Last week, I started a debate in our Sabbath School class: Was the world God made during Creation "perfect," as the lesson said, and many Adventists often do? Or was it “very good,” as the Bible says, but not perfect, as I believe?
In discussing the topic, Br. McGregor, Sr. disagreed with me. He said it would be impossible for a perfect God to do anything less than make a perfect creation.
This sounds very reasonable, and I believe it is the opinion many SDAs hold, unspoken or otherwise. But this conclusion bears a number of errors:
• The first error, as I stated last week, is reading “perfection” into the Genesis text…when it’s not there; the Bible does not describe the created Earth as “perfect.” To do so is an overlay, or imposition, upon the text; one which needlessly complicates its implications.
Further, counter-statements by Ellen G. White, if any, do not satisfy, here: Ellen G. White does not validate the Bible. The Bible validates Ellen G. White. It has the final say.
• The second error is the assumption what God makes can only have His qualities. (I also addressed this, partially, last week: I said it would be blasphemy to say God, the only Perfect Being, could make a being like Himself. In the words of Christian philosopher William Lane Craig, "I suspect the notion of a perfect creature is an oxymoron.")
More explicitly, there are two related problems within this 2nd assumption. Let me lay them out:
1) God is omnipotent. He can do anything which is not illogical, or does not contradict His nature.
For example, God cannot make a married bachelor, or a round square. These are self-contradictory and illogical.
As well, God cannot make a rock so big He cannot lift it, nor can God lie. These are against His nature.
Clearly, for God to make a very good world, with very good creatures, is neither: It is not illogical, nor does it contradict His nature.
Further, to suppose a perfect God can only make perfect things requires severe commitments to notions about God’s creative power; ones which cannot reasonably be sustained; e.g., could a God who only makes perfect things flatten a tire?
2) The biggest objection to Br. McGregor, Sr.’s argument, however — i.e., a perfect God could not make a less-than-perfect world — might best be framed by this question: “Does this property of God’s power extend to all of God’s qualities?"
For example, by Br. McGregor, Sr.'s argument, since God is, also, incapable of sin, He should only have been able to make beings who were incapable of sin. Clearly, this was not the case. But to suppose, in creative acts, God's perfection is irrepressible, but His other qualities are restrained, is arbitrary.
In 1 Cor. 4:6, Paul gives counsel Adventists would do well to heed: "Do not go beyond what is written.” God made the world very good. He made it briefly, yet layered it with complex, interactive systems and subsystems whose collaborations boggle human comprehension. (See: https://bit.ly/HeIsLord)
The Creation was, and is, fit for its purpose — "very good" — but also capable of improvement (Gen. 1:28), development (Gen. 2:15)…and even oppositional change: Adam & Eve, sinless, could sin (Gen. 3). As I said to an elder in my own congregation, you probably wouldn’t have been able to sin in a "perfect" garden, and certainly not if its inhabitants were both good and perfect.
But its occupants did sin. This leads us to today’s lesson: The Fall.
I suppose it depends upon what definition of "perfection" one is using. Is it possible for something to be "perfect" in stages? - i.e., perfect in each stage of development?
Certainly it is obviously true that only God is absolutely perfect in the sense of no further room for improvement. However, it could also be true that something less than God could also be "perfect" with respect to what God designed it to be at a given point in time.
Either way, I think all would agree that God did not design that anything should be evil or that any sentient being should suffer. The existence of evil and of suffering is purely the result of free choices that deviated from the original Will of God for us and for our world...
Harry i think you want to get in the mind of God .I believe that God know that man would have sin that's why he gave them free choice. example does God have to tell you don't smoke for it wii destroy you.