Man

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(Anglo-Saxonman=a person, human being; supposed rootman=to think;German,Mann,Mensch).

The nature of man

According to the common definition of the School, Man is a rational animal. This signifies no more than that, in the system of classification and definition shown in theArbor Porphyriana, man is a substance, corporeal, living, sentient, and rational. It is alogical definition, having reference to a metaphysical entity. It has been said that man's animality is distinct in nature from his rationality, though they are inseparably joined, during life, in one commonpersonality. "Animality" is an abstraction as is "rationality". As such, neither has any substantial existence of its own. To be exact we should have to write: "Man's animality is rational"; for his "rationality" is certainly not something superadded to his "animality". Man is one in essence. In theScholastic synthesis, it is a manifest illogism to hypostasize the abstract conceptions that arenecessary for the intelligent apprehension of complete phenomena. A similar confusion of expression may be noticed in the statement that man is a "compound of body andsoul". This is misleading. Man is not a bodyplus asoul — which would make of him twoindividuals; but a body that is what it is (namely, ahuman body) by reason of its union with thesoul. As a special application of the generaldoctrine ofmatter and form which is as well a theory ofscience as of intrinsiccausality, the "soul" is envisaged as the substantial form of the matter which, so informed, is a human "body". The union between the two is a "substantial" one. It cannot be maintained, in theThomistic system, that the "substantial union is a relation by which two substances are so disposed that they form one". In the general theory, neither "matter" nor "form", but only the composite, is a substance. In the case of man, though the"soul" beproved a reality capable of separate existence, the "body" can in no sense be called a substance in its own right. It exists only as determined by a form; and if that form is not a humansoul, then the "body" is not a human body. It is in this sense that theScholastic phrase "incompletesubstance", applied to body andsoul alike, is to be understood. Though strictly speaking self-contradictory, the phrase expresses in a convenient form the abiding reciprocity of relation between these two "principles of substantial being".

Man is an individual, a single substance resultant from the determination of matter by a human form. Being capable of reasoning, he verifies thephilosophical definition of aperson: "the individual substance of a rational nature". Thisdoctrine ofSt. Thomas Aquinas (cf.I.75.4) and ofAristotle is not the only one that has been advanced. In Greek and in modern philosophy, as well as during the Patristic andScholastic periods, another celebrated theory laid claim to pre-eminence. ForPlato thesoul is a spirit thatuses the body. It is in a non-natural state of union, and longs to be freed from its bodilyprison (cf. Republic, X, 611).Plato has recourse to a theory of a triplesoul to explain the union—a theory that would seem to makepersonality altogether impossible (seeMATTER).St. Augustine, following him (except as to the triple-soul theory) makes the "body" and"soul" two substances; and man "a rationalsoul using a mortal and earthly body" (De Moribus, I, xxvii). But he is careful to note that by union with the body it constitutes the human being.St. Augustine'spsychologicaldoctrine was current in theMiddle Ages up to the time and during the perfecting of theThomistic synthesis. It is expressed in the "Liber de Spiritu et Anima" of Alcher of Clairvaux (?) (twelfth century). In this work "thesoul rules the body; its union with the body is a friendly union, though the latter impedes the full and free exercise of its activity; it is devoted to itsprison" (cf. de Wulf, "History of Philosophy", tr. Coffey). As further instances of Augustinian influence may be cited Alanus ab Insulis (but thesoul is united by aspiritus physicus to the body);Alexander of Hales (unionad modum formæ cum materia);St. Bonaventure (the body united to asoul consisting of "form" and "spiritual matter"—forma completiva). Many of theFranciscandoctors seem, by inference if not explicitly, to lean to thePlatonic Augustinian view;Scotus, who, however, by the subtlety of his "formal distinctiona parte rei", saves the unity of the individual while admitting theforma corporeitatis; his opponent John Peter Olivi's "mode of union" ofsoul and body was condemned at the Council of Vienne (1311-12).

