Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

 Matthew 11:28-30 (ESV)

Where or to whom should we go for rest? Christ invites, or asks, people to come to him. If they do, he will give them rest. It is an appealing invitation. Those who labor and are heavy laden (often) long to finish their work and lay down their burden, to rest from their hard work (cf. Genesis 2:2-3). But how will Jesus do so? Seemingly, by giving them rest from the heavy burden and hard yoke they bear. This burden and yoke has likely been placed upon them by others. In the Old Testament a “yoke” is often placed upon Israel by (foreign) kings. So perhaps we are talking about the yoke of the Rome here. However, it seems more likely that it is rather the yoke of the scribes and Pharisees that is in view (cf. Matthew 23). Perhaps it is a yoke that was not placed upon these people by others, but by themselves. We often take upon ourselves heavy burdens, burdens that are sometimes too heavy for us. And what is the nature of this yoke? Is it some difficult, but ultimately good thing, or something bad, some sort of oppression or the burden of personal sin?

Whatever the origin and nature of this yoke, Christ invites his hearers to lay it down and exchange it for a lighter burden and easier yoke. This is in some ways remarkable, since the teaching of Christ is often itself difficult and hard to practice. Moreover, why should they not simply lay down their burden and then to refuse to carry a new one? Maybe, however, to have no burden at all is not better than having a burden one cannot bear. Maybe we must bear some burden to be able to bear the suffering of life. Why continue in life, with its frequent suffering, if there is nothing left to do, no purpose or goal to pursue? How can we justify our existence, even to ourselves, if there is nothing worthwhile left to be done? The yoke that Christ offers us is thus perhaps a double mercy. His burden is neither too heavy for us nor too light for us.

1. The nonexistence of a perfect God is ultimately inexplicable.
2. No part of reality is ultimately inexplicable.
3. If (1) and (2), then it is not the case that a perfect God does not exist.
4. Therefore, a perfect God exists.

Note that a mere argument for the nonexistence of a perfect God does not necessarily qualify as an ultimate explanation of the nonexistence of such a God. Consider the following argument:

1. If evil exists, then God does not exist.
2. Evil exists.
3. Therefore, God does not exist.

Since this argument offers us no explanation of why evil exists, it fails to provide us with an ultimate explanation of God’s nonexistence.

A hard problem of explanation arises from the following starting points:

1. Reality is fully explicible.
2. Reality is partly contigent.
3. If reality were fully contigent, then it would be inexplicible.
4. Hence, reality is partly necessary.
5. Necessary reality cannot be explained in terms of contigent reality.
6. Contigent reality cannot be ultimately explained in terms of contigent reality.
7. How then can reality be explained?

Now, perhaps contigent reality can be explained in terms of necessary reality which in turn can be explained in terms of (parts of) itself. But how exactly can contigent reality arise from necessary reality and how exactly can necessary be explained in terms of itself?

One of the troubling features of a first cause is that, seemingly, it must be self-explanatory in some sense, if the whole of reality is explicable. Now, perhaps one thinks we can avoid self-explanatory / internally explicable beings by holding to the view that there is no first cause but rather a causal series that stretches infinitely into the past. But that is not quite as easy as one might think:

1. An infinite causal regress exists which is fully caused by its parts and features.
2. If the existence of an infinite causal regress is fully caused by its parts and features, then its existence is self-explanatory or internally explicable.
3. Therefore, there exists something that is self-explanatory or internally inexplicable.

Moreover, we can also put forward a Rasmussen-style argument for the existence of something that is internally explicable:

1. The whole of reality is explicable.
2. If (1), then the whole of reality can only be internally explicable, since there is nothing outside of the whole of the reality by which it can be explained.
3. If (1) and (2), then the whole of reality is internally explicable.
4. Therefore, something exists which is internally explicable.

It thus seems we must admit that there is something that is internally explicable, or give up the view that reality is fully explicable.

Perfect being theism, roughly the view that God exists and is perfect, is associated with Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109), and philosophical theology, partly rooted in Greek philosophy, more generally. Its origins seem to lie more in Athens than in Jerusalem, more in Greek thinking than in Jewish thought. Indeed, some are not so sure the biblical God is a perfect being. The idea that Jesus was a perfect being theist seems silly. Remarkably, however, in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says the following:

“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Matthew 5:48 (ESV)

On a straightforward reading of the passage, at least in this translation, Jesus believes that the God of Israel is perfect. This reading cannot simply be dismissed, because it seems to have some support in the church fathers:

“But as God is eternal and rational, so, I think, He is perfect in all things. ‘Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.'”

Tertullian, The Five Books Against Marcion

“…we must believe that God is in all things perfect, according to our Saviour’s word, which saith, Your Father in heaven is perfect: perfect in sight, perfect in power, perfect in greatness, perfect in foreknowledge, perfect in goodness, perfect in justice, perfect in loving-kindness: not circumscribed in any space, but the Creator of all space, existing in all…”

Cyril of Jerusalem, The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril

Moreover, that Jesus was a perfect being theist seems less incredible if we consider some passages from the Jewish thinker Philo (c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD):

“Do you doubt whether the imperishable, and everlasting, and blessed God, the Being endowed with all the virtues, and with all perfection, and with all happiness is unchangeable in his counsels, and whether he abides by the designs which he originally formed, without changing any of them.”

