If God is the creator of the universe, and the universe is not perfect, how can God be perfect? Certainly, there appear to be flaws in creation — from disease and war to Donald Trumps’s hair-thing. The question for me is, can something simultaneously be both flawed and perfect?
When I think of a puppy, I think of perfection, even if it’s tail is bent or it pees on the carpet. A flower may have petals that are not perfectly symmetrical, but that flower is perfect just the way it is. This is because perfection, and flaws, are the products of perception; they are in the eye of the beholder. Outside of judgement, what is just is.
If we can accept a puppy or a flower without judgement, can we accept a person, or the whole human race as perfect as is? And does this mean we have to give up trying to improve things?
Let’s look at that puppy. It’s perfect, even with its quirks. To the puppy’s owner, any odd behavior of the puppy tends to make it even more special and beloved. As the puppy grows up, the love you have for it grows as well. You might be temporarily irritated when your dog barks at inopportune moments, but, as with your child, you still love your dog. Or not. Either way, your dog’s perfection or lack thereof is something that you ascribe to it.
Can you love yourself without judgement even as you change and improve over time? And, along the way, can you accept yourself as perfect? That’s asking a lot. But if it’s possible, then it’s possible to accept another human being just as they are as well.
If there were no flaws — if everyone played the saxophone without error, everyone scored 100% on every math test, and everyone spoke only the truth in the most beautiful and precise way possible — would there be any point to life? It seems to me that everything and everybody would be indistinguishable and therefore boring.
So, while a flawless universe would be pointless, there may be perfection in a universe filled with flaws.
