Chapter 1. lecture 2. human being according to

PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN PERSONUniversity of San Agustin

AY: 2014-2015: First Semester

CHAPTER 1: INTRAPERSONAL DIMENSIONLecture 2: Human Being/ Person According to Different Philosophers

The ancient Greek philosophers were cosmologists. Cosmology is defined as the branch of philosophy which studies the nature of the world and of the universe. They were busy looking for the basic stuff that makes up the world; thus, they focused their attention upon nature. This basic stuff is considered the basic principle, ultimate reality that consist the world. It is in their cosmological ideas that we can extract some of their thoughts and insights on human nature. The ancient Greek philosophers engaged in philosophical inquiry asking the origin of all things and that includes man. The Greek philosophers ground man’s nature and existence in the world. They validly argue that what the world constitutes, man also possesses. In other words, the stuff that constitutes the world is also the same stuff that constitutes man. However, what this is basic stuff, remains to be the perpetual debate among the ancient philosophers themselves. The idea of the Greek philosophers about human nature is anchored on their views of the world.

The Beginnings of Philosophy: The Pre-Socratics

The birthplace of philosophy was the seaport town of Miletus, on the western shores of Ionia in Asia Minor. The first philosophers were called Ionians or Milesians. The first philosophers were primitive scientists whose theory focused on taking nature and the world around them as the basic stuff. It is a fact of history of thought that science and philosophy was the same thing in the beginning and only later did various specific disciplines separate themselves from philosophy, medicine being the first to do so.

Thales (624-546 BCE)

Thales is known to be the first philosopher. By birth Thales is a Phoenician but he went to Miletus, Ionia to practice philosophy. It is with this that he was considered a Greek philosopher. Thales considered water, the basic stuff. His philosophy was centred on the doctrine that “water” is the origin of all things. Thales was aware that water is just one of the many candidates for the basic stuff of the universe, he knew there were other substances such as solid, air fire, gases and others. The principle of all things is water; all comes from water, and to water all returns. This finding of Thales was later validated by modern science, even today grade schoolers are taught that the human brain contains 75% water and the human blood is 83% water.

Thales was perhaps the first philosopher to ask questions about the structure and nature of the cosmos as a whole. He maintained that the earth rests on water, like a log floating in a stream. (Aristotle asked, later: what does the water rest on?) But earth and its inhabitants did not just rest on water: in some sense, so Thales believed, they were all

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made out of water. Even in antiquity, people conjecture the grounds for this belief: was it because all animals and plants need water, or because the seeds of everything are moist? Because of his theory about the cosmos Thales was called by later writers a physicist or philosopher of nature (‘phusis’ is the Greek word for ‘nature’).

Anaximenes (550-526 BCE)

If Thales considered water as the basic stuff of the universe, Anaximenes preferred air to water. His philosophy is centred on the doctrine that “air” is the source of all things. He believes that water, earth and fire are all products of air. Air according to Anaximenes air undergoes two processes namely, condensation and rarefaction. When air is condensed it becomes wind, then cloud, when still more condensed it becomes water, then earth then stone. Condensation is the source of cold. By rarefaction air becomes thin, it becomes fire.

Given Anaximenes argument on air we can say that man is air. Taken from the paradigm of man as a body and soul it can be argued that the body is condensed air and the soul is rarefied air. So, based on the traditional belief when death comes and soul separates from the body, cadaver (corpse) is necessarily cold, since the heat principle (the soul) that animates it is gone. Anaximenes contend that air is the principle of life. In fact, he says that the soul is composed of air. Anaximenes provide a crude example of appealing to a simple experiment: if one blows on one’s hand with the mouth relaxed, the air is hot; if one blows with pursed lips, the air is cold.

Xenophanes (570-478 BC)

Xenophanes’s philosophy was centred on the doctrine that earth is the fundamental element of the universe. “All things come from earth and in earth all things end.” The soil in the ground is a manifestation of earth. Everything we eat comes from earth; the food that we will digest and convert into muscle, bone, blood and other body parts is grown in and draws nutrients from the soil. The earth and man’s body are one.

