Perfection Defined

It appears to me that the true and common pursuit of every philosopher's ideals is our reconciliation to genuine perfection. From Homer's search to discover the will of the gods in The Iliad, through Aristotle's venture of defining happiness and even Socrates' quest through virtue for the ultimate good, we again find ourselves asking the same question through Augustine: "Who can possibly fix this colossal mess we've made?'

Of all of the philosophers we've gotten to know recently, I think Augustine has come the closest to true reconciliation. He recognizes that the symphony of creation played in perfect harmony until Genesis 3, when corruption entered and our mess began. In Book VII of Confessions, Augustine writes:
"It was obvious to me that things which are liable to corruption are good. If they were the supreme goods, or if they were not good at all, they could not be corrupted. For if they were supreme goods, they would be incorruptible. If there were no good in them, there would be nothing capable of being corrupted . . . If they were to be deprived of all good, they would not exist at all. If they were to exist and to be immune from corruption, they would be superior because they would be permanently incorruptible . . . Either it would be an incorruptible substance, a great good indeed, or a corruptible substance, which could be corrupted only if it were good. Hence I saw and it was made clear to me that you made all things good."

Essentially, Augustine claims that there must be an ultimate, incorruptible source of good to make "all things very good" (Gen. 1:31). That creation must have been, at its birth, solely good, is the only true resolution to our currently immutable quest for reconciliation. Humanity is simply trying to get back to Genesis 2 - where good reigned by nature, and corruption - though in itself, existed in the garden simply as a by-product of all things being good - had not yet been granted the authority to corrupt.

Clearly, humanity is a lower form of the ultimate source of being, of good, since we are capable of being corrupted and yet, our Creator is not. Ravi Zacharias, a Christian apologist, put it this way: "When I was doing my doctrinal examination for the denomination which I am affiliated with, the opening question was, 'God is perfect, explain.' And I just gave a one-line answer, 'He is the only being existent in this world, the reason for his existence is in Himself; every other existing entity finds a reason for their existence outside of themselves. In that sense, He alone is perfect, His very existence is uncaused, He just exists."

This infinite person of being - of constance and immune to corruption-is precisely what a mortal lacks and desperately seeks, as the reason for our existence is found in Him, a being beyond ourselves. When we pursue reconciliation apart from the incarnate source of perfection, the "I AM"; then our philosophia, or as Augustine puts it, "love of wisdom" becomes disjointed. Consequentially, we find ourselves in the upper room of the library drinking excessive amounts of coffee and trying to sort through idea after idea ... valiantly attempting to find some common ground to build our philosophical foundations upon.
And that's just it - the purpose of all of our upper-library rants is to discover truth in that our God, the Creator God, the relational God, is the source of perfection for which we long for and relentlessly pursue, whether we acknowledge that He is our prize or not. "In order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." -Colossians 1:2-3

"So too let rejoice and delight in finding you who are beyond discovery rather than fail to find you by supposing you to be discoverable." (Book 1, Confessions).

We're really just on our way home ...