The Limits of Perfection: Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Goshen Conference on Religion and Science by Noreen Herzfeld

What is perfection? Perfection demands an ideal, a model of how things should be. Plato embraces this concept with his realm of ideas, in which true being resides. Everything else – every person, chair, cat, book – is in the process of becoming, approaching or modeling the ideal in some way, and in other ways falling short. Aristotle, in the third book of Metaphysics, follows his master’s pattern, defining perfection as that which is so good that nothing of its kind could be better. This implies that we can imagine the best, and that we have some basis by which we know that there is no better. True religion should, in some sense, be perfect, or at least we seem to expect that. But we are dealing with humans and their limited understanding. Even if we accept that God is perfect, we must confront theodicy and realize that our concept of perfection is defined by what we encounter on the earth. The capacity for self-transcendence confronts human beings with a paradox. We have a vision of “what ought to be” that is limitless, while we ourselves are finite beings. We can imagine perfection, but can we attain it?

Noreen Herzfeld is the Nicholas and Bernice Reuter Professor of Science and Religion at Saint John's University and College of St. Benedict. She holds degrees in both Computer Science and Theology and teaches in both fields.