Section LXXVIII. The Inner Revelation and the Conscience. (Concl'd) · SECTION CXXXIII.

The personal perfection of the individual person is the realization and virtualization of God-sonship, that is, of the idea of man, and of the creative will of God as to man. The moral goal set before man, namely, the all-sided personal perfection of the human life-powers and of their manifestation, is, as a fruit of the collective moral activity, never fully and definitively realized during the temporal life, but is involved in constant progress, though at every stage of the truly moral life it is in fact relatively realized.

To be perfect is neither an improper nor an impossible requirement upon man; on the contrary, it is expressly presented by Christ and the apostles as the moral goal: “Be ye therefore perfect (τέλειοι) even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” [Matt. v, 48]; “if thou wilt be perfect, follow me” [xix, 21; Luke vi, 40; 1 Cor. ii, 6; xiv, 20; Eph. iv, 13; Col. i, 28; 2 Tim. iii, 17; Heb. v, 14; James iii, 2]; the term τέλειος implies the contents of τέλος, that is, the purpose and goal of the moral life. This perfection of the creature is indeed, as compared with the divine perfection, of a limited character; such as it is, however, it really exists, in every case of normal development, from the very first moment on, and it steadily advances, keeping pace with every stage of the life-development. Christ himself, even as a child, is presented as a pattern, while as yet he was increasing in wisdom and in favor with God and man; that is, he was even as a child perfect, though this perfection was not yet that of the full man’s-age of Christ [Eph. iv, 13]. Every moral being should and can be relatively perfect at every moment of its life; even the child is to be so in the manner of a child [1 Cor. xiii, 11]; and the final and true perfection is not a merely conceived and never-to-be-realized goal, for such would not be a goal at all, but it can in fact and should actually be realized by each and all. Christ as the son of man really reached this goal, and all who belong to him have, in virtue of their God-sonship, both the duty and the possibility of attaining to it [Phil. iii, 12, 15; 1 Cor. xiii, 10].