Claim. Resembling God’s perfection means the spirit mind (pursuing truth, goodness, and beauty) functions as subject over the physical mind (pursuing food, clothing, shelter, sexual fulfillment), with their give-and-take action centered on heart and love.
Elaboration. Lee operationalizes the abstract notion of “perfection” as a specific subject-object relationship within the human person (Perfection). In God, Sungsang and Hyungsang are united in harmonious give-and-take centered on Heart. In humans, the analogous structure is the spirit mind (Sungsang) and physical mind (Hyungsang). Perfection occurs when these are united, with the spirit mind functioning as subject and the physical mind as object.
The content is concrete: spirit mind pursues truth, goodness, beauty; physical mind pursues food, clothing, shelter, sexual fulfillment. Lee is not denying or condemning the physical pursuits — both are legitimate — but insists they must be ordered, with the higher pursuit dominating and the lower serving as a means. Jesus’ command “You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) is read as a call to this specific structural unity, not to moral flawlessness.
Crucially, the center of give and take between the two minds is heart and love. Without this center, the dominance of spirit over body becomes asceticism or repression. With heart at the center, “a life in pursuit of food, clothing, and shelter must be led centering on a life in pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty, based on love.”
Lee acknowledges this is developmental: young children do not understand truth, goodness, and beauty well, but as they mature, heart develops and the right ordering emerges. Growth involves both spirit self and physical self, but the first blessing “to grow” refers primarily to the spirit self — improvement of one’s spiritual level — even though the spirit self grows on the foundation of, and through give-and-take with, the physical self.
This is the anthropological basis for the entire Education of Heart that follows: if perfection is spirit-mind dominance centered on heart, then the central task of pedagogy is to develop heart so that this internal ordering becomes natural.
See also. human-as-united-being-of-spirit-mind-and-physical-mind, fall-reverses-spirit-physical-mind-order, character-perfection-must-precede-marriage