I think kosta50 is right abut this, Quix: If a thing is already "perfect," how, in what direction, could it change? You don't get "more perfect" than perfect. Perfect implies a certain completedness in time, and thus something that is static: something impervious to time and change. But we do not have completedness in creation before the final Judgment, which is where the perfection of God's creation is achieved -- not before. God created a "good," not a "perfect" creation, as He Himself says.... "Goodness" accords with His purpose; "perfection" would leave no room for development toward God's end or goal in creating. There would also be no role for man, for human free will in a "perfect" universe.
Of course, if creation were not involved in a time process (according to God's Will), then we wouldn't need to be discussing such things.... But since creation is involved in a time process (i.e., it develops or evolves in part in collaboration with man), Augustine's remark -- "The perfect is the enemy of the good" -- seems both faithful and reasonable to me.
imho, that notion is afflicted with the Aristotilian/Paltonic solid stuff which presumes there’s a perfect chair somewhere and all other chairs are perversions of that one.
Maybe God has lots of different perfect chairs.
Maybe He loves watching His kids create ever new versions.
It occurs to me that this is right up marron's alley, so I'm giving him a ping, too.
Well said! Biblically correct and clear.
Of course, if creation were not involved in a time process (according to God's Will), then we wouldn't need to be discussing such things....
The "time" Good took to create the world is not earthly time. The "days" in Genesis are not our days. They are not changes but creations that didn't exist prior to that.
One more thing: time "exists" only in relationship to man. We record changes and with those changes "tell time." Without us, changes take place but no one records them. Time is simply a record, not a dimension.
I think kosta50 is right abut this, Quix: If a thing is already "perfect," how, in what direction, could it change? You don't get "more perfect" than perfect. Perfect implies a certain completedness in time, and thus something that is static: something impervious to time and change.
I think kosta50 has verified the business that the better construct in English is completed, finished, whole.
However, I think that even with the distortion from the original that "perfect" is . . . it is a finite--and our particularly human finite perversion of the notion of "perfect" that insists there could be NO CHANGE.
WHO ARE WE to tell GOD!!!! THAT HIS PERFECT canNOT include DIVINELY PERFECT, ONGOING, ETERNAL CHANGE IN ANY ASPECT, FACTOR, COMPONENT? We, in our finiteness, REALLY do NOT KNOW what "HE CHANGES NOT" means exhaustively, comprehensive, thoroughly. The most plausible thing, to me, is that it 'merely' means HIS NATURE DOES NOT CHANGE.
That leaves a list of comphrehensible aspects, behaviors, factors that WE HUMANS CAN CONCEIVE OF and an unknown number we can't conceive of--which could easily involve DYNAMIC CREATIVE CHANGE.
But we do not have completedness in creation before the final Judgment, which is where the perfection of God's creation is achieved -- not before. God created a "good," not a "perfect" creation, as He Himself says.... "Goodness" accords with His purpose; "perfection" would leave no room for development toward God's end or goal in creating. There would also be no role for man, for human free will in a "perfect" universe.
I can't imagine The CREATION . . . the MULTI-VERSE or however we care to Biblically construe it . . . I can't imagine it EVER being "complete." That would require, imply, translate into God being a much smaller GOD ALMIGHTY THAN THE GOD ALMIGHTY I observe in Scripture and in my pico-gram's worth of observed REALITY.
Of course, if creation were not involved in a time process (according to God's Will), then we wouldn't need to be discussing such things.... But since creation is involved in a time process (i.e., it develops or evolves in part in collaboration with man), Augustine's remark -- "The perfect is the enemy of the good" -- seems both faithful and reasonable to me.
I'm beginning to think that our finite construct "perfection" is a perverted trap of the enemy. Certainly in human psychology and relationships it's extremely destructive.
Yet, we have the Scripture about being perfect as He is perfect--yet that clearly doesn't mean in this time/space dimension before RESURRECTION/TRANSLATION into our Heavenly bodies--unless He's going to make some interesting exceptions in these END TIMES for a portion or all of those PERFECT IN HIS BLOOD.
But the notion that PERFECT is some sort of static, UNDYNAMIC, MOTIONLESS, DEAD BLOB sort of state of being just does NOT resonate with any understanding I have at all about DADDY, SON, SPIRIT. NONE. None, at all.
The GOD ALMIGHTY I KNOW is the OPPOSITE OF STATIC, UNdynamic, MOTIONLESS, DEAD.
imho, of course.