A Short Reflection on Perfect Being Theology
Perfect being theology (PBT) is an approach to philosophical theology which operates on the assumption that God is the greatest metaphysically possible being or the most perfect being possible – i.e., the being which possesses the greatest combination of perfect attributes that is logically possible to have – and then involves (a) drawing inferences on what those attributes of perfection are and (b) reflecting on the nature of such a being. Influential philosophers such as William Lane Craig and Brian Leftow hold that PBT is a guide or control for proper philosophical and theological method concerning our thinking about God. [1]
It is often said that Anselm was the first to use PBT. In Proslogium, Chapter 2, Anselm aptly described God as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” (Latin: Aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit.) Anslem reasoned from this premise to the conclusion that God exists. This is one version of the ontological argument for theism. (Note: there might be two separate ontological arguments in Anselm’s work: a non-modal one and a modal one. I won’t pursue this point here.)
Despite Anselm’s influence, he was perhaps not the first to apply something like PBT, though apparently, he was the first to recognize that God is a necessary being. In other words, if God exists, then God’s existence is necessary: God is either necessary or impossible; he exists in every possible world or in none of them. In any case, prior thinkers used something like PBT. Perhaps Plato was the first, or maybe Socrates before him, given the influence that the master of elenchus had on Plato. Near the end of Republic, Book II, Plato writes that we ought always to seek the truth about God, that doing so requires thinking of God as he is, and that “surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect.” From this reasonable assumption, he concludes that God is good, unchangeable, unwilling to lie or engage in falsehood, not the source of evil, not capable of deception, not ignorant of the past, and true in word and deed.
PBT has a significant philosophical pedigree and, thus, a strong claim as a guide to how we ought to think about the divine (which, by the way, theists, atheists, and agnostics alike can do). The prima facie intuitiveness of PBT also supports its position as a guide. This is not to say that there aren’t challenges to PBT. There are: for example, some say that PBT is incoherent because it leads to contradictory conceptions of God. There are answers to these challenges, but I cannot go into them now.
[1] For example, see Craig and Moreland, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, 1st Edition (2003), p. 501. See also here for Leftow.