On Being “Perfect” (Part Three)

Note:  This blog entry is a continuation of the discussions at “On Being ‘Perfect’ (Part One)”and “On Being ‘Perfect’ (Part Two)” and should be read in the context provided by those brief entries.

“Be ye therefore perfect,” says the King James Version’s translation of Matthew 5:48, “even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

Let’s first look at the original Greek words that are twice translated as “perfect.”  The first, as one might expect, is a plural adjective: τέλειοι.  The second, also predictably, is in the masculine singular form: τέλειός.  The latter is the standard dictionary-citation form.

τέλειός is an adjective that is closely related to the Greek noun τέλος (télos), which signifies a “goal,” or a “purpose,” or an “end.”  (Compare the derivative English word teleology, which refers to the study of purpose in nature, things, etc.)

Very importantly, in Aristotle’s writings, τέλος refers to a natural end — as in the case of an acorn, the natural end of which (provided that nothing else supervenes or interferes) is to become an oak.

It might be helpful here to look briefly at Aristotle’s theory of the “four causes,” which was enormously important for many centuries after he formulated it.  I’ll use the notion of a piece of sculpture, in order to illustrate the theory:

The “material cause” of a statue is, quite literally, the material from which it is made.  In the absence of the Carrara marble from which it was hewn, for instance, there would be no David of Michelangelo.  But the marble alone doesn’t make for a statue.

The “formal cause” of a statue — for convenience, let’s stick with Michelangelo’s David — is the shape that makes it a statue rather than merely a huge, irregular piece of stone.

How did the statue come to have the form that it does?  Here’s where Aristotle invokes the “efficient cause,” the factor that actually shaped the marble into the likeness of the young shepherd, David, son of Jesse.  In this particular case, obviously, the efficient cause is Michelangelo Buonarroti.  Or, I suppose, if you preferred to view the question a little bit differently, you could say that the efficient cause is Michelangelo’s mallet and chisel, or something of that sort.

But why did Michelangelo carve the David?  This is the question of what Aristotle called the “final cause,” which concerns the end or purpose or goal of an entity or of a human art or craft or action.  In this case, the “final cause” of the David might be identified as, say, Michelangelo’s desire to make a statue of one of the great characters of the Hebrew Bible.  Or, perhaps, we might say that the “final cause” of the David was the commission given to him by the Overseers of the Office of Works of the Cathedral of Florence.

Absent even a single one of the four causes — material (the marble), formal (the shape), efficient (the sculptor Michelangelo with his tools), and final (the reason for the statue’s existence) — there would be no statue, no David.  All of them are required to explain what it is, and that it is.

Aristotle’s theory of “four causes” is really quite elegant.  I think that it still has analytic value.  And yet it must be said that one of the most important steps taken on the road to modern science was the effective bracketing of material, formal, and,  especially, final causes in order to concentrate on efficient causation.  Overwhelmingly, modern science has given up interest in “teleology,” the study of purposiveness or of objects (whether animate or inanimate) with regard to their possible “aims,” “purposes,” or “intentions.”  Evolution is said to have no purpose.  “Mother Nature” is just a turn of phrase, “she” isn’t really a person, and “she” has no end in mind.

That’s an interesting topic in and of itself, but it’s also a topic for another time.

The point is that Matthew 5:48 employs a Greek word that suggests a goal, and that implies that “perfection” consists in attaining that goal.

I think, in this context, of the grammatical use of the term perfect; the perfect tense is a verb tense that is used to refer to actions or states that are completed at the time of speaking or at a particular time to which reference is being made.  We also commonly use perfect or related words to suggest “completeness” in non-grammatical contexts:  “He was a perfect stranger” and “It was perfectly quiet” are precisely synonymous with “He was a complete stranger” and “It was completely quiet.”

The German word that is used to render τέλειοι and τέλειός (e.g., in the 1545 Luther Bibel, the Neue Genfer Übersetzung, the 1951 and 200o Schlachter editions, and the 1980 Einheitsübersetzung) is perhaps instructive:  It is vollkommen, which rather obviously connotes the state of being “full come” or “fully come.”  Along the same lines, one of the meanings given in the dictionaries for τέλειός is “mature.”  (Remember the notion of the acorn and the oak.)

James 1:2-4, in the New International Version, reads as follows:

² Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature [τέλειοι] and complete, not lacking anything.

In the King James Version, the passage goes thus:

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.  But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

Where the NIV has mature, the 1545 Luther Bibel, the Neue Genfer Übersetzung, the 1951 and 200o Schlachter editions, and the 1980 Einheitsübersetzung have vollkommen, and the King James translation has perfect.  In fact, the fuller NIV phrasing is of interest:  mature and complete.  Compare it to the Latin Vulgate:  ut sitis perfecti et integri in nullo deficientes.

To be continued.