Is perfection our enemy or our friend?

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” is common counsel nowadays. It urges us to settle for “good enough” rather than chasing an elusive perfection. This is reflected in a product-testing approach termed Minimum Viable Product – that is, crossing a threshold where a product has minimal functionality but is capable of working successfully.

In “projects” such as caring for our health, finding a life partner, and setting up home, we yearn for more than “minimum viable.” Yet picturing and pursuing perfection within a material framework can be like the cartoonish trope of a carrot hanging from a stick in front of a mule: It dangles enticingly before our eyes, a perfection we can never quite reach.

A far more trustworthy pathway to experiencing good is turning our attention away from what we don’t seem to have and developing the spiritual sense that Jesus exemplified. The textbook of Christian Science by Mary Baker Eddy, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” describes this spiritual sense as follows: “The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, – perfect God and perfect man, – as the basis of thought and demonstration” (p. 259).

This points us to a perfection already at hand: perfect Love, God, and the perfection of all as Love’s expression.

We each have the inherent capacity to grow in this understanding of “scientific being” and prove that this spiritual sense brings progress in suitable and satisfying ways. Primarily this means increasingly embodying spiritual characteristics – such as grace, wisdom, integrity, and forgiveness – by which we bless others. But basing thought and demonstration on “perfect God and perfect man” also meets our own needs practically.

Divine good is practical. We can’t help but see this when our thought is imbued with the spiritual sense of perfection, as evidenced in the healing that flowed to those whose lives were touched by Jesus, as recorded in the Bible. As Science and Health says in regard to “the perfect model” that we should hold in thought continually, “Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love – the kingdom of heaven – reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear” (p. 248).

So when it comes to what we hold in consciousness, perfection is far from the enemy of good: It is essential to perceiving and experiencing goodness. We need to agree to disagree with thoughts that deny our real, God-reflecting consciousness and nature – for instance, thinking we’re defenseless or impulsive or believing ourselves beholden to a sensual view of ourselves and others. Listening instead for “the Christlike understanding” that Jesus exemplified, we increasingly see the perfection he saw in all. This right view reveals the good we need as already present.

But is the good revealed perfect? In the afterglow of regaining health, meeting the right companion, or finding an abode in this way, it can be tempting to think so. It’s certainly true that there’s an amazing precision and abundance to the blessings that arise from such understanding. Jesus proved this when his clear sense of God’s perfection brought to light food for thousands when provisions appeared to be scarce (see John 6:5-14) – to name just one example.

Yet perfection belongs solely to Spirit, God. Matter is incapable of perfection or permanence. A large crowd tracked Jesus down the day after he fed the thousands. He pointed them to “the meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you” (verse 27). Surely that meat was the Christlike understanding evidenced in the wonderful works they saw Jesus accomplish – works he urged his followers to emulate.

We can gain a little more of this Christlike understanding daily. While we rightly feel ongoing gratitude for the good in our lives, it’s the spiritual understanding underlying that good that is perfect and permanent. Discerning this deeper truth doesn’t lessen our love for what we have; it heightens and stabilizes it. Time and again, I’ve seen how pausing to perceive the true, spiritual nature of some good in my life brings out the best in its present expression while also keeping my heart open to the growth and evolution of just how that good is expressed over time.

Perfection is our friend if we seek and find it where it forever exists, in our divine source, Spirit, God – as Jesus did and encouraged us to do. Then we can gratefully prove just how good the good is that flows from keeping those perfect models uppermost in thought.

Adapted from an editorial published in the Jan. 8, 2024, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.