The theories of the nature of man so far noticed are purelyphilosophical. No one of them has been explicitly condemned by theChurch. Theecclesiastical definitions have reference merely to the "union" of "body" and "soul". With the exception of the words of the Council of Toledo, 688 (Ex libro responionis Juliani Archiep. Tolet.), in which"soul" and "body" are referred to as two "substances" (explicable in the light of subsequent definitions only in the hypothesis of abstraction, and as "incomplete" substances), other pronouncements of theChurch merely reiterate thedoctrine maintained in the School. Thus Lateran in 649 (against theMonothelites), canon ii, "theWord of God with the flesh assumed by Him and animated with anintellectual principle shall come . . ."; Vienne, 1311-12, "whoever shall hereafter dare to assert, maintain, or pertinaciously hold that the rational orintellectualsoul is notper se and essentially the form of the human body, is to be regarded as aheretic";Decree ofLeo X, in V Lateran,Bull "Apostolici Regiminis", 1513, ". . . with the approval of this sacred council we condemn all who assert that theintellectualsoul is mortal or is the same in all men . . . for thesoul is not only really and essentially the form of the human body, but is alsoimmortal; and the number ofsouls has been and is to be multiplied according as the number of bodies is multiplied";Brief "Eximiam tuam" ofPius IX to Cardinal de Geissel, 15 June, 1857, condemning theerror of Günther, says: "the rationalsoul isper se thetrue and immediate form of the body".

In the sixteenth centuryDescartes advanced adoctrine that again separatedsoul and body, and compromised the unity of consciousness andpersonality. To account for the interaction of the twosubstances—the one "thought", the other "extension"— "Occasionalism" (Malebranche, Geulincx), "Pre-established Harmony" (Leibniz), and "Reciprocal Influx" (Locke) were imagined. The inevitable reaction from theCartesian division is to be found in the Monism ofSpinoza.Aquinas avoids the difficulties and contradictions of the "two substance" theory and, saving thepersonality, accounts for the observed facts of the unity of consciousness. Hisdoctrine:

The particular creation of thesoul is a corollary of the foregoing. Thisdoctrine — the contradiction of Traducianism andTransmigration—follows from the consideration that the formal principle cannot be produced by way of generation, either directly (since it is proved to be simple in substance), or accidentally (since it is a subsistent form). Hence there remains only creation as the mode of its production. The complete argument may be found in the "Contra Gentiles" ofSt. Thomas, II, lxxxvii. See also Summa Theologica, I, Q. cxviii, aa. 1 and 2 (against Traducianism) and a. 3 (in refutation of the opinion of Pythagoras,Plato andOrigen — with whom Leibniz might be grouped as professing a modified form of the same opinion—the creation ofsouls at the beginning of time).

The origin of man

This problem may be treated from the standpoints ofHoly Scripture,theology, orphilosophy.

A

The Sacred Writings are entirely concerned with the relations of man toGod, and ofGod's dealings with man, before and after the Fall. Two accounts of his origin are given in theOld Testament. On the sixth and last day of the creation "God created man to his own image: to the image ofGod he created him" (Genesis 1:27); and "theLord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a livingsoul" (Genesis 2:7; soSirach 17:1: "God created man of the earth, and made him after his own image"). By these texts the special creation of man is established, his high dignity and his spiritual nature. As to his material part, the Scripture declares that it is formed byGod from the "slime of the earth". This becomes a "livingsoul" and fashioned to the "image ofGod" by the inspiration of the "breath of life", which makes man man and differentiates him from the brute.

B

Thisdoctrine is obviously to be looked for in allCatholictheology. The origin of man by creation (as opposed to emanative and evolutionisticPantheism) is asserted in theChurch'sdogmas and definitions. In the earliest symbols (see the Alexandrian:di ou ta panta egeneto, ta en ouranois kai epi ges, horata te kai aorata, and the Nicene), in the councils (see especially IV Lateran, 1215; "Creator of all things visible and invisible, spiritual and corporeal, who by thisomnipotent power . . . brought forth out of nothing the spiritual and corporeal creation, that, is theangelic world and theuniverse, and afterwards man, forming as it were one composite out of spirit and body"), in the writings of the Fathers andtheologians the same account is given. The early controversies andapologetics ofSt. Clement of Alexandria andOrigen defend the theory of creation againstStoics andneo-Platonists.St. Augustine strenuously combats thepaganschools on this point as on that of the nature andimmortality of man'ssoul. A masterly synthetic exposition of thetheological andphilosophicaldoctrine as to man is given in the"Summa Theologica" ofSt. Thomas Aquinas (I.75-I.111). So again the "Contra Gentiles", II (on creatures), especially from xlvi onwards, deals with the subject from aphilosophical standpoint — the distinction between thetheological and thephilosophical treatment having been carefully drawn in chap. iv. Note especially chap. lxxxvii, which establishes Creationism.

