Welcome to this treatise on man as seen from a Catholic perspective. The handwritten work, originally titled ‘A Catholic View of Man,’ is taken from the compilation, ‘Articles and Manuscripts of Dominic Farrell.’
Table of Contents
I
General Observations
Many and deep are the questions we could ask ourselves about man: where he comes from originally, what essential things make up a man, what are his external and internal needs, what makes him happy or unhappy, what makes him successful or unsuccessful, what it means to be successful, whether man really needs faith in a higher being than himself, how man has an impact on the world around him, how the realities of right and wrong and of good and evil affect him, whether these realities are only in the mind and how they relate to religion, why it is that non-Catholics and even atheists can show greater moral uprightness and contentment with life than many Catholics.
These and many other questions might be brought up when treating of man. They are answered in different ways according to different perspectives. People generally answer these sort of questions from the vantage point of their own faith. Even those who hold no religious belief, speak from the conviction they have that there is no God or supernatural being.
We may say it is quite clear that as far back as we can go, man has as a generality, always had a tendency to worship, to offer sacrifice and homage to various forms of deity. There is an area in natural philosophy which was developed by Greek Pagans that has come to be called theology.
For man’s reason is capable by itself to arrive at the conclusion that there must be a Supreme Being, an intelligent First Cause of all things and that virtue likens a man to this higher essence which we call God. This is a great achievement, to be able to discover God through human reason alone. But it doesn’t give us various other truths concerning God for which we stand in need of divine revelation. Nevertheless, the observation is that man does tend to belief and reverence in one or more gods. He lives as a general rule by faith, whether he holds there to be a God, many gods or no deity at all.
Besides the God controversy, there are other things to observe in man that science doesn’t provide adequate answers for. For instance, man feels the need to ask himself, at least somewhere along the line, such questions as ‘why am I here?’ and ‘what is the meaning of life?’ Countless pre-Christian Peoples sought to solve these questions by setting up idols and temples, and by turning passions and vices into gods. Modern man asks himself the same questions and the lower part of him will say ‘you are here to enjoy yourself, to gain money, reputation, pleasure and temporal success.’ But there remains what we might term the higher part in him which responds and says ‘there is something wrong. Despite all I have gained, I can’t say I have attained to the happiness I was looking for.’
So man is conscious that there are serious questions about himself and about life that he struggles to find answers for. Experience shows him that many a rich and well to do person is miserable and that often poor and God fearing people seem to have a greater happiness and inner freedom that anyone else.
It is also clear to our observation that man is the highest being on earth; that while all living things have a principal of life, the principal of life in man is something by far the more superior, the more sophisticated and the more noble. The principal of life, by which we mean the soul in man is able to think, to reason, to question and this already sets him on a much higher plain than any other visible and non-human form of life.
Finally, we observe that man is generally unsatisfied with himself. He sees things about himself that he wishes were different or better. He knows that he is not ‘perfect’ and often there are things in others that very much displease him. But why is this? Is it just bad luck? Or does it not hint to us that there is something broken in man that calls out for restoration? Why is it that man complains about himself, about others, about life? Why is there so much suffering and so much to be upset about? Why do so many long for immortality and perfection that is far above their present condition of life? Does this not seem to indicate that it is at least probable that there must be an ideal and far better kind of life than the present one? After all, since it is not in the power of plants or animals to go dreaming about a more satisfying and blissful state of life, we may conclude easily enough that this is not meant for them. It is beyond their very nature to desire what is above earthly existence.
Is it a more comfortable earthly life then that we need in order to be perfectly content, fulfilled, happy and satisfied? Surely not, since we know that all visible comforts and advantages, no matter how many we have accumulated during life, must take leave of us at death and this thought saddens us.
But isn’t a higher form of life beyond our nature just as in the case of irrational creatures? Again, as we have said, we are able to raise our minds to never-ending, higher and better things and besides this, which is already like a clue that some greater mode of existence exists, our daily language quite frequently points us towards what we might term ‘supernatural things.’ These are those things that are above the normal things of the earth and that we almost subconsciously seem to aspire to. For example, we describe some things or persons as ‘Godly,’ ‘heavenly,’ adorable,’ ‘angelic,’ or ‘out of this world,’ etc. Now, how is it that we humans living on earth keep referring to such things, if they either don’t exist or are altogether beyond what we can desire or aspire to; just as a plant doesn’t desire to become an animal or an animal to become a man? Lower forms of life don’t go thinking about improving, or if you like, upgrading themselves or aspiring to what is better than what they are and living forever, or finding a better life beyond the grave. Clearly, they are meant only to live by instinct and for them there can be no moral code or faith in things to come since all ends for them at death.
