Plato’s circle

I realized this week that God seems to sit at the perfect balance between idealism and realism.

On the one hand we have the divine mandate to “be ye therefore perfect.” If that isn’t idealism, I don’t know what is. :) God is our standard. And that end-goal — to become like God — is pretty high up, seeing as God is perfectly honest, perfectly kind, perfectly patient, etc. “Even as I am,” said Christ.

It’s a celestial bar we’re trying to reach, and it’s so high that most of the time it seems incredibly beyond our grasp. We jump, we build, we climb, and we do get closer, but Godhood is still very much an ideal. And when we say something is an ideal, we almost always seem to mean that it’s unattainable. :)

I’ve known a lot of people — starting with myself, several years ago — who get anxious, confused, and downright depressed at their inability to reach the ideal. What use is there to a perfect standard if no one can actually do it? Doesn’t it just give people inferiority complexes? Wouldn’t it be better to lower the standard, to make it reachable?

That’s where the balance comes in. As I was sitting in FHE on Monday listening to my roommate’s lesson, it hit me that while God does set a perfect ideal, at the very same time he completely understands that we’re not going to reach it. He knows we’re going to make mistakes. It’s okay.

Let me explain that. It’s not okay to sin — “the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance” (that’s the idealism), but the Lord isn’t living in some fantasy world where he expects us all to be perfect. That’s where the next verse comes in: “Nevertheless, he that repents and does the commandments of the Lord shall be forgiven” (D&C 1:32). That’s the reality of it all. That’s where God sends his Son into the world to save it and redeem it, to reach down into the mucky swamps of hell and overcome death and the devil, to set the world on fire with a love and a light that cannot be quenched.

When the scriptures talk about the torments of the sinner and the pains of hell, I think they’re actually talking about the unrepentant sinner. Not the person who sins but then immediately gets back up again, repents, and keeps moving forward. With our sights set on eventual perfection, it’s easy to think that falling short of that in any way immediately damns us to one of the outer circles. After all, God gave us commandments, and he expects us to follow them, right?

Right. But he knows we’re imperfect and we’re going to botch things up, sometimes just a little bit, sometimes really bad. We’re going to hurt ourselves and other people, too, but God’s already got a bandaid ready for the small sins and an ER for the big ones, and all we have to do is reach out for it.

In other words, the perfect ideal and the imperfect reality coexist peacefully in God’s world. Isn’t that beautiful? Our fallen world doesn’t shatter the ideal, and yet the Lord isn’t oblivious to what’s actually going on in the world. God is awesome. (In so many ways. :))

Great post, Ben.

I’m reading a book right now called “The Holy Secret” by James Farrell (author of “The Peacegiver”), and the message is along these lines. The message also reminds me of Elder Oaks’ talk a few years back where he said what we are becoming is more important than what we are doing. The Pharisees were doing most of the commandments (all, if you ask them), but the Savior made it a point to show us their way is not His way.

Thinking along these lines allows me to step back from the circumstances of my day to day life and focus on eternity. The answers to how I’m doing and how I’m feeling on a daily basis are then more related to the quality of my relationship with the Savior than with how work was that day.

Interesting, I just saw a copy of that book (The Holy Secret) at my C.S. Lewis Society meeting this afternoon. :) I haven’t read it (or The Peacegiver) yet but definitely plan to. Anyway, focusing on eternity makes a huge difference, doesn’t it. :)

I agree. Great post, Ben. That peaceful coexistence is beautiful and–as is the case with most things appertaining to God–something we can learn from.

We all have our ‘perfect ideals’. It’s okay and even great to have such ideals as long as 1) we realize our ideals aren’t completely perfect and allow them to change as we understand God and perfection better and 2) we allow ourselves to both live and find joy in our imperfect reality, which includes our own and others’ foibles and imperfections.

I first learned this lesson in a relationship a few years ago. As I was mulling one night over some recently discovered imperfections in the man I was dating, I started thinking about the disparity between my ideals and reality. Reality seemed to fall so short of the ideal that I began to question whether the relationship was worth the effort. As I pondered further, I realized that all of my ideals of eternal significance were actually either being met or sincere effort on both our parts was being made to meet them. My imperfect reality suddenly seemed rather rosy–not because my ideals had changed, but because I had hope that those ideals would eventually be realized. As Sean and Elder Oaks say, it’s the becoming that matters, and I would add, the knowledge that through that becoming we will eventually reach the perfect ideal. The process of creating our best self is a challenge. As works in progress, most of us are coming along slowly, but developing beautifully. :)

Very good points, Ann, and I agree completely. Well said. :)