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Perfection implies that nothing can be better. This world is not a perfect world, because, of course it could be better. For instance, this world would be much better if I were a millionaire. All kidding aside, this world is imperfect simply because it can be improved. This discussion, of course, stipulates that we are regarding perfection from an entirely human viewpoint.

This world is imperfect in its social and economic inequality.

It is the great irony of the twenty-first century that Africa has abundant resources, cultural vibrancy and critically important geo-political locations. In spite of that, it is also a continent defined by crippling poverty, civil unrest, lawlessness, corruption and oppression. That Japan, which has so few natural resources, a culture that is stagnant, a society that has no diversity and values nothing as much as sublimating the individual for the group, is powerful beyond any possible justification, serves to outline the extreme unfairness of our world.

The statistics are unequivocal. In America, the most potent factor in determining success in education is family income. That means that if one is born into the wrong social class one has a giant obstacle to success. It doesn't mean that a person born poor won't succeed, but it is far more difficult than for the middle class or those born with trust funds. In a perfect world, we would start on a level playing field.

This world is imperfect in its environmental and physical qualities.

In the book of Genesis, God creates the world in six days, and at each stage tells us that it is good. When sin enters the world, the entire world is changed and becomes imperfect. Now, whether that is the literal truth or a parable about the consequences of sin, it illustrates perfectly that the earth is imperfect. We can imagine a better world: Eden, Shangri-la, Xanadu, Heaven. In fact we have an entire genre of literature, the utopia, that is devoted to imagining a better world.

In a perfect world, mosquitoes would not carry malaria. In a perfect world, flies would devour only filth and rotten food; they would not pester humans, they would not contaminate nutritious food, they would not plague us with bites. In a perfect world, the ground would not need to be tilled, all fruit would be edible and nutritious, pests would be innocuous, serving only to cleanse the world of detritus. Earthquakes would be minor and never rte above a 3.0. Rain would fall in well established and completely predicatable amounts and patterns, so that no regions would ever suffer floods or droughts.

This world is imperfetct in its most significant inhabitant.

In a perfect world, man would not sin. He would live in harmony with his neighbors, obeying the rule of reciprocity: do no harm to others, lest they do harm to you. Man would never change the environment more than necessary for his personal well-being. He would never congregate in groups larger than the amount sustainable by the environment. He would live in small villages with tight-nit family structures. Corruption would be shameful in the extreme.

And so, we can easily see that the world is imperfect. But that just means that there is work for us to do. We must strive to live in harmony with each other and with the earth itself. We must strive to raise the poorest and most humble of our community, and give from our excess to those with not enough. We must work to live in humility and tolerance.

Learn more about this author, John Devera.
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