The individual in Catholic Social Teaching
Abstract
A notion of a human being or a concept of personhood has been used as one or group fundamental way of living. They are three 3 pillars that made up the western world civilization. They are Greek ancient, Roman civil, and Christianity This notion has appeared in early life in many concepts by different backgrounds or ideology, such as theologian, philosophy, and anthropology. These big three roots of knowledge convey the concept of personhood differently yet correlated in a mystical or transcendent way.
The social doctrine of the Catholic Church highly praises human beings. For human being value and its purpose, the Social doctrine of the Catholic Church uses the notion of a human being as their basis of teaching. Specifically, the notion of a human being is the basic view of how Catholic social teaching ruled out how to do politics, economy, govern, society, to be a family and a human itself.
This paper is going to discuss the meaning of an individual or personhood with the perspective of Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church by analyzing the fundamental meaning of an individual or a person from using the three ideologies: Greek philosophy, theology, and pope’s encyclicals as study backgrounds. Afterward, to discuss the essential meaning of human nature.
Background
Greek Philosophy was heavily contributing to the making of western civilization. The notable non-religious thinkers that made ideology that is relevant to the catholic doctrine of the human person are Plato and Aristotle. Plato appears to be pointing upward to while Aristotle points downward in Raphael’s painting of the School of Athens (c. 1509-1511). Plato and Aristotle's opposite gestures are representing their opposite yet relevant concept of the human person. Plato pointing upward for symbolic of Idea and Aristotle for Fact. These theories of the ancient Greeks, especially of their great philosophers Plato and Aristotle, still influence heavily the human person concept today.
Catholic Social Teaching University Student Textbook (2019) stated that the platonic model believes the characteristic of a human person is Reason. They are two concepts of Reason that portrayed from the Platonic model. They are Universal reason and Individual reason.
“a) Universal reason (logos): It controls the world, it is an order…This one, according to Plato exists in a superior world. The supreme essences exist there, they are the IDEAS: the idea of GOOD, the idea of TRUTH, the idea of BEAUTY.
b) Individual reason, limited and partial in each man …” (pg. 23)
The platonic model is an ideology based on Plato’s philosophy of the human person. From the concept above, it appears that Plato thinks that there is a transcendence appearance of supernatural worlds, which control the living in certain orders and has the ultimate forms of understanding. Plato also believes human is part or extension of the superior world that in the human world human is the medium to comprehend the greater essence despite all human limitation of understanding.
According to Stevenson and Haberman (1998), Plato has a theory that they are two worlds. First is the material world that is terminable and terminated, and the second is the eternal world. Being the eternal world above the material world means that a threshold or bridge, and Plato makes a theory of the human body and soul are separate. For the body is a material matter that is terminable, and the soul is an immaterial entity form that is immortal. Stevenson and Haberman stated, “Plato's grand metaphysical theory seems to have been that, beyond the world of changeable and destructible things, there is another world of unchanging eternal Forms” (Pg. 93).
Stevenson and Haberman (1998) described another view of Plato and concluded that Plato is one of the main influences for the "dualist" view. He conveys that Plato agrees for the soul and body are separate. He stated “...which the human soul (or mind) is a nonmaterial entity that can exist apart from the body. According to Plato, the soul exists before birth; it is indestructible and will exist eternally after death” (Pg. 96).
According to Stevenson and Haberman (1998), Plato thinks that the soul is immortal, more important than the body, and is the essence of life. He stated, “An important metaphysical aspect of Forms is that Plato thinks of them as more real than material things, in that they do not change, decay, or cease to exist. Individual material things get damaged and destroyed, but the Forms are not in space or time, and they are knowable not by the senses, only by the human intellect or reason “ (Pg. 93).
Plato appears to be pointing upward to an Idea while Aristotle points downward to a fact In Raphael’s painting of the School of Athens. This divergence reflected the two philosophers’ very different conceptions of the soul and of the status of Ideas, or Forms. Aristotle denied that they can be separate from particulars, as Plato had claimed.
Britannica (2020) stated “...Plato had emphasized, such forms provided an element of stability because they made something the kind of thing it is and they guided its development toward an appropriate fulfillment. There are also clear indications in Aristotle’s writings that the concept of the soul itself should be understood in terms of just this kind of higher-order, purposive functioning of the human organism as a whole rather than as a distinct immaterial entity” (Para. 6). Here, Aristotle claimed that body and soul as one system.
Furthermore, Aristotle is the one that heavily suggesting to do practical reason or the scientific method. Aristotle agrees that human acceptance and perception of the immaterial world is a key to unlock human rationality. In Britannica stated, “... intellectual virtues occupy the highest place, but the role of practical understanding in the conduct of life is also recognized.” (para. 6). Aristotle also suggesting active observation to find the factual reason that only humans in the material world can conduct.
