These brain-transcending attributes are in the human case nonetheless structured in some fashion by the brain. But they are attributed to God without either the limitations or the structure due to the brain. (An obvious exception would be if evil is brain transcending. An evil being could not be a god, however powerful.) The contrast between the two theological methodologies may be illustrated by considering God’s capacity to know the future.

That seems a perfection but has no human precedent. The Ockhamist should not attribute it to God, the divine perfectionist should. Perfect Being Theology would seem to be motivated in two ways. The first is that to posit a limitation is an intellectual complication and so to be avoided where possible on grounds of simplicity. The second is that the supremacy required for a being to be worthy of worship requires perfection. Agreed! But the first only warrants the non-limitation of those kinds of attribute we have independent reason to assign to God. The second only warrants those perfections required to be unconditionally trustworthy, notably moral perfection and infallibility (having no ‘false knowledge’).

The comparison with standard conceptions of God depends on whether PAM supports Substance Dualism as a metaphysics for human beings (and pace Descartes, other animals). Substance Dualism asserts that the thing that is aware and acts is a spirit, that is, not essentially embodied. Substance Dualism may be contrasted with Property Dualism, the thesis that although Substance Dualism fails we humans have non-physical properties. PAM may well support Property Dualism, but that is not my present concern.

 

The contrast between the two theological methodologies may be illustrated by considering God’s capacity to know the future.