If we compare what goes on in our minds to what goes on in the minds of animals, we can soon come to the conclusion that A) we are above all other forms of life on earth and B) we ourselves are surpassed by a still greater from of life which is essentially immaterial and not of the earth. Aristotle came to this second conclusion by his own natural reasoning and termed the highest form of life ‘God.’ St. Thomas Aquinas is well known for his five arguments for the existence of God which he draws form human reason alone. (Summa Theol. Q. 2. Art. 3).
There is a well-meaning Christian, Alister McGrath, who unfortunately is not Catholic, but who grew up with the notion that there was no God. He merely ‘accepted’ as he put it, that the theory of Evolution, together with Natural Selection and ultimately no intelligent design in the universe was correct. Being convinced by these misguiding principals that the atheists were right, he harboured and instinctive scorn for those who believed in God, regarding them as foolish and unreasonable. Yet on taking a closer look at the whole field of religion and at Christianity in particular, he saw that he needed to study the other side ‘more seriously.’
From there he gradually dropped his aggressive atheism and exchanged it for fervent faith in God. He declared that science and the natural wonder of the universe ‘made so much more sense’ from a religious perspective and that he could then find reasons and answers for questions that are beyond the scope of physics, chemistry and biology etc. He didn’t by any means abandon natural reason, but saw that it needed to be combined with a certain amount of religious Faith and that the Christian Faith itself was not against reason and was in his view, the fulfilment of all religious belief. Far from seeming like silly and unrealistic fairy tales, it pointed to profoundly meaningful and life changing realities. He is the author of ‘The Dawkins Delusion?’ in which he refutes the anti-God and anti-religion arguments of a contemporary atheist, who is perhaps still considered the most prominent atheist in the world today.
If we who are Roman Catholics and who hold the Christian Faith in all its purity, apply our minds to the ancient teachings of our Faith, doubtless we ourselves will arrive at a deeper and fascinatingly real picture of man. Our knowledge of man will be in proportion to our perception and appreciation of the truths and mysteries of the Faith.
II
The Monotheistic Doctrine of Catholicism.
In order to view man from a Catholic perspective, we must begin with the One True God and Almighty Creator of the Catholic Faith. Only when we have looked at man through the lenses of both Faith and reason, can we begin to get an accurate grasp of him and consequently, solve the many mysterious and problematic question that are inextricably linked to the human person and to mankind in general.
The Niceno-Constantinapolitan Creed begins with the words; ‘I believe in One God.’ The fittingness and logic of confessing God as one lies among other things in the fact that the true and accurate idea of a deity is a unique, self-sustaining and boundless entity which must necessarily be unequalled, unsurpassable and incommunicable to any other being. To be limited, mutable and in a word, ‘finite,’ is incompatible with being divine. But if we admit that there is a God, He has to be unlimited, changeless and infinite. And if we hold that He is infinite, by which we say He is inexhaustible and uncontainable then there is no room left in the equation for another deity. There cannot be two infinites, since the one immediately cancels out the possibility of the other. From this appears the absurdity of the Polytheism of the Pagans. There simply has to be one God and no other gods besides Him.
‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is One Lord’ (Deut 6.4). ‘The Supreme Being must be unique, without equal… If God is not one, he is not God’ (Tertullian). Our faith in the One God should lead us to turn to Him as to our first origin and final goal; we should prefer nothing to Him, nor should we substitute creatures or false gods for Him.
This one, true and personal God is He Who revealed Himself to the chosen people and to the Prophets of the Old Testament. When requested by Moses to reveal His Name, He said ‘I Am Who Am.’ This seems to be both the giving of a name and at the same time the denial or refusal of a name. It transcends all names and all things and most notably conveys a ‘what’ rather than a ‘who.’ It says that He is being and existence itself. As soon as we say that God is ‘this’ or ‘that’ particular thing, we have already reduced Him, put Him into a category and made Him look small and limited. But when we no longer say that ‘God is a something’ and simply say ‘God Is,’ then we are saying that He is everything, that all existence and reality is derived from Him and all being is but a participation in His being, which must necessarily be regarded as immense and eternal and so forth, for so it is since otherwise God would not be God and we would be left with powerless, empty nothingness.