Later, Aristotle's theory is absorbed and develop by St. Thomas Aquinas. Through Aquinas’ writings, a dominant theological consideration of anthropology (human person) is created. He is a disciple of Aristotle's theory and more heavily a disciple of the church. He combined the science and philosophy of ancient theory with the revelation of Christianity.
Stevenson and Haberman (2020) stated, “In the late middle ages (the thirteenth century), St. Thomas Aquinas made an impressive synthesis of Christian and Aristotelean ideas, which has since become Catholic orthodoxy. On the question of immortality, he retained (with dubious consistency) an element of Platonism, saying that although the resurrection involves the recreation of a complete human being, a combination of body and soul, the soul nevertheless has a separate existence until the resurrection” (pg.84). For Aquinas, body and soul are a separate matter, yet they are count as one ingredient for humans. At the state of death, the soul left the body and will come back as a human on judgment day. The church support and stated in Catechism of the Catholic Church, “... it does not die when is separated from the body in the moment of death and will reunite him in the final resurrection” (366).
Aquinas Put a bridge between Ancient Greek and Christianity. Pope John Paul II explained that Aquinas agrees that human intellectual and faith are purposely seeking the true truth, which is God. Thus, Paul II supports Aquinas's theory and concluded that reason and faith cannot dispute each other. Paul II stated, “He would discuss (Saint Thomas Aquinas; 1225-1274 AD) that both lights from human reason and faith share identical origin in God; thus, they cannot contradict each other” (St. John Paul II, Fides et ratio, 43, as cited in Catholic Social Teaching University Student Textbook, 2019).
As an example, Aquinas showed an event in the human world where the scientific method and human theory is concurring and cannot challenge one another. Paul II (1965, 17, as cited in Catholic Social Teaching University Student Textbook, 2019) stated that faith and reason belong to the other and there is no competition between the two, also, each has its satisfaction. Hence, the answer for both science and human theory method is one truth, the true truth origin from God. The example stated in Aquinas's writing is, “The astronomer and the natural philosopher both conclude that the earth is round, but the astronomer does this through a mathematical middle that is abstracted from matter, whereas the natural philosopher considers a middle lodged in the matter. Thus, there is nothing to prevent another science from treating in the light of divine revelation what the philosophical disciplines treat as knowable in the light of human reason.” (Summa Theologiae, Ia.1.1 ad 2).
Christian teachings integrate faith and reason. To better understand the Catholic position regarding the human makeup, it is important to understand the Church and Religious leader’s notions. As human beings, we are not only a matter of material world but also the virtue of morale. “Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 357, as cited in Catholic Social Teaching University Student Textbook, 2019). Dignity is described in Merriam Webster's dictionary as the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed. To achieve this state, humans have just need to be born.
Since the day humans present in the world, one has the quality of a human being. A brain and a heart are the quality that only a human can possess. As explained in Catechism of the Catholic Church, “He is able of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. and he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead. “(n. 357). Church concluded that self-knowledge is a human intellectual and obligation to love is faith.
Human is a union of soul and body. The body is the organic matter that works for human intelligence and soul as a faith in heart to willpower human acts. Furthermore, it is being explained to: “...human being is a compound of “soul and body, intelligence and will”. (Pope John XXIII (1961, 2, as cited in Catholic Social Teaching University Student Textbook, 2019). Pope John XXVIII believes that soul and body are the ingredients that made up a human, so does faith and reason. Being a human needs to have an honest purpose and a defined mind to seek the truth.
With such ingredients as a human being as explained by Pope John XXVIII, Human is weighed on with responsibility and freedom. “...in that it recognizes God, who is transcendent and the Creator, and who, through all the levels of creation, calls on man as endowed with responsibility and freedom” [236]. Paul VI, Apostolic Letter Octogesima Adveniens, 27: AAS 63 (1971), 421. Human has the liability to seek for truth. The human mind is limited to each man but is not limited to any perception, result of understanding, and eventual answer. Human has the freedom to think and act but will need to take the consequences from it.
Analysis
Human understanding is accountable as his way of living in the material world. Plato’s symbolic representation of human perception is relatable even until today’s culture. As described by Stevenson and Haberman (1998) Plato express human as prisoners chained together in a cave that looked on the inside wall of the cave. The prisoners have only seen shadows on the wall that were made from the puppets' shadow cast from a fire behind them. The prisoners believing of what they see, the shadow, to be the truth.
Later, Plato assumes that one of the prisoners could be free and saw that the shadow is fake. The unchained prisoner got outside of the cave and believe the outside world to be the truth. The unchained prisoners came back to the cave to let the other prisoner know about what he believed to be the truth. By not adapting to the amount of light from the sun, the unchained prisoners went blind and the chained prisoners believed that if they break the chained and go out of the cave, they will turn blind.
