Does God create perfect souls or imperfect souls? Or both?

Does God create perfect souls or imperfect souls? Or both?

Deuteronomy 32:4

He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

If His works are perfect and we are all His works then logic would say that we are perfect.

If He makes souls imperfect then we must somehow reach perfection before entering Heaven.

Most believe that the onus is on us to do whatever need doing to get to Heaven.

I believe that God makes us perfect as scripture indicates and wonder why most believe that God has somehow screwed up on the creation of perfect souls.

If God cannot screw up then all around us is as I see it. Perfect.

If you cannot agree that all about us is perfect, then when did perfection change to imperfection and who was the cause.

God making souls. Good one , good one, oops, oops, good one, good one, oops, goo----.

Regards

DL

 

"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks himself the master of others, but remains more of a slave than they." Sense or nonsense? No, it isn't antoher Bible quote. It's the opening line from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Social Contract, a classic of political philosophy. Rousseau can be debated, but I wouldn't write him off as a blithering idiot because of an obviously self-contradictory statement without first finding out what he meant. He's obviously referring to the difference between human potential and human actuality. Likewise, reference to "perfection" in the text you mention could refer to the same kind of distinction. Or we might adopt a Jainist perspective, as illustrated by Maitrea's recent post on another thread this forum:
"All things are perfect. Imperfection is only a word that humans created to negatively describe that which we do not believe to match our idea of what it should be. In reality, there is only what "is", and what "is" works perfectly within reality through the laws of energy. It exists beyond human existance, and it is balanced, indiscriminant, and it never falters."

 

And your answer to the question is????????

Regards
DL

 

Humans have the potential to be perfect and God gave them that, along with free will. And that is a perfect arrangement.

 

Much better.

I would have said that humans can improve their perfection. More like the vocabulary of the US contitution that says a more perfect union.

More that perfection can evolve to a higher state. More towards God.

If you recognize one perfect arrangement, do you also recognize the perfection all around us?

Regards
DL

 

Yes, but...

Although your indentity has merged with the godhead, it doesn't mean than anyone else around you has. In coming to this world, you agreed to abide by the limitations your human identity brings with it. The wall of illusion that creates the sense of many selves is part of the scenary here. You have to work at knocking down that barrier.

Perfection or imperfection has no meaning anywhere but the human idea of it.



x

 

Eh, I think, man created God , not the other way around.

There's where your imperfect souls come in.

 

All babies are born free of sin, so perfect, it is going through life that changes all of this, and like it was said God has given us the ability to choose our way and who we eventually become.

 

Strange, I don't remember ageeing to anything before being born. It must be my poor memory.

regards
DL

 

Perfection can only improve, it cannot get to imperfection.
Have just a touch more faith in the power of God to do things right.

Regards
DL

 

What happened to original sin?

stev90, you might like the ideas of Freurbach. He says God is a man, or more corectly--a projection of ourselves into diety...

 

Yeah, which means that people are born with an innate urge to do bad things and to disobey God. Babies are not able to think about these things so they cannot sin in the Christian sense.

 

But then they wouldn't be "perfect". I would think a perfect being wouldn't ever want to disobey god.

So you wouldn't agree that when Augustine says that an infant is a nasty, selfish thing?

 

It depends what your definition of original sin and there are different Christian views on it, not a single unanimous interpretation. Augustine (the second most influential figure in Western Christianity) deemed unbaptizied babies went to hell for their original sin, while later in the Church, limbo was imagined for those souls. Some view original sin as actual guilt, while others believe there is only a tendency to sin, not actual guilt. The views on original sin vary greatly. I think it is important to recognize other views on this subject, as original sin is an interpretation of The Fall. It is not actually mentioned anywhere in the Old or New Testament. There are, of course, other interpretations of Adam and Eve's story.

Peace and love

 

You might remember that the first recorded sin was with Satan in Heaven.

Regards
DL

 

The Orthodox view is related directly to death. It goes something like that because we are going to die, we do things to try and stop it (psychologically). I think that is really interesting.

I don't think that we are in any regards "perfect". We are animals, although animals with a high cognitive state. Yes I believe we have a soul, but that does not come into play. We routinly do things that harm others to benifit ourselves. Good ol natural selection adn advancement of genes at work, I think.

 

Do babies think about this urge at such a young age? It may be there, but that doesn't mean that it is in your conscious mind? If you are too young to understand what disobeying God means or even what it is, I mean babies are no where near that stage of development to think about anything other than immediate needs - food, warmth etc. Can you intend to ""disobey God" when you have no awareness of most things outside of of someone feeding you and holding you?

 

On a tangent. I never understood a literall interpretation of this story with a literal 6 day creation. When was there the time for Lucifer to disobey God and take 1/3 of the angels with him?

 

We are not given the timing but do know that God brought him to the garden with Him so that he could pester Eve.

Regards
DL

 

Confessions Book 1: Chapter 6

8. Afterward I began to laugh -- at first in my sleep, then when waking. For this I have been told about myself and I believe it -- though I cannot remember it -- for I see the same things in other infants. Then, little by little, I realized where I was and wished to tell my wishes to those who might satisfy them, but I could not! For my wants were inside me, and they were outside, and they could not by any power of theirs come into my soul. And so I would fling my arms and legs about and cry, making the few and feeble gestures that I could, though indeed the signs were not much like what I inwardly desired and when I was not satisfied -- either from not being understood or because what I got was not good for me -- I grew indignant that my elders were not subject to me and that those on whom I actually had no claim did not wait on me as slaves -- and I avenged myself on them by crying. That infants are like this, I have myself been able to learn by watching them; and they, though they knew me not, have shown me better what I was like than my own nurses who knew me.​

Makes sense to me. As a child you can learn how to manipulate people. It is like the children who only cry when their parents give them attention when they fall. Sometimes children only get "hurt" because they see the reaction on their parents faces...