Granted—so say there are infinitely many… I didn’t understand why you see this as empty sophistry.

The reason to assume that God would create another God is because God is the most complete entity in the measure of goodness. So presumably He would do the most complete and good act, also because He is omnipotent.
Therefore, the entity that can receive the most and is the most perfect is God.
So presumably God would create another God.

I didn’t understand the continuation of what you wrote—that there is a necessity that He be unique, so He cannot create another one… Why is that necessary?

Who said that the most complete and good act is to create another God? And who said it is even possible to create God at all (after all, He is a necessary being)? And as I wrote, it stands to reason that if He is perfect then He must be unique, and therefore there is no possibility of creating another one (it is precluded by definition). And in general, the one raising the difficulty has to bear the burden of proof, not the one answering it. We have never heard of “one may raise a forced objection.” So you bring proof that it is possible He is not unique, and then ask your question.

You have to remember that God (as the first entity in the chain…) has no other power limiting Him. He is free of everything and has the power and free ability to do as He wishes.
Presumably He would create the most complete thing, which is the thing most fitting, in accordance with His degree of perfection, to create. And because He is the most complete thing, presumably He would create something identical to Himself as far as possible.
So you asked: who said that the most complete and good act is to create another God? I would answer that the more complete the thing is, the greater the increase of good in creating it. Therefore, given that before any creation God was alone, with no motive or limiting factor, presumably He would create God.
If He is a necessary being, then still He would create a reality that is as complete as it can be relative to Him. That is, on the level of attributes, an entity identical to God—even though on the inherent ontological level it would not be a necessary being but contingent.

I didn’t understand why the Rabbi connects perfection with the need to be unique.
I would say that perhaps harmony among multiple components and entities is actually the true perfection.
The Rabbi might have answered that once He creates a perfect entity, then He no longer has perfect ability (since there is now another entity that can prevent Him from carrying things out), but that is not correct. After all, even when we claim that God has infinite power, this is only with respect to doing any action that is not a logical contradiction. But once there are two gods, then any action regarding which they would oppose one another would also be defined as a logical contradiction. Therefore there is no essential difference between one God and two gods even on this parameter.

David, think a little. If He were to create another one like Himself, then His power would be diminished, because now there would be one equal to Him who is not under His rule. And that stands in contradiction to His omnipotence.
And beyond that, this second god is not God, since he is created. And anything created is not perfect, because its very existence depends on something external to it.
Conclusion: “creating God” includes a logical contradiction and is therefore meaningless.

Roni, read a little,
I answered both your questions in the last comment.

I argue that even if the second god is not God on the level of being a necessary being and the first cause, still He would create a reality that is as complete as can be *relative to Him*. That is, on the level of attributes, an entity identical to God—even though on the inherent ontological level it is not a necessary being but contingent.

Regarding the first part of the question,
that is not correct, because even before there was another god, God could not create something that is a logical contradiction. And once we add another god, then His power would not be diminished, because anything over which the two gods disagree is considered a logical contradiction. And that too He cannot do because of the logical contradiction involved, not because of the second god. So the idea is still the same.

You’re dodging it: if God A wants to do A and God B can prevent Him from doing it, that diminishes A’s power. Why is that a logical contradiction? You just decided that it is, even though it really isn’t.

David, it seems to me that Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto goes in this direction.
He argues that God created man in order to create that “entity of unlimited good,” meaning the ideal human being (not historical man, but man as he is supposed to be as the work of God’s hands).
But that is not “another God,” rather a contraction of God.

Another point: it could be that the greatest beneficence is not to create another God, but to give the creature the possibility of encountering God and being in a relationship of love with Him.

After all, if you asked a guy in love whether he would want to turn into the girl he is in love with, he would answer no. The greatest good for him is to meet her and be with her, not to become her.

David, you didn’t really answer.
You did not clarify what makes them two. Certainly not a difference of place—after all, He has no body (every body imposes limitation). So if their will is always one, and not by coincidence but by logical necessity, and likewise their knowledge is one, etc. etc., then it turns out that He is one and not two. Because there is neither will nor attribute that distinguishes them.

Judah, that is certainly a logical contradiction to His being omnipotent.

Judah, there is a difference between two forces that we encounter in everyday life and two entities whose definition is that they are unlimited and omnipotent.
Here we are already dealing with a logical contradiction. The matter is clear.

Shai, I don’t fully know what Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto meant. What do you say about the argument presented here? Agree or disagree, and why?

It is fitting, in accordance with the degree of God’s perfection, to create a perfect thing, as I explained at length above. Not romantic relationships. Maybe that’s good, but not perfect…

Roni, the Rabbi would be glad to sharpen Leibniz’s point about the identity of indiscernibles, and why we do not hold like him.
Attributes describe an entity. They are not the entity itself. Therefore there can be two entities with the same attributes.

David, there is no practical difference between one God and infinitely many if they are all indiscernible. In that situation it is not at all clear that it is a good act to create them.

David, regarding the logical contradiction, you did not understand what I meant. Suppose God A wants to create an apple and God B objects. God A will not be able to create the apple even though He is omnipotent. Contradiction. Therefore God B necessarily does not exist. Q.E.D.

