The Impossible Standard
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 1 John 4:18 NASB
Perfect love – “Perfect” is a terrifying word. It’s not so ominous when it comes to things like true and false exams or Lego constructions, but try applying “perfect” to virtually any emotional evaluation of the self and you will feel the fingers of doubt clawing at your attestations. Do you trust perfectly? Do you have perfect peace? Are you perfectly faithful? Do you have perfect confidence? Are you perfectly nurturing? Oh, and then there’s the apparent standard of the Bible: perfect love. How are you doing with perfection?
Brené Brown’s research should be in a footnote to this verse in John’s letter. “Perfectionism is a form of shame.”[1]
Perfectionism is self-destructive simply because perfection doesn’t exist. It’s an unattainable goal. Perfectionism is more about perception than internal motivation, and there is no way to control perception, no matter how much time and energy we spend trying. Perfectionism is addictive, because when we invariably do experience shame, judgment, and blame, we often believe it’s because we weren’t perfect enough. Rather than questioning the faulty logic of perfectionism, we become even more entrenched in our quest to look and do everything just right.[2]
If Brown is correct (if she has the perfect answer), then none of us can manage to meet John’s standard. It’s just impossible to love perfectly. In fact, it isn’t just practically impossible, i.e., we just can’t manage to do it because we are all flawed. It’s theoretically impossible—because perfection is not human. We were created to be imperfect!
Just think about this for a moment. Doesn’t our relationship with God depend on trust? Trust implies commitment despite contrary evidence or the possibility of failure. I don’t trust that 2+5=7. There is no other possibility. But this kind of certainty cannot be an element in relationships. Relationships, even with God, are always contingent. That means that relationships can never have the same degree of certainty that we find in the game of mathematics. Being human essentially means being in relationship. Genesis 2:18 and 2:23 confirm that human beings are designed as relational creatures. Identity requires relationship and relationship always implies risk. Therefore, perfection, which removes all risk, cannot be a human quality. You might reconsider the idea that Jesus was perfect. In Christian philosophy, this can only mean that he wasn’t human.
But John seems to think that perfection is possible, at least when it comes to agapē. Why? Perhaps it’s our own paradigm that makes John’s statement seem nonsensical. Maybe John didn’t use his Greek term in the same way that Aquinas used the Latin perfectus.[3] Aquinas used the term to mean something of which nothing can be added or taken away. If that’s how we think of “perfect,” then we’re all in trouble (including God, by the way). But John uses the Greek téleios, a term that means “final” or “completed” in Jewish apocalyptic literature. It’s helpful to understand the wider sense of this important word:
This adjective means “whole,” “unblemished,” “full,” “perfect,” “actualized,” “efficacious,” “mature,” “supreme,” and perhaps “dedicated.”[4]
In philosophy téleios carries the sense of full humanity with an orientation to what is worthwhile and ethically good.[5]
In the LXX téleios has such meanings as “unblemished,” “undivided”[6]
Delling notes: “What is ‘whole’ and without fault comes from God (1:17). ‘Full’ and ‘unlimited’ love leaves no place for fear (1 Jn. 4:18). [7]
So maybe we need to translate this verse, “but completed, actualized, full love casts out fear.” John isn’t giving us an impossible standard, a love which requires nothing that ever changes. He’s speaking about a fully formed, actualized love, a love that is efficacious, bringing about an emotional state that does not fear. We would call this trust. Amazingly, that’s pretty much the Hebrew idea: ruthless trust. Put “perfect” aside. Go for attachment.
“Faith is attachment, and to be a Jew is to be attached to God, Torah, and Israel.”[8]
Topical Index: perfect, téleios, 1 John 4:18
[1] Brené Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 130.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Latin perfectus, perfect passive participle of perficere (“to finish”), from per- (“through, thorough”) + facere (“to do, to make”).
[4] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (p. 1164). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.
[5] Ibid..
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Abraham Heschel, Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism (Free Press Paperbacks, 1959), p. 174.
