Philosophy of Man

THE MARVEL OF THE HUMAN PERSON THE HUMAN PERSON IS CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD
I.

BASIS: Created in the image of the one God and equally endowed with rational souls, all men [Human Persons] have the same nature and the same origin as well as the same destiny. (CCC, No. 1934). THE HUMAN PERSON IS CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF THE ONE GOD.

II.

Created in the image of God, the human person can enter into dialogue with God. The human person is not God, but lives definitely dependent upon God in a relation analogous to that of a Son to his Father (cf. Gen. 5:3). But there is this difference, which the image cannot subsist independently of the one whom it should express. This is the meaning of the term breath in the creation account. Therefore, the human person exercises his role as image in two major activities, namely:
1. Image of the divine paternity. The human person is given the divine mandate to multiply and fill the earth through the use of the God-given faculty of human sexuality. By human sexuality means being a man and a woman in this world. This means that to be a human person is to act in accordance with ones sexuality and with the purpose of such sexuality. Accordingly, the purpose of human sexuality must be seen in the context of marriage whose purpose is three-fold, namely: 1) mutual satisfaction; b) procreation, and c) education of children. 2. Image of the divine lordship. It was the divine intent of God that the human person must share with him the sacred task of exercising the power of dominion over the earth so as to cultivate and develop its fertility for the benefit of the whole humankind. By so doing, he recognizes abiding presence of God on earth.

III.

ALL HUMAN PERSONS ARE EQUALLY ENDOWED WITH RATIONAL SOULS.

In Sacred Scripture the term soul often refers to human life or the entire human person. But soul also refers to the innermost aspect of the human person. Its rationality is constituted in the two basic or fundamental faculties, namely, the faculty of the intellect and the faculty of the free will.
1. The Intellect. The INTELLECT is the highest faculty of the human soul, by which man knows not only the individual objects but also things according to their general nature. In its more specific meaning the intellect is the mind itself, whereas intelligence is the refinement of the mind gained through trained reasoning abilities.

The intellect is both a powers of the soul (by which the human person lives and acts) and of the body. It thus depends upon and operates through the senses, physical applications, and the response to exterior stimuli. At the same time the intellect enables one to have abstract ideas, recognize immaterial realities, and arrive at a knowledge of unknown truths by reason. It is in the intellect that the human person comes to an apprehension of truth and can formulate opinions. Together with the will the intellect makes choices and seeks them out, knows moral good and pursues it, and by the right exercise of conscience comes to an act in accordance with the will of God, and strives for ultimate union with God.
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2. The Will. The WILL (free will) is the exercise of the spiritual faculty or power of the soul in making a choice. Through will an individual seeks to perform an act or to attain an object proposed by the intellect. The will has for its object the GOOD. Free will has this essential, namely: a) Freedom of contradiction, that is, to act or not to act on something proposed by the intellect, and; b) Freedom of contraries, that is, the choice of doing one thing or another.
IV. ALL HUMAN PERSONS HAVE THE SAME NATURE.

All human persons are fundamentally the same in their nature. They are persons per se. They are a reality of a BEING who act as persons and who come to the knowledge of their personhood only by reflecting on the meaning of what they do. The personhood of the human person is rooted in his nature of being as subject. Hence, the human person as subject is one who is:

1. Conscious, that is, through increasing degrees of consciousness from

unconscious sleep to dreaming consciousness to experiential consciousness and finally to rational self-consciousness the human person as subject arrives at the level of deliberating, evaluating, choosing, and finally acting.

2. A doer, that is, not just a thinker. As a doer, the human person has the potential for
self-formation, for effecting changes in others or in the environment.

3. capable of becoming something other than he or she happens to be, capable of becoming self-constituting.
V. ALL HUMAN PERSONS HAVE THE SAME ORIGIN AND DESTINY.

Because of its common origin the human race (all human persons) forms a unity, for from one ancestor (GOD) made all nations to inhabit the whole earth. This wondrous vision makes us contemplate the human race in the unity of its origin in God and in the unity of its supernatural end, God Himself, to whom all ought to end. THE HUMAN PERSON AS A RELATIONAL BEING

I.
II.

BASIS. The human person is involved in a complex network of relationships. (CA, No. 54). THE BASIC MORAL RELATIONSHIP OF THE HUMAN PERSON.

