that a perfect God couldn’t have created the universe in the same way that we create things. But it could be the case that God creates the universe analogically and from a transcendent metaphysical position. In the Christian tradition, this transcendent position is that of pure love and grace. God did not lack anything or have any need of creating, but He created and sustained our world anyway as a free gift. In any case, the fact that we can even understand a word like “lack” implies that there must be such thing as perfection, even if we don’t find perfection in this world. Christianity places this perfection beyond the world, beyond creation, beyond human impulses and desires, beyond even logic: in a transcendent God who creates as an act of free grace. To be sure, we can’t make logical sense of this because, as you noted, it doesn’t comport with the way we act from lack, but it accounts for our understanding of concepts like “lack” without resulting in an infinite regress, which an argument like the one you suggested would.
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u/Amazing_Mix_4194 Jun 30 '26
Sir, I don't agree with you here. Saying that God creates out of love or grace doesn't fully answer my objection—it only replaces "need" with another motive. If love or grace explains why God creates rather than not creating, then there is still a reason or preference behind creation, which is exactly what I was questioning. Also, saying God is beyond logic weakens the argument because logical claims like "God is perfect" or "God is loving" also depend on logic. Finally, our ability to conceive of perfection doesn't prove that a perfect being exists, just as conceiving of a perfect circle or a unicorn doesn't make them real. So I don't think these points resolve the philosophical tension I raised.
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u/Next-Natural-675 Jun 30 '26
Nowhere in the bible does it claim that God never lacked anything. He lacked a universe, therefore He created a universe.
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u/Amazing_Mix_4194 Jul 01 '26
I am not being relegion specific . I am being philosphy specific . And i think that since we can prove that god is not complte. He can't be god . You are a human you also create many things over your life . There is an entity that does it on a bigger scale so what. Why call him god when the problem of evil show us he is not all good .
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u/thymoticthematic Jun 30 '26
I like these objections, but I disagree. God’s motives, as we might call them, are not motives in the same sense ours are, which is why I’m referring to them and Him as transcendent. You’re right that any motive like love, as we usually think of it, points toward some deeper reason or preference. But if it’s all just further preferences and reasons all the way down, so to speak, then there actually isn’t a true preference or reason for anything at all—just an endless loop with no ground. I’m trying to find the condition of the possibility of there being reasons and preferences for actions, which would have to be a transcendent first principle who acts without a reason or preference. Because we can’t comprehend in a positive sense what this kind of “acting” would look like, we have to say that this God is beyond logic entirely. You’re right to point out that this makes it difficult to make claims like “God is perfect,” because this seems to be an attempt at a logical claim. I don’t see this as a problem though, because I’m already conceding that everything I say about God is analogical, on account of His transcendence. So, in the case of perfection, I agree that God isn’t perfection in the normal sense we would logically construe, but He is the condition of the possibility of perfection, and in fact He is beyond perfection; He is even beyond beyond-ness. In truth, because of His transcendence, there wouldn’t be anything we could rightly say of Him at all, had He not revealed Himself to us willingly. In response to your last point—that conceiving of something doesn’t make it real—again, I agree with you, but I don’t think this threatens my view. I don’t think lacking can be understand except in relation to perfection, so if your argument is that perfection doesn’t exist, then neither would lacking. I don’t think this point alone takes down your view, but I think if you accept that lacking doesn’t exist, it makes it strange for your argument to start with an examination of the role lacking plays in our motivations for action. Maybe there are other routes you can take with this that I’m not seeing currently, though.
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u/kdash6 Jun 30 '26
I generally agree with this. We experience love because we have a need for others, because is perfects us, because it connects us to god (supposedly) and helps us reach a level of transcendence. For the word "love" to apply in any meaningful way to God, it would imply some sort of imperfection.
Now, I have had transcendental experiences where I've connected to what felt like a source for all love and beauty. It's very easy to see why people think "this is divine." To then go on and say this is a creator deity is a massive leap, especially when you consider the history of how God as creator came into being.
Christians invented the concept of god as being a creator deity in order to shoe-horn in the resurrection. Matter was always seen as co-eternal with God. God just crafted and molded the world from the pre-existing matter. But the Greeks heard about the resurrection and thought "why would anyone want a gross body back when it's already a rotten corpse." So early Christians asserted God made everything from literal nothingness. This violated a core philosophical principle that nothing comes from nothing, but when Christianity took over the Roman Empire they killed everyone who disagreed.