Anaximander

Anaximander was said to have been the first person to construct a map of the world. He believed that there was one material stuff out of which everything in the cosmos came and into which everything returned in the end. Probably thinking that every ordinary material element could be destroyed by its opposite, he took the single cosmic stuff to be something boundless or indeterminate (apeiron in Greek). The apeiron is eternal and encompasses all the opposites.

Anaximander was an early proponent of evolution. Coming to the origin of human life, Anaximander said that all life comes from the sea and that in the course of time; living

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things came out of the sea to dry land. He suggested that humanity evolved from the creatures of different kind, using as his argument the fact that other creatures are quickly self-supporting, whereas humans alone need prolonged nursing and that, therefore, humanity would not have survived if this had been its original form. Commenting on Anaximander’s account of the origin of humanity, Plutarch writes that the Syrians “actually revere fish as being of similar race and nurturing. In this they philosophize more suitably than Anaximander; for declares not that fishes and men came into being in the same parents, but that originally men came into being inside fishes, and that having been nurtured there-like sharks and having become adequate to look after themselves, they then came forth and took the land.” The human beings we know cannot always have existed, he argued. Other animals are able to look after themselves, soon after birth, while humans require a long period of nursing; if humans had originally been as they are now they could not have survived. Because of this thesis, though he was not otherwise a vegetarian, he preached against the eating of fish.

Heraclitus (540-480 BCE)

Some Greek Philosophers also believe that the world is changing. This idea is well defended by Heraclitus. The logos is the blanket principle of change. With this idea, he maintains that all things or that everything is in constant change. His popular dictum was: “You can’t step twice in the same river.” Change for him is a permanent reality. Everything will be changed and it is only change that cannot be changed. This explains that nothing is the same now as it was before, and nothing today will be the same tomorrow.

In Heraclitus’ cosmology fire has the role which water had in Thales and air had in Anaximenes. The world is an ever-burning fire: all things come from fire and go into fire; “all things are exchangeable for fire, as goods are for gold and gold for goods.” There is a downward path, whereby fire turns to water and an upward path, whereby earth turns to water, water to air, and air to fire. Heraclitus believed that fire makes the basic stuff. The process of becoming or change finds its origin in fire. It is the origin of all matter. So, what has fire to do with man? Evidently, the 37 degrees Celsius temperature of the human body provides us with the clue that man is grounded in the world. Thus, if the world is fire, man, too, has fire in him in the form of heat.

Pythagoras

The Pythagoreans – the name of the followers of Pythagoras were convinced that man is a dipartite of body and soul. They are the first to approach man in this perspective. The Pythagoreans are the true pioneers of the paradigm of man as body and soul. According to the Pythagoreans the human soul is immortal and divine, they believe that the soul has fallen, and that is to say, imprisoned in the body. The “imprisonment” is not to last

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forever since there is a sure possibility for the soul’s release from its entrapment in the body.

He taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls: human beings had souls which were separable from their bodies, and at death a person’s soul might migrate into another kind of animal. For this reason, he taught his disciples to abstain from meat; once, it is said, he stopped a man whipping a puppy, claiming philosophy in its infancy to have recognized in its whimper the voice of a dear dead friend. He believed that the soul, having migrated into different kinds of animal in succession, was eventually reincarnated as a human being. He himself claimed to remember having been, some centuries earlier, a hero at the siege of Troy. The doctrine of the transmigration of souls was called in Greek ‘metempsychosis’.

The Greek Triumvirate

Socrates

Socrates was acclaimed as the greatest philosopher in Western civilization. The definition of Socrates of man seems to put more emphasis on the attitudinal level of human nature since he gives more value to the human soul rather than the body. Socrates created the conception of the soul, the psyche. For him the soul is not any particular faculty, nor was it any special kind of substance; but was rather the capacity for intelligence and character; it was a person’s personality. Socrates identified the soul with the normal powers of intelligence and character instead of as some ghostly substance. The soul was the structure of personality. The activity of the soul is to know. He argues that the human soul should be nurtured properly through its acquisition of knowledge, wisdom and virtue.