The moral relationship of the human person as a moral agent consists of his reciprocal relationship that unites him in love and in solidarity with God, Himself, Others, Society and the world. In this basic moral relationship, the identity of the human person as a moral agent can be discovered.

A. The human person in relation to God. This basic moral relationship of the human
person in relation to God is one that exists between the human person and Yahweh as a Transcendental Lover who is: 1) Lord of Creation insofar as He made to create and sustain
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the material universe; 2) Lord of Intersubjectivity insofar as He made to initiate to establish and invite all human persons an intimate friendship with Him, and; 3) Lord of History insofar as He made Himself always and ever present in one form or the other in the lives of every person and in the world. With the foregoing the human person in relation to God has the following identity:

1. Creature of God. God made and sustains him as His image and likeness. 2. Child of God. God wanted to establish an intimate friendship or relationship with him where God shall be considered as a loving Father who loves and cares and the human person as His precious child who believes, trusts and loves Him. 3. Collaborator with God. God ordains that everyone must be a participant in shaping and making human history imbued with Gods loving and guiding presence.
B. The human person in relation to himself.

1. The human person is fallen and redeemed. The human person is tragically aware of his limitations and his inability to become what he ought and desires to become. His reason has been clouded and his will weakened by sin, and thus the image of God has been distorted.
Because the human person from the dawn of history abused his freedom, set himself against God and sought to find fulfillment apart from God, he became out of harmony with himself, with others, and with all created things. Therefore the human person is split within himself. As a result, all human life, whether individual or collective, shows itself to be a dramatic struggle between good and evil, between light and darkness or lights and shadows. Indeed, the human person finds that by himself he is incapable of battling the assaults of evil successfully, so that everyone feels as though he is bound by chains. However, Christ had saved the human person from this tragic predicament as St. Ireneus puts it: On account of his great love, He became what we are, that He might make us what He is. Therefore, there is a need for us to recognize the basic goodness of the human person. Sin has deeply affected human nature, but the image of God has never been destroyed. The crucified and risen Jesus has radically conquered sin and its effects. By our participation in His Paschal Mystery namely, his life, passion, death and glorious resurrection, we are called upon to combat sins insidious presence in the world. The fullness of redemption will come only beyond history, but the power of the redemption is already at work.

2. The human person is an embodied-spirit. The Second Vatican Council puts it in this wise: Though made of body and soul, the human person is one. Through his bodily composition he gathers to himself the elements of the material world. Thus they reach their crown through him, and through him raise their voice in free praise. For this reason the human person is not allowed to despise his bodily life. Rather, he is obliged to regard his body as good and honorable, since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. Nevertheless, wounded by sin, the human person experiences rebellious stirrings in his body. But his very dignity postulates that he should glorify God in his body and forbid it to serve the evil inclinations of his heart. In other words, the human person as an embodied-spirit is both a

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bodied-soul insofar as he has an ultimate source and destiny, and a souled-body insofar as he has a material aspect. Hence, he is a unity of both body and soul. Therefore, it is very important to realize that the human person is a single, unified being, part of the physical world, subject to its laws, namely: 1) The law of entropy that underscores the truth that the human person is subject to the process of deterioration, and; 2) The law of complexity that stresses the truth that the human person is subject to the process of growth and development, yet emerging from it and making it subject to himself. The physical aspect affects him even in the core of his personality. It is only through media that are physical, signs and words, that he can receive an invitation and respond to it in human freedom. Through the body, a human person becomes present and available to his fellowmen.

3. The human person is an historical being. For reason of his corporeal nature, the human person is also a historical being. He exists in time and space and is subject to change and development. The human person is the image of God, not only by his static givenness, but also by his continued becoming. It is only gradually that he develops a capacity to understand and respond in love. This development passes through critical stages in life. Consequently, the individual human act must be situated in the context of the persons development in the particular atmosphere in which that development takes place.
The individual human person is immersed in the whole process of cosmic development. In the present hour of decision (kairos, or God-given time of grace), he must assume the potentialities of his environment and develop the heritage of his past in the context of the whole history of salvation-liberation. At the beginning and end of history, there is not fate, but God, who calls the human person at each moment. The capacity to know and to choose is given only as potentiality at birth. It must be gradually, and at times painfully, acquired in the teeth of inherent limitations, physical handicaps and the obstacles placed by the ambience.