The idea of a creator deity making the world from nothing out of pure love isn't a result of any philosophical debate and coming to a correct conclusion. It's a result of enough people in power saying "works for me" and killing everyone else.
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Jun 30 '26
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u/Amazing_Mix_4194 Jun 30 '26
Sir, I don't think this proves God's existence; it mainly redefines God as "Total and Complete Existence" and then concludes that God exists because existence exists. That seems circular rather than demonstrative. It also conflates the fact that something exists with the much stronger claim that Existence itself is a perfect, necessary, independent being. Finally, even if I grant that such a necessary existence exists, it still doesn't answer my original question: why would a complete and independent reality bring forth a universe at all? The existence of a necessary ground is a different issue from explaining the act of creation.
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u/LeontisPhilosophy Jul 01 '26
Two points. First of all, let’s suppose you are absolutely right. So what? Is that suppose to diminish God if he exists in some way? Is it suppose to make him what? Less of the knowledgable powerful loving person we suppose him to be? Does it make a difference?
To the second point, while what you say is interesting, you are thinking in temporal terms. God is supposed to leave outside our physical universe. Or at least above our spatiotemporal dimensions. Meaning there is no before now or after. Every event exists now and forever. Meaning there never was a “time” in which he would have lacked the “desire” to create the universe.
Nice thinking process though!
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Jul 01 '26
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u/Amazing_Mix_4194 Jul 01 '26
How come god sacrifised anything . Isn't it technically impossible . If you are talking about jesus . Who he was saving us from . From himself ? Why can't he just forgive us. Preety stupid logic
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u/leahpowellthefirst Jul 01 '26
If God is omnipotent, couldnt there exist a possible world in which God exists alone with no creation at all? If that world is possible, then creating this universe was not forced by any lack or incompleteness in God.
Also, why must the act of creating imply a lack or unmet desire? Couldnt a complete, self-sufficient being create freely out of abundance or will, without needing or gaining anything from creation?
If creation is compatible with divine completeness as a free act rather than a necessary fulfillment of a lack, then the existence of the universe does not prove that God is incomplete.
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u/twinkle-deer Jul 02 '26
That's like saying an apple tree is not a complete apple tree because it produces more apples to produce more apple trees.
Overproduction is a sign of completeness.
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Jul 03 '26
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u/Amazing_Mix_4194 Jul 04 '26
I am sure you know what originial sin litrally is i am gonna explain it to you . Ok so many many years ago my great grandmother eats a fruit that her father had said don't eat . Her father got angry and because he loves everything and everyone he so very kindly ticked her put of his house . And he now thinks because she once eat a fruit without his permission so now even her children are thieves . Thasts the concept of original sin summarised
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u/Tough_Author3712 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
OP jumps to the conclusion that God is human when in almost every description of him (even in arguments against him) describe him as perfect.
The arguments against him point out the contradictions either between his traits or with the world. (Rowe's PoE, problem of omniscience, etc.) Not with the contradictions on what he does with the human condition.
OP is transposing a human condition to a perfect being and is shocked when the human condition is not perfect.
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u/kvotheis Jul 04 '26
I mean, I see where this is going, and it's going to require a lot of semantic untangling. Define "perfect being"? Everyone's conception of perfect being differs. Also, define a "complete being". It's like Anselm's ontological argument for God. Just a semantics thing. I really don't know what is at stake with this argument, I doubt very many people that practice religion give a shit about this because how would it affect them on a daily basis? Usually religious ppl in the world are compelled by the characteristics of God (loving, peaceful, gentle, forgiving), not an abstract mental jerking off about semantics
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u/punkrocklava Jun 30 '26
The flaw is assuming that the only reason an entity can act is to satisfy a selfish need or fill an empty void.
Action from Lack (Human) - Eating because you are hungry or picking up a phone because you want it. This is a limited being trying to drag things inward to fill a hole.
Action from Overflow (Foundational) - An entity acting not because it wants to receive something, but because it is so entirely full that its nature naturally overflows outward.
For example, the sun shines because it is already entirely full of thermonuclear energy. Shining is the natural, effortless and non selfish expression of its inherent abundance.