For Socrates man should discover the truth, the truth about good life, for it is in knowing the good life that man can act correctly. According to Socrates, knowledge and virtue are not distinct from each other. For one to do good one must have first and foremost known the good. Knowing what is right means doing what is right. For according to Socrates moral knowledge and virtue was one and the same thing. Hence, if one fails to do that which one knows about, it follows that the claimant of this knowledge does not actually know that which he claims he knows at all. So if one knows cheating, telling lies, stealing, killing, adultery, and the like are bad acts but one performs them anyway, it clearly shows that one is deeply ignorant. Someone who really knew what it was right to do could not do wrong; if anyone did what was wrong; it must be because he did not know what was right. No one goes wrong on purpose, since everyone wants to lead a good life and thus be happy. Those who do wrong unintentionally are in need of instruction, not punishment. For Socrates, the main source of evil is ignorance.

Some philosophers comment that the ignorance which Socrates refers to is not the act itself but its ability to produce happiness. Wrongdoing is the inaccurate estimate

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modes of behaviour. It is the inaccurate expectation that certain kinds of things or pleasures will produce happiness. Wrongdoing, then, is the product of ignorance simply because it is done with the hope that it will do what it cannot do. Ignorance consists in not knowing that certain behaviour cannot produce happiness. And it requires knowledge to be able to distinguish what appears to give happiness and what really does. Socrates denied that people deliberately did evil acts because they knew them to be evil. When people commit evil acts, said Socrates, they always do them thinking that they are good in some way. Even when one chooses pain, one does so with the expectation that this pain will lead to virtue.

Plato

Plato was a student of Socrates. There were yet no established schools that existed before in ancient Greece. Socrates favourite schoolhouse was the marketplace – despite the fact that he was no vendor of any commodities, except ideas. Plato founded a school in Athens which he called Academy. Notably, Plato called this school in honour of the Greek hero Academus. This school however, was ordered closed by the Catholic Church in 529 A.D.

Plato fashioned his philosophy in a metaphysical foundation by weaving his thoughts on the kinds of world. This “two world theory” of Plato points out the division of the world. According to him there are two kinds of world, namely, the Ideal World (Intelligible world) and the Sensible World (World of Matter). The Ideal world is the world of idea. For Plato, the ideal world is the ultimate reality since ideas and forms are eternal and immutable He uses form (eidos) synonymously with idea (which is also derived from the verb idein). Hence, Plato’s Theory of Ideas is also called the Theory of Forms. Plato concludes that the ideal world is the real world, the true world of reality. On the other hand, the sensible world is a world of becoming; it is a world of constant change.

Example: the "Form" or "Idea" of a horse is intelligible, abstract, and applies to all horses; this Form never changes, even though horses vary wildly among themselves. An individual horse is a physical, changing object that can easily cease to be a horse; the Form of a horse, or "horseness," never changes. The sensible world, therefore, is just a poor reflection, copy, duplicate or shadow of the ideal world.

It is in this two world view or “two world theory” of Plato where we can glean his insights on human nature. The nature of man lies in the dichotomy of body and soul. In other words, body and soul are two different aspects in man. The human soul belongs to the ideal world. The human body on the other hand belongs to the sensible world. For Plato, the body is material; it cannot live and move apart from the soul; it is mutable and destructible. The soul on the other hand can exist apart from the body it is immutable and indestructible. Plato views the superiority of the human soul over the human body. Hence, the real man for Plato is his soul and not his body.

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The human body is considered by Plato as a prison cell. The soul is temporarily incarcerated in the body. Plato believed that the soul existed prior to the body. The body is the temporary residence of the human soul. Plato concludes that man is a soul using a body. At the time of death the human body as material will decompose while the human soul will survive. This affirms Plato’s doctrine of the immortality of the soul.

In Plato’s view, the soul has three parts, namely the rational, appetitive and spiritual parts. Because man is a soul using a body, the three parts of the soul each has its place in the body.

Appetitive Part – part of the soul that drives man to experience thirst, hunger, and other physical wants. It is the seat of physical pleasures. It seeks power, wealth, and even sexual satisfaction. It is located in the stomach.

Spiritual Part – part of the soul that makes man assert abomination and anger. It is the seat of emotions (i.e. anger, fear, hatred, jealousy). It is located in the chest.

Rational Part – it is the seat of reasoning. It is the rational part of the soul that enables man to think, to reflect, to draw conclusions, and to analyse. This part of the soul is located in the head. For Plato this part of the soul is the most important and the highest. It naturally desire to acquire knowledge and wisdom. It is this part that rules over the other parts and not to be overruled. It is this part that specifically distinguishes man from the brutes. Man can control his appetite and self- assertion of spirit through reason.

