Can a perfect being have a "need" or "want" to create?

Question

One of the many words often used to describe god is "perfect"
perfect by definition means comeplete
My question is that if god is perfect, how could he have any "need" or "want" that would drive him to create

Answer 1

The word "perfect" has several meanings.

Complete, without fault or defect, pure, unequivocal.

Which meaning are you using? And do the meanings I expressed somehow contradict having a desire? Some or all of them? Which ones?

I'm pretty sure that your question isn't perfect. Should I be moved or convinced by your imperfect question?

Answer 2

Good question! I would say that the purpose of God is to be the Creator. The Creator makes creation and creatures out of nothing; just by thinking it into existence. We share in his creation every day. I believe that creation and creatures prove that we are not only created in God's image but in the image of the Holy Trinity.

God is spirit. He cannot be seen. If you were to examine all the creatures, the CREATOR has made a pattern emerges: angels and demons are intellectual creatures without a body; plants and animals do not have an intellect but a body and mortal soul. IT IS ONLY LIVING, HUMAN, BEINGS, that have a MIND, BODY, and SOUL. Only human beings have all three. Now, living, human, being is the existence of man. Those words describe the essence of man's mind, body, and soul. The Body is living, the Mind makes us human and distinguishing us from animals, and our Soul makes us the being that we become (good or evil).

Now, even Muslims will agree Allah is omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing), and omnipresent (ever present). These words describe the existence of God. So, what is the essence of God? I will hold off answering this question till the end.

Now, if you think about the existence of a person they have a triple existence: physical (body), mental (mind), and spiritual (eternal soul). In fact, whenever we create something it has all three of these parts. When we cook we have a recipe (in our mind), we gather all the raw ingredients, and we cook (don't burn it, ha ha) what it is we are making. Cooking has the physical, mental, and spiritual parts. Same with engineering or technology it has three parts: the blueprints (to convey an idea), the raw materials (physical), and the workmanship (spiritual). If something goes wrong investigators will look for a design flaw, material flaw, or faulty workmanship. THIS DEMONSTRATES CREATION HAS THREE PARTS LIKE THE CREATOR.

Now, in the Bible it says Jesus is the visible likeness of the invisible God. (Colossians 1:15) The ESSENCE OF GOD IS: Father (mental), Son (physical), Holy Ghost (spiritual). ONE TRUE GOD IN THREE JUST LIKE A PERSON. THREE PARTS ONE PERSON. When you are sick you send for a doctor; when you are mentally troubled, a psychiatrist; when spiritually seeking you seek out a holy person.

Answer 3

What if you are a being a perfect evil? I would say yes, there is a desire to spread more evil, do bad things, make life miserable for others.

Same thing with a being of perfect good. There is a desire to make life better for people, spread truth and justice, that kidn of thing. So the act of creating is not so much because God feels an emptiness in himsefl he is trying to fill. He's tryign to make existence better in general.

But you also have to take into account that labeling God "perfect" is the only word humans have for God. Just because we lack the necessary vocabulary and understanding of God, don't try and limit God because of our definition.

Answer 4

I've encountered the same idea, and i agree with it.
Consider the following:
God also can’t be both omnibenevolent and omnipotent, because terrible events really do occur, and this all-loving god hasn’t prevented them. This is known as the Problem of Evil (also known as theodicy), and I think that it is one of the biggest problems for those attempting to prove the existence of the Christian god. How can anybody explain the existence of a loving, all-powerful god, while also knowing the bad things that happen to all of us and the terrible things that happen to far too many?
The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus summed it up well when he wrote these ideas:

Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can and does not want to.
If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent.
If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked.
If, as they say, God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?
And yet the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good god with free will won’t go away. So, here we are discussing this subject again. It’s good to remember that there have been over 2500 gods created by humankind. Monotheists don’t believe in all but one of them. Atheists don’t believe in just one more.
In fact, the existence of honest and kind Atheists is another proof that the Christian god, who demands belief, doesn’t exist. If this all-good god existed, it would want everybody to be saved — even Atheists. If this all-knowing god existed, it would know that Atheists just want real proof of its existence. If this god were all-powerful it would be able to give unambiguous proof of its existence. It hasn’t. Therefore this god doesn’t exist.

Answer 5

God might be perfect, but as mortals, our perception of god is not. We cannot see the whole picture because we are in it. I believe that we are here because each of us represents a different aspect of god's self and our purpose is for god to rediscover itself by experiencing life in every possible way. By becoming better, more compassionate people, we make god's self discovery more effective. Then when god's discovery is complete, we will no longer be needed. At the rate things are going, this could take another billion years.

Answer 6

If you can figure out the characteristics of God and the vast complexity of who He is and what perfect means then you will have done more than any man in history. There have been alot of people who have tried to figure out God.
He gives all kinds of clues to His character, how He interacts with man, His power, His authority, His plans, even His likeness in Christ. My guess is, that includes less than 1% of who He is.
If He's powerful enough to create man, then He's powerful enough to create a desire for that fellowship.

Answer 7

Great philosophical question. Have you every read "Conversations with God?" Great book, at least the first one.

The answer in that book is that God knew s/he was perfect, but wanted to actually experience it, so created the universe and people, to experience things through the people.

Interesting idea.

Answer 8

God does not have any needs or wants. Like you said, He's complete. God, infinitely perfect and blessed in Himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in His own blessed life.

Answer 9

He had the need to be worshipped by the sounds of things. Nothing is ever perfect. How can he be perfect if we are created in his image? Are well all perfect too?

Answer 10

No, a perfect being does not need or want anything. A perfect being has everything it could ever need or want or else it wouldn't be perfect.