What's perfect?

A lot of our modern ideas about "perfection" come from Plato. If you're familiar with him, you'll recognize his Forms. Whether the Forms exist in some Platonic realm (like the mind of God), or whether they're archetypal ideas everyone is born with, that Form is perfect.

The Ideal Man is a perfect man; every living, breathing man is a pale shadow of that perfection. There's no way any of us can be the ideal human--but somewhere, whether in the mind of God or as a mental archetype, there exists the Ideal Man.

Aristotle came back by saying that not only was there no Platonic Realm of Forms, but that no one was born already implanted with archetypal Forms. Once you saw enough people, you'd have an image in your head to recognize that bipedal, featherless animal as a human*. The same with a horse, a table, or a tree. If you'd never seen a dolphin, you'd have no dolphin Form in your head.

* [Unless Diogenes gave you a plucked chicken, in which case you'd be confused for life.]

Ever since then, our Western cultures have been obsessed with perfection. Athletes pursue it; employers expect it; religion says it only exists in the Being of God. Considering that this blog is about religious philosophy (particularly pantheism), let's take a look at that third claim.

Parmenides had an idea about perfection. Remember that he was a monist: Existence was unified, unchanging, and infinite in time and space. All this birth and death and change happening around us was a result of our puny human minds' imperfection. Both Heraclitus and Empedocles, though, decided that perfection was change: Heraclitus said there was nothing but change, while Empedocles' complex and beautiful cosmology was an ever-changing dance of elements and forces.

Much later, after Christianity (via Thomas Aquinas, among others) reclaimed Plato from those heathen Muslims (without whom we probably wouldn't even have Plato anymore), we came to see perfection as something to look forward to in the next life. This world was created by God, and thus separate from God, and therefore perfection could not exist within the world.

But here's the thing--if perfection actually existed, it would be useless. Imagine living the "perfect" life: Nothing would ever change! You could never grow old, true, but then you would never have children, either. No chance of going out to the movies, because you can't move (movement, after all, being change). There's no such thing as time, so you'd never have the pleasure of reading a good book. And forget sex--you could have foreplay, or climax, but never both. Perfection means you might see the Pearly Gates, but you can never walk through; you could stand on the streets paved with gold, but you'd see the same view for all eternity.

But if God is reality, as pantheism asserts, then we're left with two possibilities: Either there is no such thing as perfection--or else perfection includes birth, death, and change. If God is reality, then everything about life as we know it comes from the nature of God. God is birth, God is death, God is change. Reality, even with all its happiness and awfulness, is already perfect--or nothing is.

It's not a comforting view of perfection, but pantheism isn't a comforting view of God.

If God is reality, and we are part of that reality, then we are also part of God. Each of us is a tiny incarnation of the divine. So we can see ourselves as part of a pre-existing perfection, sit back, and twiddle our thumbs till we die. Or we can decide that, since we are each an incarnation of God, we have both the power and the responsibility to affect our little corner of the eternal unfolding of existence. If we're part of creation, we're also partners in it.