For example, when the person is very hungry and yet, he does not eat the available food because he knows or doubts that it has poison. Plato contends that there is something in the mind of the person that leads him to crave for food and another thing that prohibits him from eating the poisoned food. The principle that drives the person to eat the food is what he calls the appetite while that principle which forbids the person to eat the available food because it is poisoned, is reason.

Another example is man who is so angry with another person who insulted him. Out of anger, he surely would be driven to kill his enemy but does not actually do so because he knows that if he does so, he will be imprisoned. With the same reasoning, he argues that it is the spirit in man that makes the person angry with his enemy, yet his anger is curbed by reason.

A self-controlled person is a person who knows how to balance things and is therefore dominated by the rational part. Reason for Plato controls both spirit and appetite. When this happens man will have a well-balanced personality. An aggressive person is a person who asserts himself in all situations in life and is therefore dominated by the

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spirited part. A greedy person is person who seeks to acquire possessions is therefore dominated by the appetitive part.

Plato declares that the spiritual and appetitive parts are subjected to death; they are mortals. Only the rational part of the soul is immortal. This literally gives birth to the concept that an idea is immortal since it is rooted in reason. This means further that when man dies, his soul will not go hungry or angry, because passion and appetite die with the body, yet, whatever the soul knows, it continues to know what it knows since an idea or knowledge is intrinsically incapable of death. The universal concept of the human soul or reason is eternal and will continue to exist. It will not die with the death of the person.

Aristotle

If Plato has his academy, Aristotle has his Lyceum. It is in this school where Aristotle gathered his disciples who sat at his feet. The most acclaimed statement of Aristotle on man says: Man is a rational animal.

Unlike Plato, Aristotle maintains that there is no dichotomy between man’s body and soul. Body and soul are in a state of unity. For Aristotle man’s body and soul are substantially united. This means that in Aristotelian thought, there is no soulless body and bodiless soul. Simply put, where there is body there is soul, and vice versa. The soul acts as the perfect or full realization of the body while the body is a material entity which has a potentiality for life. The body per se, has no life. The body can only possess life when it is united with the soul. Soul is the principle of life; it causes the body to live. The body is matter to the soul and the soul form to the body. Body and soul therefore, are inseparable. They constitute man as a whole.

For Aristotle it is not only human beings which have a soul, or psyche; all living beings have one, from daisies and molluscs upwards. A soul is simply a principle of life: it is the source of the characteristic activities of living beings. Different living beings have different abilities: plants can grow and reproduce, but cannot move or feel; animals perceive, and feel pleasure and pain; some but not all animals can move around; some very special animals, namely human beings, can also think and understand. Different kinds of soul are diversified by these different activities in which they find expression. The most general definition which Aristotle gives of a soul is that it is the form of an organic body. Aristotle’s concept of the kinds of soul:

Vegetative Soul – is the lowest type of soul which is found in all living things. Plants specifically possess this type of soul. It is capable of the following functions: It feeds (nutrition) itself, it grows (growth), and it reproduces (reproduction). Man is a vegetant soul, a vegetant organism. As a vegetant

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organism human beings are like plants simply because they have life and they feed, grow and reproduce themselves.

Sensitive Soul – exists in animals. The functions of the sensitive soul are: It feeds itself, it grows, it reproduces, and it has feelings (particularly of pain and pleasure). It refers to the function or the power of sensation in addition to the power of vegetation. Sensitive soul develops a nervous system that allows the senses in the body to function. What makes a sensitive soul higher than a vegetant soul is that the latter is incapable of sensation, because it does not have a nervous system, while the former has a nervous system. Through nervous system it allows its beholder to experience pain or pleasure because it has feelings. Man is also a sentient organism like animals. The only difference is that whereas brutes are only capable of feelings (of pain and pleasure) man is capable not only of feelings, but also of emotion.

Rational Soul – exists only in man. The rational soul ranks the highest of all kinds of souls because it assumes the functions of the vegetative and sensitive souls. Besides, it is capable of thinking, reasoning and willing. Man therefore, who is in possession of the rational soul is higher than the brutes, animals and plants. Aside from thinking and judging, man is capable of sensing and growing. Only man can reason, think and encompasses two other souls and that which makes him the highest. Because man is rational he has intellect and will.