4. The human person is self-transcendent. Rooted in his rational nature, the human person is self-transcendent which enables him to go beyond with Gods grace his limitations and weaknesses. It means that the human person is capable of responding to the invitation of love even in the most adverse conditions he is facing at the moment. C. The human person in relation to others. A human person exists only in dynamic relation to others, and this relationship must be personal. The essence of the human person is to be related to another I. In extending the I to another I, ones uniqueness must be preserved. Otherwise, there will be no real I-You relationship, because in this relationship what is being shared is ones uniqueness. Here is a give-and-take relationship in a very positive sense.
Significantly, however, the recognition of the social nature of the human person is necessary in accepting that the human persons need one another in order to be what they are as humans. For human life is not possible in isolation; human development cannot take place apart from a human community. The Old Testament has the same spirit of community life a life characterized by an IYou relationship. Morality, in fact, was guided and motivated by this strong sense of
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community. A communal sense implies a strong awareness of social responsibility and a greater concern for the common good. Within the community, people must help each other. The relationship between human persons must be like that between God and His People that is a relationship that is personal throughout.

1. The human person is unique yet fundamentally equal with others. The Human
Persons are unique, yet fundamentally equal. Despite physical differences as well as differing intellectual and moral powers, we instinctively realize that as persons, in some basic way, we are all equal in terms of our origin, destiny, essential nature, and divine calling. Yet, we are called to image God in a unique way according to the God-given potentials and charisms bestowed upon each one of us.

2. The human person is a being-through-others. Although every human person is properly an individual, his individuality was, is and always in some way a gift from other people. Every human being is always in some ways dependent on some other human beings. In fact, every human persons individuality or identity becomes really affirmed or confirmed only in the presence of or with reference to other human persons. Thus, a mans manliness becomes more affirmed in the presence of a womans womanliness and vice versa. 3. The human person is a being-with-others. The next identity of the human person in relation to others is that he is a being-with-others. The preposition with connotes equality of existence. Every human person exists as a being-in-the-world. And since every human person is a being-through-others and continues to be so every moment of his life, the world in which we live is basically a world of billions of people who are mutually and reciprocally being-througheach-other. In short, because every human person is a being-with-others, he not only exists as an individual but also actually co-exists with other human individuals. Individual human existence is always a co-existence, a brotherhood or fraternity with every other human person.
It needs no deep philosophizing to arrive at this basic human truth. Every human person senses his basic equality with every other human person. Maybe this is the reason why persons try to outdo each other in trying to till and subdue the earth. Since they sense that they are basically equipped with the same human nature, they try to out-do, outwit, or out-perform each other in order to achieve a better life. On the other hand, it is also this basic co-existence with every other human person that propels the human being to live in peace and harmony, to compromise with or to arrange a modus vivendi or a mode of living together with other human beings. After all, human communities are nothing more than the coming together (cum-unio, to be one) of many human beings. We must note, however, that co-existence between human beings does not mean uniformity of human beings. The human persons are equal to each other not in talents or other characteristics but in the basic fact that every human person is a unique person or subject with the same fundamental right to exist as a being-in-the -world, and who shares interdependent relations with other human beings as reciprocal being-through-each-other. This means that while the persons are free to outdo each other, they may not however do so to the point of depriving any person of his basic rights to live out his fundamental modes of human existence.

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In its fullest sense, human co-existence means that no human person may treat another as an object or as a thing or as a mere means to achieve his own ends. To do so would result in de-personalizing such other and ultimately robbing him of his humanity. In other words, every human person may appropriate a thing or an object, but never another human person.