Everything in the world then, can be traced back to nothing else other that the one, immense and eternal Good whom we call God. His very nature causes Him to be a mystery to us, even after He has revealed Himself. For if we could perfectly understand Him, He would no longer be God since the infinite cannot be fully known by the finite. God is therefore perfectly comprehended only by Himself.
With One, True God comes One True Faith which is given, protected and handed down by He Who Is. Through Faith, we know our Final End, towards which we should be moving. ‘Faith is a foretaste of the knowledge that will make us blessed in the life to come’ says St. Thomas Aquinas. The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Faith is the Faith of the One, True God and only in this Faith can we be confident of reaching our Final End which is an incorporation and everlasting participation in the beatific life of God Himself. To reject this Faith is to reject Divine Authority because it is not from man but from man’s Creator. He who lives outside the Catholic Faith acts against himself and tends towards his own ruin.
But while Catholics profess faith in One God, this same God is uniquely distinguished by the fact that He is not a God all by Himself as a single person, but is what we might term a family of Love, an eternal communication of Love in which there is the Lover, the Beloved and Mutual or Shared Love. We must now go on to briefly consider these inner realities of the Divine Life Itself.
III
God Revealed as A Trinity.
We call the inner life of God the Trinitarian Life. The word ‘Trinity’ is from the Latin ‘trinitas’ meaning ‘three.’ The Greek equivalent is ‘triados.’
Every time we make the Sign of the Cross we express our Trinitarian faith by professing our belief in the oneness of God in whom there are three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The Blessed Trinity is the central mystery of our Catholic Faith. This mystery, which it will be helpful to our purpose to know a little about, is a truth that was not fully revealed until the time of the New Testament.
The CCCC (Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church) says: ‘God has left some traces of His Trinitarian being in creation and in the Old Testament but His inmost being as the Holy Trinity is a mystery which is inaccessible to reason alone or even to Israel’s faith before the Incarnation of the Son of God and the sending of the Holy Spirit.’
This Dogma was defined in two stages: first at the First Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) and second at the First Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381). The first of these was held against the heresy of Arianism which claimed that Christ was simply a supernatural being, but not God. The second condemned the Macedonian heresy which denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost. This heresy was also called Pneumatomachianism which comes from a Greek phrase meaning ‘fighting the Spirit.’
Sacred Scripture points to the Divine Persons in various places such as the following. Firstly the Father: ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort’ (1 Cor. 1. 3). Secondly the Son: ‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God… etc.’ John 1.1-14). Thirdly the Holy Ghost: ‘But when the Paraclete (Counsellor) cometh, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me’ John 15. 26.
There are some basic principles about the Trinity which if we know, we can more easily see how we ourselves reflect that divine likeness according to whose image we have been created.
1. We know that Scripture indicates a proceeding in God. But since God is essentially immutable, this cannot be a creatural movement, nor any operation involving change. It must be in God and of God, or all part of the one divine essence. And it must be in the order of intellect and will, that is, ‘the intellective order,’ for this is the highest kind of proceeding.
2. So there is in God an eternal proceeding, likened to our human knowing, in which God (the Father) eternally begets the Word. This Word is God the Son and the proceeding is termed ‘generation.’
3. There is in God an eternal proceeding, likened to our willing or loving, in which we say the Spirit proceeds from Father and Son. This Spirit is God the Holy Ghost and the proceeding is what we term ‘procession.’
4. But the two proceedings cannot both be called generation, for one is in the order of knowing, and the other is in the order of willing or loving. Speaking in terms of our creatural human processes, the mind brings forth reality by knowing; that is it generates the mental word or concept. Hence the divine proceeding which is likened to knowing may rightly be called ‘generation.’ And since, when we know a lovable being that can reciprocate our love, love proceeds from lover and beloved, the second divine proceeding may rightly be called ‘procession.’
