Pre-Fall Human Perfection?

In response to Jason's post below:

While we probably won't be able to resolve your paradox in one shot, one way to begin to resolve it might be to refine our initial assumptions. To begin, I will argue that scripture does not view Adam as "perfect" by your definition: "X is perfect, if and only if, there is nothing Y that could add to X to improve X, and no subset of X, say Z, which could subtract from X, to improve X. That is, X is the best it can possibly be."

The idea that pre-Fall human nature was "perfect" is an assumption that is not explicitly stated by scripture. First, let's define one of God's attributes as being "perfection" in the sense in which you've used the term -- by definition, then, God is a being whom nothing can be added to or subtracted from that would improve him. Some Christian traditions base their view of Adam's perfection on the statement that Adam was created "in the image of" the perfect God. An image of a being, however, is not equivalent to that being. If I paint or sculpt an image of you, for example, we wouldn't assume that it would automatically be a perfect image that I couldn't improve upon. I could certainly consider the image of you to be a work in progress.

Likewise, there are areas in which pre-Fall Adam falls short of God's perfection. God explicitly states ways in which Adam's nature could change in order to be closer to the nature of God -- "Then the LORD God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil...'" (Genesis 3:22). "Knowing good and evil" here is an attribute that has made Adam "like one of us" in a way that he hadn't been before this point. So obviously, at least one characteristic of God's perfect nature did not initially exist in Adam when he was created in God's image.

The term "perfect" is rarely used by the Old Testament, refers nearly exclusively (with an interesting exception or two that lie outside of the scope of this discussion) to God, and is never used to describe anyone human, including Adam.

On the question of Adam's perfection, the Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes Aquinas and Leo that, through Christ, human nature can be perfected beyond what it was prior to the Fall:

412 But why did God not prevent the first man from sinning? St. Leo the Great responds, "Christ's inexpressible grace gave us blessings better than those the demon's envy had taken away." And St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "There is nothing to prevent human nature's being raised up to something greater, even after sin; God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good. Thus St. Paul says, 'Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more'; and the Exsultet sings, 'O happy fault,. . . which gained for us so great a Redeemer!'"

My next post will take up this idea and address the possibility of human perfection after the Cross, especially as addressed in the Orthodox concept of theosis.