page_title: Perfection
section_title: Ethics
hierarchical_section_title: Perfection / Ethics
context_page_description: Perfection is a state, variously, of completeness, flawlessness, or supreme excellence.
  The term is used to designate a range of diverse, if often kindred, concepts. These have historically been addressed in a number of discrete disciplines, notably mathematics, physics, chemistry, ethics, aesthetics, ontology, and theology.
context_section_description: The ethical question of perfection concerns not whether man is perfect, but whether he should be. And if he should be, then how is this to be attained?
  Plato seldom actually used the term, "perfection"; but the concept of "good", central to his philosophy, was tantamount to "perfection." He believed that approximation to the idea of perfection makes people perfect.
  Soon after, the Stoics introduced the concept of perfection into ethics expressly, describing it as harmony — with nature, reason, man himself. They held that such harmony—such perfection—was attainable for anyone.
  Plato and the Stoics had made perfection a philosophical watchword. Soon it would be transformed, in Christianity, into a religious one.
  The Christian doctrine of perfection is in the Gospels as well as elsewhere in the Bible. Matthew 5:48 enjoins: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Early Christian writings, especially Paul's, are replete with calls to perfection. Many of these are collected in a discourse by St. Augustine, De perfectione iustitiae hominis. They begin already with the Old Testament: "Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God." (Deuteronomy 18:13.)  Elsewhere synonyms for "perfection" are "undefiled", "without rebuke", "without blemish", "blameless", "holy", "righteous", "unblamable", "unreprovable."
  Augustine explains that not only that man is properly termed perfect and without blemish who is already perfect, but also he who strives unreservedly after perfection. This is a broader concept, of approximate perfection, resembling that used in the exact sciences. The first ancient and Christian perfection was not very remote from modern self-perfection. St. Ambrose in fact wrote about degrees of perfection ("gradus piae perfectionis").
  Along with the idea of perfection, Holy Scripture conveyed doubt as to whether perfection was attainable for man. According to 1 John 1:8, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Similarly Jesus said in Matthew 19:17: "And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God..."; while Jesus does not deny that he himself is good, he does call into question the idea that anyone but God can even be good, let alone perfect. And St. Jerome wrote:  "Perfectio vera in coelestibus" — true perfection is to be found only in heaven.
  As early as the 5th century CE, two distinct views on perfection had arisen within the Church: that it was attainable by man on earth by his own powers; and, that it may come to pass only by special divine grace. The first view, which was championed by Pelagius, was condemned in 417 CE; the second view, which was championed by St. Augustine, prevailed at the very beginning of the 5th century and became authoritative.
  Still, the Church did not condemn the writings of the Pseudo-Areopagite, purportedly the first bishop of Athens, voicing a natural possibility for man to rise to perfection, to the contemplation of God. And so, for centuries, two views contended within the Church.
  Even as, for the ancient philosophers, the essence of perfection had been harmony, so for the Gospel and the Christian theologians it was charity, or love. St. Paul wrote (Epistle to the Colossians, 3:14): "And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness."
  St. Gregory wrote that perfection will be realized only after the fulfillment of history — only "then will the world be beautiful and perfect." Still, everyone should make his own approach to perfection — to holiness.  Discourses in moral theology and asceticism were generous with advice on how this was to be done.
  The medieval concept of perfection and self-perfection, especially in its mature form, can be natural for modern man. As formulated by Peter Lombard, this concept implies that perfection is a result of development. And as described by Giles of Rome, perfection has not only personal sources ("personalia") but social ones ("secundum statum"). Since the individual is formed within a society, the second perfe
caption: St. Augustine
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