In sum, Aristotle’s view of the human nature is seen in his argument on the matter and form in man. Man is essentially body and soul.

Ancient Chinese Sages: On Human Nature

The central attention of the Chinese in philosophizing man is on ethics and politics. They have not concerned themselves, unlike the Greek on the physical composition of man, but on his humanity and role in the society. Their brand of philosophy is more practical and realistic. This was the fruit of their situation which was the Period of the Warring States. The main aim of their philosophy is to address the role of man in himself, in his home and in the society. In the discussion, two of China’s prominent philosopher will be tackled and their understanding of human nature.

Mencius (372-289 BCE)

Better known in China as “Master Meng” (Chinese: Meng Zi), Mencius was a fourth-century BCE Chinese thinker whose importance in the Confucian tradition is second only to that of Confucius himself. Mencius lost his father at an early age. Thus, he became close to

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his mother. There was this story about his mother: …when they lived in the cemetery, Mencius enacted the various scene of burial rite. When they transferred near the market place, he pretended he was a market vendor selling wares and bargaining to customers. His mother was displeased once again. They transferred near a public school. There the young boy, Mencius, imitated various exercises of politeness, propriety, and moral rectitude, virtues proper to the scholar. The mother was satisfied and said, “This is the proper place for my son!”

This story made Mencius mother a paragon of an ideal mother for the Chinese. Mencius studied about Confucius through Confucius great grandson, Zi Si. Mencius was also a private teacher accompanied by several hundred disciples. Mencius influence did not rank equal with Confucius, Mo Tzu and Lao Tzu. It was only until the Period of the Five Dynasties (900 AD to 1400 AD) that he gained great acceptance. Tired of the materialism of the kings and failing to win royal support, he went home and devoted the last years of his life to teaching and writing.

Human Nature

For Kao Zi, “Man’s nature is neither good nor bad. Some say ‘man’s nature may be made to practice good, and it may be made to practice evil; and accordingly, under Wen and Wu the people loved what was good, while under Yu and Li, they loved what was cruel…” Furthermore, Kao Zi said, “Man’s nature is like flowing water. If a breach in the pool is made to the east it will flow to the east. If a breach is made to the west it will flow to the west. Man’s nature is indifferent to good and evil, just as water is indifferent to the east and west!” Mencius, retorted, “Water, indeed, is indifferent to the east and west, but is it indifferent to high and low? Man’s nature is naturally good as water naturally flows downward. There is no man without this good nature; neither is there water that does not flow downward. Now can you strike water and cause it to splash upward over your forehead, and by damning and leading it, you can force it uphill. Is this the nature of water?

The Four Innate Seeds of Goodness:

The sense of pity is inherent in each person, the sense of right and wrong, sense of good and evil, sense of truth and falsity are all found in man at birth. Seeing a child teetering at the edge of a well and in danger of falling in and drowning would instinctively be moved by pity and would instinctively try to rescue the child without hesitating even a moment to calculate issues of advantage. The sense of right and wrong is revealed by the fact that one responds positively to right and negatively to wrong. One prefers the good over the evil and prefers being told the truth than the falsity. When one develops the sense of pity, he acquires the virtue of Ren: the sense of right and wrong, he acquires the virtue of Yi; the sense of good and evil, he acquires the virtue of Li; the sense of truth and falsity, he acquires wisdom or Zhi. Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and knowledge are not

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infused into us from without. We are certainly furnished with them. Man is formed for virtue. Should it be that his conduct is very far from conforming to virtue that simply fastens in him the feeling of shame?

Human nature is intrinsically good and that this is morally perfectible because man has already within him the seeds of innate goodness.

The Reality of Evil

“We are equally men; yet some become great (meaning moral) and others become small (evil or immoral). Those who follow the great part of themselves become great men, and those who follow the small part of themselves become small men.” ‘Great part’ – faculty of heart/ reason: ‘small part’ – senses. By thinking, one obtains what is good, without thinking, one fails to do so.

