Psalm 8: 4-8:
"What is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you visit him?
For you have made him a little lower than the angels,
and you have crowned him with glory and honor.
You have made him to have dominion over the works
of your hands,
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen- even the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea that pass
through the paths of the seas."
Secularism and paganism denies
the reality that human beings possess a supernatural
prerogative.
Although we are created beings, we are above animals
and everything else in creation.
Why is that?
Because we have capacities that are particular only to us,
which animals do not have.
There is in nature perfect organisation; trees, flowers,
bees etc., everything is adjusted and arranged in a perfect
harmonic form, and in regard to animals; their senses and instincts
are usually well superior to man's.
So it is not any of those things that sets us apart and above.
It is our intelligence, our ability to create concepts and ideas
in our minds.
Concepts and ideas are not physical matter.
Thanks to our intelligence we have the capacity to
conceptualise,
which is a spiritual faculty.
All of us; we do this continually,
we are so used to it that we do not even realise that
we are doing it.
Think of new inventions for example; they were first
conceptualised in their inventor's mind.
The intelligence is by definition spiritual;
as it is completly non-material.
Man is the transporter of the non-material; the spiritual,
due to his intelligence.
The material; from matter, is specific,
The spiritual is universal.
Human beings live at the junction between earth
and heaven, above us we have the pure spirits of angels,
who unlike us, have no body.
Man is the meeting place between soul and body, the soul
is a spirit created by God, in order to be one with the body.
We sometimes hear people say that everything that happens,
happens first of all in the mind.
Based on that, we can see the importance of being aware
of what is going on in our minds.
Think of numbers; 1, 2, 4,10, 200, etc, they are little characters;
visible signs,
but the reality behind them are concepts, as is arithmetic and
all mathematics; e.g. 2+2=4 is a concept, a spiritual manipulation.
For example we can look at a cat in front of us, then the cat goes
away, but we have then internalised the concept of a cat, and
that concept is not material.
Man's intelligence captures intangible realities, we are repositories
and devices of spiritual things which do not derive from matter.
If it does not come from matter, where does it come from?
It has to have it's origin in something,
it is the effect of a cause.
Man is composed of a soul; a spirit, and a body.
The word "soul" in French is "âme", derived from
the latin word "anima" translated: "which gives life to",
our soul which comes from God is ONE with the body.
We are not just our body, and we are not just our soul,
we are a composition of the two; to form one substance.
If we were principally only soul, we would be the owner
of our bodies and we could dispose them if we wanted,
but we cant, because WE ARE our bodies.
The French philosopher Descartes thought that the spirit and
the body were two separate entities; he compared the soul to a
captain of a ship (the ship being the body), a bad comparison,
since a captain of a ship can get off and onboard the ship when
he wants, whereas we can't get in and out of our bodies as we like.
Our soul; possessing qualities that does not originate from matter,
is intellectual, spiritual. It internalises realities that are totally
non-material: ideas and concepts, to bring into the soul by it's
intellectual knowledge, completely non-material realities.
Man's other great capacity which set him apart is his ability to
love non-material things; e.g;
Justice, Truth, The Common Good.
We need to know ourselves; we are in the process of
salvation; by the Mystery of The Incarnation and the
Mystery of The Redemption, we need to know our true
state, this is continuous work.
Our soul is sensory, it is constantly stirred and agitated,
our way of reacting to events takes place in the soul.
As we know the register of emotions can range from
the extreme euphoric to the most desperate pessimistic.
Both the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle and the
great theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas
divided the human passions/emotions
(which we have in common with animals) in two main categories;
the Concupiscible and Irascible.
The Concupiscible side is pretty uncomplicated; it seeks fulfillment
of desires, it avoids pain, they are reactions of the soul.
The Irascible side is more challenging; it deals with strong reactions
such as anger, fear, despair, but also courage and hope.
There is an inter-actional relationship between the two sides;
the Irascible helps out the Concupiscible in order to attain the
desired goal.
The manner in which we react when our passions are triggered
depends on the disposition of our heart.
The Christian virtues are the spiritual supernatural dispositions;
"the settings" which goes further, they are added on top of what is
already there, they elevate the intelligence of the human heart.
The great Theological virtue of FAITH is a virtue of the intelligence.
It allows us to know truths to which we would otherwise have no
access to, only by God's authority.
The virtue of PRUDENCE is a virtue of the intelligence.
It allows us to calculate and deliberate our actions.
All the moral virtues are located in the willpower;
restraint in regard to the passions of the Concupisibles, and
strenght confronted with the Irascibles.
The two groups cooperate; for example if we
can moderate our appetite for food, we will find it easier
to control our anger.
"Morals" then, is about man's behaviour regarding, and
confronting, the passions, they need to be held in check.
Keeping in mind that all the passions are good in themselves,
since as everything else it is God who created them, we just need to
train ourselves to become masters of them.
Our 5 physical senses; sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch detect
external stimuli, and the information derived is transmitted into
our brain, where they are interpreted by each person individually.
This is where it gets interesting, because the individual
interpretation depends on the person's personal history and
imagination; the personal filter the data is processed through.
We can think of an investigation after an accident for example;
there might have been 5 witnesses; it is not uncommon that each
one has different versions of what happened.
We are plugged in to the world around us through the
5 senses, we communicate with others through them,
but the actual exchange itself;
what is being communicated, is non-material.
All matter is dividable; capable of being dissolved
or split into pieces.
Water can be split into it's two components of hydrogen
and oxygen.
Bodies degrade and in the end they decompose.
But the human spirit does not come from matter, it comes
from God, it is by it's nature elevated over the material,
it is immortal, eternal, indestructible.
