What is it to be a perfect being? One way of cashing out what a perfect being is in terms of a being that lacks no goodness, for to lack some goodness seems to be an imperfection (and perhaps even more so if evil is a privation of goodness). And, building on that, it seems that a perfect being then is identical to the totality of goodness, what we might call the Good. But various problems arise out of this way of thinking for the possible existence of such a being. In the first place, we might wonder if the totality of goodness is a single, unified being, as opposed to a loose collection of goods. If the latter, then it seems that a perfect being cannot exist. One solution is to say that a perfect being is identical to the Good, but that the Good is internally structured in such a way that it is true to say that the Good is a single being. Every good relates to the Good as part to whole. But there is a further worry: It seems that certain goods are incompatible with each other. Take the (supposed) good of simply being a tree. Now, one cannot (it seems) simply be a tree and also be an ocean or mountain at the same time (one would be more that just a tree). But it seems that oceans and mountains are good, and that it is thus good to be an mountain or ocean. So how does a perfect being combine these goods within itself? But the problem gets worse. After all, one cannot (it seems) be a perfect being and merely be a tree. Thus it seems certain goods are inaccessible to a perfect being. But if all goods cannot be combined, then it seems every being will lack some goods, and thus some goodness. Therefore, it seems, a perfect being does not an cannot exist.

However, maybe there are a few ways out of this problem for the perfect being theist. First, perhaps there are no trees, oceans or mountains in the way we have been thinking of them. More precisely, perhaps there are not many distinct and separate beings that are good. Maybe there is only one perfect being of which all these other good things are but ‘aspects’ or ‘attributes’. Second, and related to this, perhaps we have a faulty view of what it means to merely be a tree. Perhaps our view of trees has been rather too low. Perhaps a mere tree is just the sort of being that can also be perfect. In other words, perhaps a being can merely be a tree and also be a perfect being. Third, perhaps some of our starting points are wrong. For instance, maybe it is not good to merely be a mountain or perhaps a perfect being need not contain within itself all goodness. This latter idea seems promising. There is perhaps a goodness in being free from / transcending certain creaturely goods, such as the goods of being a tree, mountain or an ocean. Moreover, that allows for the good of bringing these beings into existence in such a way that they are distinct from oneself. We may also doubt that a perfect being has need of such creaturely goods (unless perhaps these are required for omnipotence or omniscience). Further, by lacking certain creaturely goods a being would perhaps be able to be more unique, and yet also to be ontologically closer to a wide range of beings (the more features God and some creature x have in common, the lesser the ontological distance between God and x might be said to be). Perhaps perfection entails the lack of certain goods.