4. The human person is a being-for- others. The human person is, in relation to
others, capable of becoming a being-for-others. This means that he can, if he chooses, freely give of himself to another human person. He can, unlike the rest of creation, freely make himself available to the world, to a fellow human person, even to God. This is why the human person can be characterized as a ready availability. He is ready availability in that, unlike the rest of creation which is characterized by fixed or determined availability, he can make a free but proper response to the demand or call of any situation. This capacity of the human person to offer such a free response may be referred to as his sense of response-ability or responsibility. But if the human person is capable of giving a free response, he is also capable of giving a free but improper response to situations. Instead of becoming a being-for-others, he may freely choose to become a being-at-the-expense-of-others. Instead of making himself readily available to others, he may choose to close himself and his properties to them. In fact, instead of making himself available to others, he may choose to coerce such others to make themselves available to him instead. This ambivalence of the human person will make him capable of either making himself available to others or exploiting the availability of others for his own self-vested or self-vital interest. It is, after all, a matter of choice to be a person -for-others or to be a person-at-theexpense-of-others.

D. The human person in relation to society. The human person is, by nature, a social
being. This is a truth that is beyond doubt for a mind opens to reality. In order to exist and to develop himself, he needs the support of the community in many regards. With this corresponds the human persons instinct for social fellowship, which is one of the strongest impulses in human nature. Only through social completion can the human person fully develop his being as his nature demands. As pointed out by Goethe: How little are we, or do we possess, what we in the strictest sense call our property. We must all receive and learn not only from our predecessors but also from our contemporaries. Even the greatest genius would not get very far if he had to rely solely on what he had in himself. Given the great importance of community and society for the life of the human person, he has on the one hand the right to be helped by society, but on the other hand he has also the obligation to give to society his support. Concern for society is concern for ones own welfare, concern for ones neighbor, and ultimately concern for that final goal which every human person, every community, and all humankind is called to serve and to bring about: Gods kingdom and glory. Hence, the human person in relation to society has the following identity:

1. The human person is an intervenor. This identity of the human person in relation
to society makes him realize that he has a choice to create or recreate a humanizing or dehumanizing social structures, institutions and systems that will govern and regulate social relationships.
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2. The human person is a peacemaker. As peacemaker, the human person can engage himself in the process of mediation, that is, a prophet of announcing the Good News of salvation-liberation and a prophet of renouncing social evil and sin.

E. The human person in relation to the world. 1. The human person is a being-in-the-world. The most obvious fact about the human person is that he is essentially a being-in-the-world. This does not mean that he has no life beyond this world; it simply asserts that the human being cannot live and develop except in this world that he is in.
In fact, in the Christian tradition, a human persons life-hereafter greatly depends on the kind of life he lives in the here-and-now. Because the human person is essentially a being-inthe-world, it may be said that he is essentially worldly: he needs the world in order to survive. Furthermore, everything that he is, everything that he thinks and does cannot but have some reference to the world he is in. There is nothing that a human person can think, will and do without thinking, willing and doing it in the world he lives in. Being-in-the-world does not mean however that a human person occupies the whole world. This is because every human person is situated in the world through his body that is made up of a definite quantity of matter at a given time. Because of this, every human being is essentially a situated being-in-the-world: he is always circumscribed by a definite time and place, Consequently, whatever he thinks and does, he thinks and does at a given time and place.

2. The human person is a being-at-the-world. The human persons existence in the world is not merely a passive existence for he is not only a being-in-the-world but also a beingat-the-world. The preposition at signifies activity, conscious self activity. The human person is not in the world the way a cabbage or an animal is in it. Everything that a cabbage or an animal is or does is fully explainable by the world and its forces. Not so with the human person. He does not only live in the world.
He also adds to the world through his labors. The human person does not only go and multiply himself in the world, he also tills and subdues the world. It is for this reason that the world in which the human person lives is essentially a human world for, by his presence and activity, he has left his character in the world so that it is now impossible to think of the world apart from the human person as it is equally impossible to think of the human person without referring him to the world. The world sustains and enriches human life from its bounty; in return, the human person enriches the world through his labors. The human person leaves his footprints in the world, but the world also leaves its imprints on him. Because of this basic relationship, the human person is truly a worldly being and the world is truly a human world.

3. The human person is a steward or caretaker. As a gift from the Creator, the world is totally interdependent with the human person and the harmony that exists
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between the human world and the natural world emerges from this understanding of interdependence. Consequently, the human person is mandated by virtue of this interdependence to take the role of being a steward or caretaker of the natural world as he strives to preserve and maintain its balance and harmony that is divinely ordained by the Creator himself.

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