Philo, On the Unchangeableness of God

“He is free from all pain, and free from all fear; he has no participation in any evils, he yields to no one, he suffers no sorrow, he knows no fatigue, he is full of unalloyed happiness; his nature is entirely perfect, or rather God is himself the perfection, and completion, and boundary of happiness, partaking of nothing else by which he can be rendered better, but giving to every individual thing a portion of what is suited to it, from the fountain of good, namely, from himself; for the beautiful things in the world would never have been such as they are, if they had not been made after an archetypal pattern, which was really beautiful, the uncreate, and blessed, and imperishable model of all things.”

Philo, The Cherubim

Also, Jesus seems more generally to have held a very high view of God:

“No one is good except God alone.”

Mark 10:18 (ESV)

“…with God all things are possible.”

Matthew 19:26 (ESV)

“…the Father has life in himself…”

John 5:26 (ESV)

“And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God…”

John 17:3 (ESV)

Argument

1. A perfect being exists.
2. A perfect being would be able to be the Christian God.
3. If (2), then there is a possible world in which a perfect being is the Christian God.
4. If a being is the Christian God in one possible world, then it is the Christian God in all possible worlds.
5. Therefore, the Christian God exists and is a perfect being.

Now, admittedly, this may not be the most persuasive way to reason from the existence of a perfect being to the existence of the Christian God. But is seems to be one way to do so.

I’m interested in the question of how to reason from a perfect being to the existence of the Christian God. One way of getting a step closer is drawing out the possibilities of a perfect being. This builds on my previous post in which I show how the nature of a perfect being might entail the possibility of evil. But we might draw out other possibilities from the nature of a perfect being.

1. A perfect being exists.
2. A perfect being would …
   • Be able to be triune (trinity)
   • Be able to create “the heavens and the earth” and angelic beings (doctrine of creation)
   • Be able to (partially) become incarnate in a man named Jesus of Nazareth (incarnation, christology)
   • Be able to save via this Jesus (soteriology), raise him from the dead (christology, resurrection) and appoint him as judge over the living and the dead (eschatology)
   • Be able to reveal itself by means of the Bible (bibliology)
   • Be able to establish a church (ecclesiology)
   • Be able to overcome demonic powers (demonology)
   • Be able to raise people from the dead and create a new world (eschatology)
3. If (1) and (2), then there is a possible world in which a perfect being does the things listed under (2).
4. Therefore, there is a possible world in which a perfect being does in fact do the things listed under (2).

Now, one could obviously list more Christian doctrines under (2), but hopefully the point is clear. Of course, this sort of argument does not establish that the possible world of (4) is in fact the actual world.

Argument 1

1. A perfect being would be able to save beings from at least some evils.
2. A perfect being cannot save beings from at least some evils if a perfect being cannot exist in a world with some evil.
3. If (1) and (2), then a perfect being can exist in a world with some evil.
4. Therefore, the existence of some evil is compatible with the existence of a perfect being.

Argument 2

1. A perfect being would be able to save beings from horrific evil.
2. A perfect being cannot save beings from horrific evil if a perfect being cannot exist in a world with horrific evil
3. If (1) and (2), then a perfect being can exist in a world with horrific evil.
4. Therefore, a perfect being can exist in a world with horrific evil.

Argument 3

1. A perfect being would be able to save beings from all past, present and future evils.
2. A perfect being cannot save beings from all past, present and future evils if it cannot exist in our world.
3. If (1) and (2), then a perfect being can exist in our world.
4. Therefore, all past, present and future evils are compatible with the existence of a perfect being.

The idea on which these arguments build is roughly the following: A perfect being would be able to save us from evil (it would be a perfection / would plausibly be an attribute of a perfect being), but it cannot do so if it cannot exist in a world with evil, so the existence of evil must be compatible with the existence of a perfect being.

The possibility of evil thus flows / may flow from the nature of a perfect being. A perfect being can only save from evil if there is a possible world in which evil exists.

1. There is some being, x, with some degree of goodness.
2. The simplest theory of reality does not include an infinite hierarchy of beings.
3. The simplest theory of reality is probably true.
4. If (1)-(3), then there probably are not infinitely many beings better than x.
5. If there probably are not infinitely many beings better than x, then there probably is at least one best being.*
6. A perfect being is the simplest and least arbitrary sort of best being.
7. If (6), then probably the best theory of a best being is that it is perfect.
8. The best theory of something is probably true.
9. Therefore, there probably is a perfect being.

*There might be multiple beings that share the highest place in the hierarchy.

Similar sorts of arguments can be run for the existence of (a) being(s) that is/are perfectly powerful, perfectly knowledgeable, perfectly desirable, perfectly teleological, and so on.

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.