Jeff250 wrote:What I'm saying is that something isn't good or perfect or lacking in defect just because it's metaphysically unchangeable
I'm a lousy summer upper. "Lacking in defect", is perhaps clearer. The point ISN'T just that God's character is unchanging, but that it is perfect because there is nothing defective in it. There is nothing that could even possibly be imagined to be better than it is.
Of course, all of this runs into some philosophical problems because in trying to determine how "Good" God is, to what standard are we comparing Him? But, with language failing us at this point, we have to do the best we can.
Allow me to quote Aquinas directly on this point. Perhaps it will be clearer without coming through my muddy filter:
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That God is Universal Perfection
AS all perfection and nobility is in a thing inasmuch as the thing is, so every defect is in a thing inasmuch as the thing in some manner is not. As then God has being in its totality, so not-being is totally removed from Him, because the measure in which a thing has being is the measure of its removal from not-being. Therefore all defect is absent from God: He is therefore universal perfection.
2. Everything imperfect must proceed from something perfect: therefore the First Being must be most perfect.
3. Everything is perfect inasmuch as it is in actuality; imperfect, inasmuch as it is in potentiality, with privation of actuality. That then which is nowise in potentiality, but is pure actuality, must be most perfect; and such is God.*
4. Nothing acts except inasmuch as it is in actuality: action therefore follows the measure of actuality in the agent. It is impossible therefore for any effect that is brought into being by action to be of a nobler actuality than is the actuality of the agent. It is possible though for the actuality of the effect to be less perfect than the actuality of the acting cause, inasmuch as action may be weakened on the part of the object to which it is terminated, or upon which it is spent. Now in the category of efficient causation everything is reducible ultimately to one cause, which is God, of whom are all things. Everything therefore that actually is in any other thing must be found in God much more eminently than in the thing itself; God then is most perfect.
Hence the answer given to Moses by the Lord, when he sought to see the divine face or glory: I will show thee all good
Jeff250 wrote:Supposing that Satan existed and his essence was unchangeably cruel, would that make him perfect?
The only model I can logically fit this into would be a dualistic one. In a monotheistic model, Satan is a created being. And therefore it is, of course, possible to recognize the flaws in his character. EVEN if he were incapable of changing. Saying "He can't change", and saying "there is no room for improvement and nothing lacking in his character" are not the same thing. U have a difficult time arguing further along these lines since I find the dualistic model to be seriously logically flawed.
Oh, and by the way:
"The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." -- Luther.
"The devil .. the prowde spirite .. cannot endure to be mocked." -- Thomas More.
I think I'm going to be refering to Satan as "Jucifer" for quite a while.
He IS called the most beautiful of all angels. He's also called the Father of lies.