C

Scholastic philosophy reaches a conclusion as to the origin of man similar to the teaching of revelation andtheology. Man is a creature ofGod in a createduniverse. All things that are, except Himself, exist in virtue of a unique creative act. As to the mode of creation, there would seem to be two possible alternatives. Either the individual composite was created ex nihilo, or a createdsoul became the informing principle of matter already pre-existing in another determination. Either mode would be philosophically tenable, but theThomistic principle of the successive and graded evolution of forms in matter is in favour of the latter view. If, as is the case with the embryo (St. Thomas, I, Q. cxviii, a. 2, ad 2um), a succession of preparatory forms preceded information by the rationalsoul, it nevertheless follows necessarily from the established principles ofScholasticism that this, not only in the case of thefirst man, but of all men, must be produced in being by a special creative act. The matter that is destined to become what we call man's "body" is naturally prepared, by successive transformations, for the reception of the newly createdsoul as its determinant principle. The commonly held opinion is that this determination takes place when the organization of the brain of the foetus is sufficiently complete to allow ofimaginative life; i.e. the possibility of the presence of phantasmata. But note also the opinion that the creation of, and information by, thesoul takes place at the moment of conception.

The end of man

In common with all created nature (substance, or essence, considered as the principle of activity or passivity), that of man tends towards its natural end. Theproof of this lies in the inductively ascertained principle of finality. The natural end of man may be considered from two points of view. Primarily, it is the procuring of the glory ofGod, which is the end of all creation.God's intrinsic perfection is not increased by creation, but extrinsically He becomes known and praised, or glorified by the creatures He endows with intelligence. A secondary natural end of man is the attainment of his own beatitude, the complete and hierarchic perfection of his nature by the exercise of its faculties in the order which reason prescribes to the will, and this by the observance of the moral law. Since complete beatitude is not to be attained in this life (considered in its merely natural aspect, as neither yet elevated by grace, nor vitiated bysin) future existence, asproved inpsychology, is postulated by ethics for its attainment. Thus the present life is to be considered as a means to a further end. Upon the relation of the rational nature of man to his last end—God—is founded thescience of moral philosophy, which thus presupposes as its ground,metaphysics,cosmology, andpsychology. The distinction ofgood andevil rests upon the consonance or discrepancy ofhuman acts with the nature of man thus considered; and moralobligation has its root in the absolute necessity and immutability of the same relation.

With regard to the last end of man (as "man" and not as "soul"), it is not universally held byScholastics that theresurrection of the body isproved apodictically inphilosophy. Indeed some (e.g.Scotus, Occam) have even denied that theimmortality of thesoul is capable of such demonstration. Theresurrection is anarticle of faith. Some recent authors, however (see Cardinal Mercier, "Psychologie", II, 370), advance the argument that the formation of a new body is naturallynecessary on account of the perfect finalhappiness of thesoul, for which it is a conditionsine qua non. A more cogent form of theproof would seem to lie in the consideration that the separatedsoul is not complete inratione naturæ. It is not the human being; and it would seem that the nature of man postulates a final and permanent reunion of its two intrinsic principles.

But there isde facto another end of man. TheCatholicFaith teaches that man has been raised to asupernatural state and that his destiny, as a son ofGod and member of theMystical Body of which Christ is the Head, is the eternal enjoyment of thebeatific vision. In virtue ofGod's infallible promise, in the presentdispensation the creature enters into the covenant bybaptism; he becomes a subject elevated by grace to a new order, incorporated into asociety by reason of which he tends and is brought to a perfection not due to his nature (seeCHURCH). The means to this end are justification by the merits of Christ communicated to man, co-operation with grace, thesacraments,prayer,goodworks, etc. TheDivine law which theChristian obeys rests on thissupernatural relation and is enforced with a similar sanction. The whole pertains to asupernatural providence which belongs not tophilosophical speculation but to revelation andtheologicaldogma. In the light of the finalisticdoctrine as to man, it is evident that the "purpose of life" can have a meaning only in reference to an ultimate state of perfection of the individual. The nature tending towards its end can be interpreted only in terms of that end; and the activities by which it manifests its tendency as a living being have no adequate explanation apart from it.

The theories that are sometimes put forward of the place of man in theuniverse, as destined to share in a development to which no limits can be assigned, rest upon the Spencerian theory that man is but "a highly-differentiated portion of the earth's crust and gaseous envelope", and ignore or deny the limitation imposed by the essential materiality and spirituality of humannature. If theintellectual faculties were indeed no more than the developed animal powers., there would seem to be no possibility of limiting their progress in the future. But since thesoul of man is the result, not of evolution, but of creation, it is impossible to look forward to any such advance as would involve a change in man's specific nature, or any essential difference in its relation to its material environment, in the physiological conditions under which it at present exists, or in its "relation" to its Divine Creator. The "Herrenmoralität" of Nietzsche—the "transvaluation of values" which is to revolutionize the present moral law, the new morality which man's changing relation to theAbsolute may some day bring into existence — must, therefore, be considered to be not less inconsistent with the nature of man than it is wanting in historical probability.

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