5. We are taught that proceedings of the intellective order which are in and of the agent, are two only: one in the likeness of knowing; one in the likeness of willing. And hence in God there can be no other proceedings than generation and procession. There are other ‘relations,’ which is yet another matter, but there are no other proceedings.
The central theme if you like and the very essence of God and of His Trinitarian being is Love. St. John says of God ‘Deus Caritas est.’ God is Love. Being Love, He cannot be alone since Love is communicative and the Divine Persons are in eternal communication with one another. To us creatures God is like a flame, or a dazzling sun, always bright and burning, always tending to radiate, to warm, to enkindle and to illuminate. Being the essence of goodness and Love, He is inclined to communicate Himself even though He has no need of anything extra to complete His perfect contentment and beatitude.
IV
Creation and the Motives Behind It
It is plain enough that God cannot add anything to His glory or happiness ad intra; that is in His inner life as the perfect and eternal Trinity. But He can if He wills, manifest His glory and procure its end by all His works ad extra; that is in all the invisible and visible works of creation. As we have said, God didn’t create in order to make Himself happier or to gain greater glory as if He were wanting in anything. Rather, we say that it is in the very nature of goodness to diffuse itself and it does so simply for the sake of the object or recipient of the same goodness.
We say that we are created for God, but by this we are actually saying that God cannot work for an end that is greater or more worthy of Himself than His own extrinsic glory. Hence He so orders matters that we creatures might find our own happiness and fulfilment in knowing, loving and serving Him. By this it is we who are the gainers, since God only gains extrinsically, that is accidentally and without any personal need of us since He is boundlessly fulfilled anyway.
So it is through an effect of the Divine kindness that creation came about. The Power of God saw that it was possible and the Goodness of God willed it. And so it all came about and is constantly governed by the Wisdom of God. Whatever happens in creation is either willed or permitted, whether it be good or evil, for the ultimate end of God’s greater, or external glory and for the best interests of every creature. God has made the whole world and the entire universe for us more than for Himself, in order that we might rejoice in it and find our greatest pleasure in offering up praise and thanksgiving to Him, and in loving and blessing His Name forever. Rational creatures are the high priests and the centre of creation. Their ultimate end is to see and possess God according to their respective capacities which are determined by their degree of charity.
But God saw that creatures couldn’t reciprocate His free love unless they too had free will like Himself. But while failure in free love is impossible to God, it is unfortunately possible to creatures. So God first created the purely spiritual creatures whom we call the Angels. These He offered an acceptance of the supernatural state or if they so chose, to stay in their natural state and thus be eternally cut off from Him and punished. Many accepted His offer and freely chose Him as their final end. Others rejected the ascent to the supernatural order and stayed in their natural order. These became the fallen angels.
Then there was the visible creation and the centre of it all which was man. He was first made just and innocent and later a companion was given him who made with him the first parents of the human race. These too were tested as to their loyalty to the Creator and both of them failed through a snare of the devil. But in their case, it was possible for God to exercise mercy and thus it was decreed that a Redeemer of mankind should in the fullness of time be given to the world.
God’s efforts from the day of the fall onwards have ever been directed to the salvation of man, the reclaiming of the deeply wounded master of the visible creation. Man would still be lord of the earth insofar as he was still the most noble of all creatures. But he wouldn’t have the same dominion over creation that he once enjoyed and many of his privileges that came with his being innocent were now divested from him and the earth itself would provide him with much pain, labour and various kinds of adversity.
Man was made to the likeness of God in that he has understanding and will. His body to some degree gives an outward expression of his soul. Having a body, he also has memory, or imagination. The memory is said to resemble the Father, that man might always remember God as his origin and the First Cause of all things. The understanding is said to resemble the Son Who is the Self-Expression and the Wisdom of the Father. And the will resembles the Holy Ghost, since it is derived from the knowledge that resides in the mind.
Man is a composite being; that is he stands between the spirit world and the natural world of material things. The essential things that make a man are matter and spirit: his body is made of matter, and his soul is spiritual. That living principal, that self-consciousness, that intelligence and liberty of will, that personality and those inner operations that are above the sphere of matter are all identified with the soul.
There is an infinite gap between mind and matter. Thought contains nothing material but is an intellectual operation. Now, those who say we humans have descended from particles are trying to say that matter has taken on the properties of spirit, properties which are forever above and beyond the physical and the chemical.
…To Be Continued…