Xunzi (Hsün Tzu: 310-220 BCE)

As Mencius is known for the slogan “human nature is good,” Xunzi is known for its opposite, “human nature is bad.” Xunzi believes that our natural tendencies lead to conflict and disorder, and what we need to do is radically reform them, not develop them. Mencius and Xunzi shared optimism about human perfectability, but they viewed the process quite differently. Without the study of the Way, people’s desires will run rampant, and they will inevitably find themselves in conflict in trying to satisfy their desires. Left to themselves, people will fall into disorder, poverty and conflict.

Xunzi offers several arguments against Mencius’s position. He defines human nature as what is inborn and does not need to be learned. He argues that if people were good by nature, there would be no need for ritual and social norms. The sages would not have had to create them, and they would not need to have been handed down through the generations. They were created precisely because people do not act in accordance with them naturally. He also notes that people desire the good, and on the principle that one desires what one doesn’t already have, this shows that people are not good. He gives several illustrations of what life is like in the “state of nature”, without any education on ritual and morality. Xunzi does not believe that people are evil, that they deliberately violate the rules of morality, taking a perverse pleasure in doing so. They have no natural conception of morality at all: they are morally blind by nature. Their desires bring them into conflict because they don’t know any better, not because they enjoy conflict. In fact, Xunzi believes people do not enjoy it at all, which is why they desire the kind of life that results from good order brought about through the rituals of the sages.

Human nature is bad, but it is not incorrigible, and in fact Xunzi was rather optimistic about the possibility of overcoming the demands of desires that result in the state

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of nature. Though Xunzi believes that it is always possible to reform oneself, he recognizes that in reality this will not always happen. In most cases, the individual himself has to make the first step in attempting to reform, and Xunzi is rather pessimistic about people actually doing this. They cannot be forced to do so, and they may in practice be unable to make the choice to improve, but for Xunzi, this does not mean that in principle it is impossible for them to change.

Education

Because human nature is bad, Xunzi emphasizes the importance of study in order to learn the Way. He compares the process of reforming one’s nature to making a pot out of clay or straightening wood with a press-frame. Without the potter, the clay would never become a pot on its own. Similarly, people will not be able to reform their nature without a teacher showing them what to do. Xunzi’s concern is primarily moral education; he wants people to develop into good people, not people who know a lot of facts. He emphasizes the transformative aspect of education, where it changes one’s basic nature. Xunzi laid out a program of study based on the works of the sages of the past that would teach proper ritual behaviour and develop moral principles. He was the first to offer an organized Confucian curriculum, and his curriculum became the blueprint for traditional education in China until the modern period.

Practice was an important aspect of Xunzi’s course of education. A student did not simply study ritual, he performed it. Xunzi recognized that this performative aspect was crucial to the goal of transforming one’s nature. It was only through practice that one could realize the beauty of ritual, ideally coming to appreciate it for itself. Though this was the end of education, Xunzi appealed to more utilitarian motives to start the student on the program of study. As noted above, he discussed how desires would inevitably be frustrated in the state of nature. Organizing society through ritual was the only way people could ever satisfy even some of their desires, and study of ritual was the best way to achieve satisfaction on a personal level. Through study and practice, one could learn to appreciate ritual for its own sake, not just as a means to satisfy desires. Ritual has this power to transform someone’s motives and character. The beginning student of ritual is like a child learning to play the piano. Maybe she doesn’t enjoy playing the piano at first, but her parents take her out for ice cream after each lesson, so she goes along with it because she gets what she wants. After years of study and practice, she might learn to appreciate playing the piano for its own sake, and will practice even without any reward. This is what Xunzi imagines will happen to the dedicated student of ritual: he starts out studying ritual as a means, but it becomes an end in itself as part of the Way.

The teacher plays an extremely important role in the course of study. A good teacher does not simply know the rituals; he embodies them and practices them in his own life. Just as one would not learn piano from someone who had just read a book on

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piano pedagogy but never touched an actual instrument, one should not study from someone who has only learned texts. A teacher is not just a source of information; he is a model for the student to look up to and a source of inspiration of what to become. A teacher who does not live up to the Way of the sages in his own life is no teacher at all. Xunzi believes there is no better method of study than learning from such a teacher. In this way, the student has a model before of him of how to live ritual principles, so his learning does not become simple accumulation of facts. In the event that such a teacher is unavailable, the next best method is to honour ritual principles sincerely, trying to embody them in oneself. Without either of these methods, Xunzi believes learning degenerates into memorizing a jumble of facts with no impact on one’s conduct.

