Divine Holiness and Divine Perfection

Abstract This chapter defends an argument from divine holiness to divine perfection. Primary holiness presupposes a value gap between the holy being and others—it is the greatly superior value of the holy being that makes union with that being desirable for other beings, and makes intimate unity with the holy being at some level unfitting. A necessarily holy being will have to be infinitely and unqualifiedly valuable. For otherwise there will be beings other than God that approach the holy being’s value, at least in certain contexts, in such a way that union with God will not be overwhelmingly desirable and extremely intimate union will not be unfitting. As the God of Scripture must be thought of as absolutely holy, the connection between absolute holiness and absolute perfection underwrites a new argument from Scripture to Anselmian perfect being theology.