Human Perfection Transfiguration and Christian Ethics

Most people would agree that human perfection is unattainable. Indeed theologians have typically expressed ambivalence about the possibility of human perfection. Yet paradoxically depictions of human perfection are widespread. In this volume Robin Gill offers an interdisciplinary study of human perfection in contemporary secular culture. He demonstrates that the language of perfection is present in church memorials popular depictions of sport food music and art liturgy and philosophy. He contrasts these examples with the socio-psychological concept of ''maladaptive perfectionism'' using commercial cosmetic surgery as an example as well as the ''adaptive perfectionism'' suggested in the lives of Henry Holland Paul Farmer and more ambivalently Ludwig Wittgenstein. Gill then provides an in-depth analysis of New Testament and Septuagint usage ofteleiosand theological debates about the human perfection of Jesus. He argues that the Synoptic accounts of the Transfiguration offer a template for a Christian understanding of perfection that has important ecumenical implications within social ethics.