Christian Thinkers

The Christian understanding of the human person is one of the most profound reflections about human persons. The teaching of Christianity regarding man comes from the Hebrew-Christian Scripture and Greek philosophy. It sees man in relation to God and considers it as supreme among all other creation and yet morally responsible for it. Two of the most influential philosopher-theologian will be discussed here.

Augustine of Hippo

Medieval philosophy starts with St. Augustine. He is considered the first great Christian philosopher and the main authority in the medieval period. St. Augustine exposes his philosophical ideas and his dogma of God. According to St. Augustine, God is Absolute Spirit, Absolute Freedom, Absolute Will, Absolute Intelligence, Absolute Good, Absolute Power, Absolute Holiness, cannot will evil, no beginning and no end (eternal) and transcendent. Augustine also asserts that God is creator. God created the world out of nothing (creation ex nihilo). God created the world out of love and “man is part of this creation. For Augustine, God created man in a mortal body and in immortal soul and gave man freewill. To have freewill is, for Augustine, man’s assumption of his nature where the reality of evil is possible. Evil comes into the world not because it is part of God’s creation, but because of man’s freewill. In Augustinian thought it is very clear that the source of evil is man’s freewill. Evil for Augustine is the mere absence of good. Therefore, man does evil because of freewill.

Man is responsible for the existence of evil, not God, for God cannot will it; he is Absolute Goodness, says Augustine. It is therefore man’s nature, his freewill that makes man imperfect. But Augustine contends that man is capable of reaching perfection only if man keeps himself good. Through evil man is lost from God. But man can only be saved by God, not by man

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himself. It is God alone who can redeem man. Man cannot will to be saved; his salvation depends on the grace and mercy of God.

Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas asserts that man is substantially united body and soul. Man is the point of convergence between the corporeal and spiritual substances. In other words, man “is one substance body and soul.” Man is a substantial unity of body and soul. Man is an embodied soul, not a soul using a body. The body must be united with something else which we call soul. Animation according to Aquinas happens when the two become one. As animation occurs, life instantly comes to the fore. Human life is understood by Aquinas in his doctrine called participation. Through participation, God allows human life to partake in the celebration of existence. Hence, in as much as God is the author of life, He too has the sole power and authority to shut the power of life. This is a doctrine Aquinas calls annihilation. It is God alone for Aquinas, who has the sole authority to annihilate life. The human body is animated by the soul specifically during conception. It is through animation that the two become one.

The soul, the animator of human body, is a substance. It is incorporeal (therefore immaterial) and spiritual. The soul possesses will and intellect (soul’s faculty). The soul is unified with the body for its lower activity, i.e. sensation. A soul cannot have perception in the absence of the body because perception means sensation. Sensation can only be realized and possible in the context of a body. The soul is limited because it needs the correlative function of a material element called body. The soul is the principle of life of the body, the principle of nourishment, and the principle of movement. Thus, the body and soul are substantially united.

Although the body and the soul are substantially united, each retains its own substantial identity because the soul is not the body and the body is not the soul. The soul is united in the body not only because of perception, but also, because “it is the form of the body.” A body can act only through the soul because the soul is the principle of life of the body.

As long as there is human body, there is a soul (except in death, which is only a temporary separation of body and soul which will be united again in the last judgment.) Matter is subject to corruption, so a human body is subject to corruption by necessity of its matter. On the other hand, because the soul is immaterial it is free from corruption. This logically makes the soul immortal. Because the soul is immortal “its power or faculty such as intellect and will remain in the soul after the destruction of the body.” At death, the substantial unity of body and soul ceases.

In sum, in Thomistic philosophy, man is substantially body and soul. The soul is united with the human body because it is the substantial form of the human body. It is the principle of

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action in the human body and it is the principle of life of the body. The soul needs the body as the material medium for its operation particularly perception. The function or faculties of the soul are: intellect and will.

References:

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Chapter 1. lecture 2. human being according to

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Transcript of Chapter 1. lecture 2. human being according to