You are making a very strange claim, namely that anything God B opposes will count as a “logical contradiction,” and therefore there is no problem with God A’s inability to do it. That is not correct. If God B opposes something and God A cannot do it (and indeed there is a logical contradiction here: God B is omnipotent and so is A, so how does one of them prevail?), that is precisely the proof that God B does not exist (his existence entails logical contradictions). In the same way I could say that God can destroy Himself, and as for the claim that then He is not omnipotent because He cannot bring Himself back into existence, there is no problem with that because someone who does not exist (God after destruction) cannot perform actions, because that is a logical contradiction. (And that’s fine because God anyway cannot do logical contradictions.) Of course that is not true. The fact that self-destruction entails a contradiction simply means that the self-destruction itself is a contradiction, and likewise creating another God.

Judah,
Regarding your answer that if they are indiscernible then it is not a good act to create them—
why? What is the connection between their having the same attributes and it not being good to create them?! If anything, the opposite… the creation that the Holy One, blessed be He, would create, if He were to create Himself, would be the creation that could receive and enjoy the most; it is the most perfect and best…

Regarding the claim about logical contradiction: I do not understand why, if God B causes logical contradictions for God 1, that means He does not exist.
After all, even before that, God 1 could not do everything. He could do whatever is logically possible, like creating an apple or a world—but not everything, for example creating a square triangle.
Even given God 2, He could do anything that is not a logical contradiction. So there is no difference in His attributes between the before and the after.
True, I agree that theoretically His space of choices might shrink because of God 2 in cases of disagreement. But it is not reasonable to assume that this would actually happen in reality, because their attributes, as stated, are identical. Therefore they would strive to do the same thing—anything that is good. So there is not even any reduction here in the space of choices.

The example you gave with self-destruction is not correct at all. I can agree that God cannot destroy Himself. But the reason for that is not because of His omnipotence (there indeed you are right, and that is not where the problem lies), but because of another definition of Him as a necessary being.
And self-destruction would create a problem with that parameter.

David, if so, then you are mistaken. If there is complete identity, then there are not two entities either.
But not only that: if there is identity of will, then your claim actually eliminates will.
Because whatever entity A wants, entity B must also want by logical necessity ("must want" is an oxymoron, of course), and whatever entity A does not want, entity B must also not want. If so, you have completely denied independent will to entity B. Conclusion: you cannot deal with perfection and multiplicity at one and the same time.

Roni, even if there is complete identity in attributes, that still does not have to mean that we are talking about one entity. As I recall, the Rabbi discusses this at length in his book. See also here: https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%A2%D7%A7%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%9F-%D7%94%D7%90/

I am not saying that the entity must want, because we are indeed talking about free choice. But presumably the desires will be identical positively and negatively.
For example, when God 1 wants to create a perfect world, God 2 will not prevent Him from doing so. (Assuming that this is a good act.)
Only when God 1 wants to do an evil act would God 2 prevent Him. But that will not happen because God 1 is defined as absolute good.
Likewise, it is a good thing to allow the other to carry out his desires, and therefore it is not reasonable to assume that God 2, as a good entity, would oppose the desires of God 1 for no reason. And when there is a reason, then in any case God 1 would not want it in the first place….

What does the Rabbi think?
The Rabbi did not answer the response I gave above to your questions…
Does the Rabbi have nothing to answer? And has the reasoning of pagan polytheism defeated Israelite monotheism?! Are they more rational?

David, I answered everything. In my opinion this is pointless scholastic sophistry. You assume all sorts of assumptions that have no basis and raise objections. Don’t assume, and don’t object. And besides, maybe there really are infinitely many gods? Who says not?
Pardon me, but I do not see any point in this discussion.

David,

You agree that an omnipotent Creator cannot create entities with an internal contradiction, like a round square. The same thing applies here: in the hypothetical definition of a created omnipotent being there is an internal contradiction, because it includes the logical possibility of a conflict between its will and the will of the original omnipotent being.

Also, as has already been said here, if Necessary Being A creates someone in his image and likeness, he can never be a necessary being (and therefore not a god worthy of worship), because a necessary being cannot be created by definition.

Beyond that, philosophers and theologians throughout the generations (many of them Christians who believe in the Trinity, such as Duns Scotus, Aquinas, and others) have pointed out many additional contradictions that arise from the claim that there is more than one necessary existent. So I would suggest that first you read them, and if you succeed in refuting all of them, it will be interesting to see your refutations here—and in my opinion it would without a doubt cause an academic earthquake if you published this in one of the philosophy/theology journals.

I don’t understand… after all, it says explicitly that God created something like them. Man was created in the image. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto argues at the beginning of The Way of God that creating God was impossible because God is not created, and therefore He created man with free choice so that through his own labor he could become, by his own merit, like God. That is the closest possible thing to God, who exists by His own right. And the soul of the Messiah is the essence of man—“the breath of our nostrils, the Lord’s Messiah.” Therefore one should not confuse the Messiah with the Messiah’s God.