4.1.2 Perfection within Self and the Other
One day when Jonathan becomes an instructor and has six students who are curious and very eager to learn about the new idea of flight for reaching the
high performance of flying that is to be perfect in flying, he says that there is a reason behind the matter of being perfect in flying.
“Each of us is in truth an idea of the Great Gull, an unlimited idea of freedom,” Jonathan would say in the evenings on the beach, “and
precision flying is a step toward expressing our real nature. Everything that limits us we have to put aside” Bach 76.
Each of us is in truth an idea of the Great Gull. It indicates that each of them actually has something that is related to their Great Gull, to their God.
According to Cronan, man is the image of God. What does it mean? In what proportion man is God-like since human being and the other creatures are
imperfect. Only God is the only perfect. Therefore man is imperfect but man can perfect himself since he is the
image of God. The image of God means that there is nature of God living in man’s value. Since the image cannot be the real so man is always a very imperfect
but with His nature living in man’s value, man can improve and perfect himself in its proportion and capacity as God-like. The question is what makes man is God-
like or in what proportion man is the image of God. According to Cronan, the image of God is placed in rationality and free
will as the most divine of man’s value 112. In its proportion of man’s rationality and free will, man perfects himself toward the goodness of anything because
goodness is perfection and perfection is His participating image in us. Therefore, 27
the more we perfect ourselves by improving and searching the unlimited goodness, the more we participate in His perfection.
We do not acquire love of God: it is in us, His participating images, and we perfect ourselves as we develop it in awareness, as we educate
ourselves to it. So there is something common between him and God, some connaturality by which he naturally knows and loves Him who
completely transcends man, because He is also immanent in him Cronan 111.
Jonathan’s learning in perfection in flying shows that he is aware of His participating images in his rationality and free will that give him freedom to be
what he wants: to learn to perfect himself in flying. Therefore, like what Jonathan says that precision flying is a step toward expressing our real nature: an idea of the
Great Gull Bach 76.
4.1.3 Perfection within Self and Others
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