My mind was wandering in my philosophy class a few weeks ago while we were discussing the attributes of God. The following argument popped into my head- feel free to hate it, but these are the kinds of things that I think about on a daily basis. The Dragon’s Argument Regarding God’s Purpose
1) God’s purpose is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man (by “man” we can assume “humankind”).
2) God is perfect.
3) Since failure implies imperfection, a perfect being never fails to accomplish its purposes.
4) Thus God never fails to accomplish his purposes.
5) Not all humankind will achieve the immortality and eternal life contained in God’s purpose.
6) Thus, either God will fail in his purpose because he is not perfect (2-4 are false), premise 1 is not God’s purpose, or all humankind will somehow achieve immortality and eternal life (5 is false).
Draco’s objections:
a) God is bound by the laws of justice and agency. It is not he who fails, but humankind that fails in achieving eternal life.
b) “Man” does not refer to all humankind, but rather to all righteous people.
The Dragon’s Rebuttal:
Objection (a) is irrelevant; the purpose still belongs to God and so failure to bring to pass said purpose belongs, at least in part, to God.
Objection (b) is false. Purpose implies a desire to accomplish something, so objection (b) argues that God does not desire for all humankind to achieve immortality and eternal life. Further, the scripture does not say “righteous men,” but simply “man.” God loves all of his children equally and equally desires each person’s immortality and eternal life.
Wow- talk about philosophy mingled with scripture! Ever since I joined the LDS church, my mother has told me that she thinks we try to put God in a box by claiming we know more than we can know about the nature of God. Perhaps she is right; perhaps we limit God too much in our thinking which leads to problems and contradictions like the one above. I'm not saying that God is all mysterious and distant- I think He can be very personal and close. But sometimes I wonder if we don't try to put our thoughts into God's head.
