PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA
ARGENTINA
SANTA MARÍA
DE LOS BUENOS AIRES
Licenciatura en Letras,
Asignatura: Filosofía y
Antropología
Año 2017
M. Agostina
Cavasotto, Num. 06-170069-3
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Man?
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Possible
definitions of man and some real consequences
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Several
definitions of man: Plato, St. Augustine of Hippo, Aristotle, St. Thomas
Aquinas; the creation of man in the Bible; some consequences of these beliefs
and their denials
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“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in
reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable!
In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the
world. The paragon of animals.”[1] So
Hamlet described man. But, immediately afterwards, he went on to say, “And yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”[2]
Man’s
doubt about what man really is has found expression in the most diverse forms
and ideas. Each of them, of course, gives rise to infinite consequences in the
land of human actions. Any excessive emphasis on some aspects of his nature
will produce some form of distortion in the conception of his function, and, as
a consequence, in his actions, hopes, dreams, thoughts.
In
most of the ancient world, man was simply considered a subject with no inherent
rights. Greece saw him as a citizen, who was only somebody as long as he was
part of a polis, hence the terror of banishment they felt. Plato considered man
a spirit, a spark of divinity, imprisoned within the human body which it used.
This is, of course, a non-natural state of union.[3]
This conception of man was followed in ancient Greece and by St. Augustine, who
nevertheless made some fundamental changes. Like Plato, he considered “the
‘body’ and ‘soul’ two substances; and man "a rational soul using a mortal
and earthly body"[4].
But he was careful to note that it was only by union with the body that it
constitutes the human being.”[5]
Later on, Martin Luther gave this idea a radical form, which was made even more
extreme by subsequent philosophers, such as Descartes, Locke, and Leibniz. This
protestant and revolutionary mentality is easily observable in many areas, such
as morality. According to Martin Luther, the best way to fulfill one’s mission
as a human being is to trust in God, and sin on bravely. This drastic duality
would have tragic consequences in the history of mankind.
On
the other hand, St. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, taught that man is a
rational animal. “‘Man's animality is rational’; for his ‘rationality’ is
certainly not something superadded to his ‘animality’.”[6]
It is fundamental to note that man’s essence is one, that his nature is one. “Man
is not a body plus a soul — which would make of him two individuals; but a body that is what it is (namely, a
human body) by reason of its union with the soul.”[7]
Aquinas clearly put forward the nature of man in his Summa Theologica,
especially in Part I, Question 75, Articles 1 and 2, explaining that what we
call the soul is the first principle of life[8]
and the form of the body. But, being a substance which subsists in itself, it
does not die with the body. The Church declared its position in several
important documents, one of which stated: "Whoever shall hereafter dare to
assert, maintain, or pertinaciously hold that the rational or intellectual soul is not per se and essentially the form of
the human body, is to be regarded as a heretic."[9]
Man in his totality was created by God, as
Genesis tells us: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him."[10]
The Book of Sirach restates the idea, saying “The
Lord created man of earth, and
made him into his own image."[11]
Both texts highlight the fact that God, by making man in his own image, gave
him a spiritual, intellectual, and immortal soul, and a unique dignity.
“Then the Lord God formed man of dust from
the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a
living soul.”[12] Here
the text emphasizes the point that only the breath of life made man a living
creature with a certain nature, and also the fact that man became “a living
soul,” not a soul tragically trapped within a body, but a single fundamental
unit. This can be conveniently summed up by saying that the human body is, or
can be, the temple of the Holy Spirit, so underlining the substantial union
between body and soul. Furthermore, the Bible calls man “a child of God” and
Christ taught man to pray to “Our Father,” thus giving him a new and
unspeakable dignity.
Long before Christ’s birth Aristotle thought
that man’s intellectual soul might not expire with his body. The Church reaffirmed
this idea, and taught that the whole of man’s soul is immortal, and will be
reunited with his body after the general judgment. “What was sown is
perishable, what is raised is imperishable.”[13]
So, one might describe man as an individual
substance comprised of an animal body and a spiritual, immortal soul which is
the form of the body and is substantially united with it. Only a complete
definition will ensure that all of man’s rights are respected, and that he is
free to reach and search for his complete fulfillment as a human being and a
child of God.
Denying any aspect of what it means to be
human necessarily brings on dire consequences. Of course, some of these effects
will only be perceived by experts, but others are as terrible and as
publicly-accepted as abortion and its sister evils, such as contraception and in vitro fertilization.
These practices deny the right of all human
being to life, often by refusing to call the unborn baby a person. Instead, a
modern philosopher and ethicist, Peter Singer has proposed a new definition of
person: one who has a meaningful life, that is, one who has a good chance of
fulfilling his dreams. He declared that “The notion that human life is sacred just because
it is human life is medieval.”
By separating man into a body and (perhaps) a soul,
moderns face a choice between fulfilling their worldly wishes and having to
respect an outdated morality. It takes no genius to guess what choice most
people end up taking.
Contraception
is just one of an immense number of examples of practical consequences to this
mentality. It violates the nature of man, who can make free choices and choose
to “take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions,
for the use of marriage in the infecund periods only, and in this way to
regulate birth without offending [any] moral principle.”[14]
Procreation, a gift which enables the spouses to cooperate with God to bring
new people into existence, is treated as a disease. Contraception denies the
dignity of the couple, who are using each other merely as objects of pleasure.
It also belittles the dignity of the child, who becomes an object, a burden, or
sometimes a right of his parents, rather than a gift from God.
To sum up, one can remember the many different
definitions of himself which man has offered man throughout history. Many, by
denying part of man, end up destroying the rest. Only a comprehensive view of personhood
will safeguard man’s most precious rights and privileges as a creature and son
of God.
Bibliography:
Shakespeare,
Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2
Aveling,
Francis. "Man." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert
Appleton Company, 1910. 8 May 2017
.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) From the Complete American Edition, Translated
by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Benziger Brothers New York, seen
on Project Gutenberg
The Holy Bible,
Revised Standard Edition, Second Catholic Edition, Ignatius Press, San
Francisco, 2006,
Pope Paul VI,
Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae
St.
Augustine, De Moribus, I, xxvii
[1] Shakespeare,
Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2
[2] ibid
[3]
Plato, Republic, Book X, 611
[5]Aveling,
Francis. "Man." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert
Appleton Company, 1910. 8 May 2017
.
[6] ibid
[7] ibid
[8] St. Thomas Aquinas,
Summa Theologica, I, Q. 75, Art. 1 (“but it is the first
principle of life, which we call the soul.”
[10] The
Holy Bible, Revised Standard Edition, Second Catholic Edition, Ignatius Press,
San Francisco, 2006, Genesis 1:27
[11]
Ibid, Sirach 17:1
[12] Ibid,
Genesis 2:7
[13]
Ibid, I Corinthians 15:42
[14] Pope
Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae, n. 16
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