Stevenson and Haberman (1998) agree that the chained prisoners be a typical human condition. He summons to an allegory by Plato, “… typical human condition as being like that of prisoners chained up facing the inner wall of a cave, in which all they can see are mere shadows cast on the wall, knowing nothing of the real world outside” (Pg. 93). With Plato’s expression, the human appears to only use God’s divine creation of human intelligence to process the shadow but not willing or feel obligated to use the ability to reason, prove it right or wrong.
As explained in the beginning by Catholic Social Teaching University Student Textbook (2019) stated that the character of the human person is Reason. They are two concepts of Reason that portrayed from the Platonic model. They are Universal reason, created by supreme essence, God, and Individual reason, created by humans.
The universal reason is the reason that is out of human knowledge, which is the reason why things fall perfectly in their places and are in order and the system. Stevenson and Haberman (1998) stated, “Plato discusses the nature of knowledge in several dialogues, but in the Republic, we find the thesis that only what fully and really exists can be fully or really known: perception of impermanent objects and events in the physical world is only belief or "opinion," not knowledge.” (Pg. 94). Whereas individual reason is merely an understating that human belief to be the truth, could be temporary until there are other human theories and reason discoveries.
Aristotle plays a role in extant Plato’s theories by pursuing ideas of the scientific method to find the truth. Britannica (2020) stated, “…perception had to be understood as a rather mysterious transfer of the object’s form to the perceiver’s soul”. Not just use subconsciously the intelligence that created by God only for human, but a human is responsible to use the divine mind to one maximum capability to understand the universe. The chained prisoners should not assume material that was shown or give to them only. With the divine mind that is gifted to humans, only humans can seek God, and the prisoners should have sought the ideas of truth, beauty, and goodness.
Try to prove whether the system is right or wrong is does not mean doubting the presence of the power of the supreme world, God. “He would discuss (Saint Thomas Aquinas; 1225-1274 AD) that both lights from human reason and faith share an identical origin in God; thus, they cannot contradict each other” (St. John Paul II, Fides et ratio, (1998) as cited in Catholic Social Teaching University Student Textbook, 2019). The superior world, God, created the universe in all the systems that might out of human knowledge, but therefore facts cannot challenge with the presence of God.
The prisoners only believe what they are seeing subconsciously. But human is made greater than that and can extend the power of intelligence and will that human possess to be the only creature that can reason and faith. “Believe to understand, understand to believe” (St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons, 43,7 as cited in Catholic Social Teaching University Student Textbook, 2019) is the best phrase to summon the moral value of Plato’s allegory. Furthermore, from decoding the universe and believing in the existence of supreme essence, a greater human nature is created, love.
Discussion
After finding the truth behind the shadow and witnessing a greater world outside of the cave, the unchained prisoners willing or feel obligated to come back to save the other prisoners because human nature is to love. "To love is to will the good of another."(Thomas Aquinas as cited in Catechism of the Catholic Church 1992). The unchained prisoners want to do good to another prisoner for what he’s believing to be the right thing to do. Human is capable to make moral choices. It is human freedom. And the prisoner uses his freedom and choose love.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Human has two descriptions. One as an adjective and one as a noun. An adjective for having character or attributes of humans and a noun for having a solid person. One as imaginary and one as concrete. In the human world, to love we need a body with a soul. An animal might have a body, soul, instinct, can reason and act but they cannot respond to a superior world with faith and love. “Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is able of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. and he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 357, as cited in Catholic Social Teaching University Student Textbook, 2019). Unlike a person, since one was born one is responsible to praise god.
Human has soul, brain, and intuitive to praise the creator, which other creations don't. Only a person can have the responsibility to be created by god. Of all visible creatures only, man is "able to know and love his creator “(GS 12,3 as cited in Catechism of the Catholic Church,1998, no.365). The responsibility is to acknowledge there is a superior world and to love it by extending the gift from God, which is the body and soul. To love, a human needs a body to act and a soul to will.
Catholic Church Catechism stated, “...and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God's own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity: What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly, the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good” (n. 355). Only humans can capable to love anything. Able to love anything is the greatest gift. We are born with a heart and brain and body to love.
In Christian, they said a person is to be a representative of God. What does it mean? Because a person is on the top of the chain and capable to love anything under them and our purpose is to protect and aid other creations and each human being in the presence of God's power in our body and soul. We are the media between god’s love and our immediate surrounding. In the absence of God's physical and spiritual presence for other creatures, for they/we cannot see, hear and feel (touch) God, A person fills the responsibility to make others feel love.
Our love is not as perfect as our creator, but a person is the greatest element in the world that can cast love inevitably the strongest and the most real. God is perfection, but God is not present as a person physically and spiritually in the world. Therefore, the most perfect creature in the world is a person and we are the guardian to the other creator and each human being.
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Thomas Aquinas
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