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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Man</title><script src="https://dtyry4ejybx0.cloudfront.net/js/cmp/cleanmediacmp.js?ver=0104" async="true"></script><script defer data-domain="newadvent.org" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09580c.htm"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content="Includes sections on the nature of man, the origin of man, and the end of man"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://feeds.newadvent.org/bestoftheweb?format=xml"><link rel="icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><link rel="shortcut icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><meta name="robots" content="noodp"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../utility/screen6.css" media="screen"></head> <body class="cathen" id="09580c.htm">  <br/> <div id="capitalcity"><table summary="Logo" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="100%"><tr valign="bottom"><td align="left"><a href="../"><img height=36 width=153 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></td><td align="right"> <form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active"> <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0"/> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9"/>  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label> <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel"/>  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label> <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel"/> </form> <table summary="Spacer" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height="2"></td></tr></table> <table summary="Tabs" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../"> Home </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_white_on_color" href="../cathen/index.html"> Encyclopedia </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../summa/index.html"> Summa </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../fathers/index.html"> Fathers </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../bible/gen001.htm"> Bible </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../library/index.html"> Library </a></td> </tr></table> </td> </tr></table><table summary="Alphabetical index" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"> <a href="../cathen/a.htm"> A </a><a href="../cathen/b.htm"> B </a><a href="../cathen/c.htm"> C </a><a href="../cathen/d.htm"> D </a><a href="../cathen/e.htm"> E </a><a href="../cathen/f.htm"> F </a><a href="../cathen/g.htm"> G </a><a href="../cathen/h.htm"> H </a><a href="../cathen/i.htm"> I </a><a href="../cathen/j.htm"> J </a><a href="../cathen/k.htm"> K </a><a href="../cathen/l.htm"> L </a><a href="../cathen/m.htm"> M </a><a href="../cathen/n.htm"> N </a><a href="../cathen/o.htm"> O </a><a href="../cathen/p.htm"> P </a><a href="../cathen/q.htm"> Q </a><a href="../cathen/r.htm"> R </a><a href="../cathen/s.htm"> S </a><a href="../cathen/t.htm"> T </a><a href="../cathen/u.htm"> U </a><a href="../cathen/v.htm"> V </a><a href="../cathen/w.htm"> W </a><a href="../cathen/x.htm"> X </a><a href="../cathen/y.htm"> Y </a><a href="../cathen/z.htm"> Z </a> </td></tr></table></div> <div id="mobilecity" style="text-align: center; "><a href="../"><img height=24 width=102 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></div>  <div id="mi5"><span class="breadcrumbs"><a href="../">Home</a> > <a href="../cathen">Catholic Encyclopedia</a> > <a href="../cathen/m.htm">M</a> > Man</span></div> <div id="springfield2"> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-top' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <h1>Man</h1> <p><em><a href="https://gumroad.com/l/na2"><strong>Please help support the mission of New Advent</strong> and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99...</a></em></p> <p>(Anglo-Saxon <em>man</em>=a person, human being; supposed root <em>man</em>=to think; <a href="../cathen/06517a.htm">German</a>, <em>Mann</em>, <em>Mensch</em>).</p> <h2 id="section1">The nature of man</h2> <p>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 the <em>Arbor Porphyriana</em>, man is a substance, corporeal, living, sentient, and rational. It is a <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logical</a> 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 common <a href="../cathen/11727b.htm">personality</a>. "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 the <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholastic</a> synthesis, it is a manifest illogism to hypostasize the abstract conceptions that are <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> 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 and <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>". This is misleading. Man is not a body <em>plus</em> a <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> — which would make of him two <a href="../cathen/07762a.htm">individuals</a>; but a body that is what it is (namely, a <em>human</em> body) by reason of its union with the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>. As a special application of the general <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> of <a href="../cathen/10053b.htm">matter</a> and form which is as well a theory of <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> as of intrinsic <a href="../cathen/03459a.htm">causality</a>, 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 the <a href="../cathen/14698b.htm">Thomistic</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">"soul"</a> be <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proved</a> 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 human <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, then the "body" is not a human body. It is in this sense that the <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholastic</a> phrase "incomplete <a href="../cathen/14322c.htm">substance</a>", applied to body and <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> 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".</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>Man is an individual, a single substance resultant from the determination of matter by a human form. Being capable of reasoning, he verifies the <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophical</a> definition of a <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a>: "the individual substance of a rational nature". This <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> of <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas Aquinas</a> (cf. <a href="../summa/1075.htm#article4">I.75.4</a>) and of <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotle</a> is not the only one that has been advanced. In Greek and in modern philosophy, as well as during the Patristic and <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholastic</a> periods, another celebrated theory laid claim to pre-eminence. For <a href="../cathen/12159a.htm">Plato</a> the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> is a spirit that <em>uses</em> the body. It is in a non-natural state of union, and longs to be freed from its bodily <a href="../cathen/12430a.htm">prison</a> (cf. Republic, X, 611). <a href="../cathen/12159a.htm">Plato</a> has recourse to a theory of a triple <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> to explain the union—a theory that would seem to make <a href="../cathen/11727b.htm">personality</a> altogether impossible (see <a href="../cathen/10053b.htm">MATTER</a>). <a href="../cathen/02084a.htm">St. Augustine</a>, following him (except as to the triple-soul theory) makes the "body" and <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">"soul"</a> two substances; and man "a rational <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> 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. <a href="../cathen/02084a.htm">St. Augustine's</a> <a href="../cathen/12545b.htm">psychological</a> <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> was current in the <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">Middle Ages</a> up to the time and during the perfecting of the <a href="../cathen/14698b.htm">Thomistic</a> synthesis. It is expressed in the "Liber de Spiritu et Anima" of Alcher of Clairvaux (?) (twelfth century). In this work "the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> 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 its <a href="../cathen/12430a.htm">prison</a>" (cf. de Wulf, "History of Philosophy", tr. Coffey). As further instances of Augustinian influence may be cited Alanus ab Insulis (but the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> is united by a <em>spiritus physicus</em> to the body); <a href="../cathen/01298a.htm">Alexander of Hales</a> (union <em>ad modum formæ cum materia</em>); <a href="../cathen/02648c.htm">St. Bonaventure</a> (the body united to a <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> consisting of "form" and "spiritual matter"—<em>forma completiva</em>). Many of the <a href="../cathen/06217a.htm">Franciscan</a> <a href="../cathen/05072b.htm">doctors</a> seem, by inference if not explicitly, to lean to the <a href="../cathen/12159a.htm">Platonic</a> Augustinian view; <a href="../cathen/05194a.htm">Scotus</a>, who, however, by the subtlety of his "formal distinction <em>a parte rei</em>", saves the unity of the individual while admitting the <em>forma corporeitatis;</em> his opponent John Peter Olivi's "mode of union" of <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> and body was condemned at the Council of Vienne (1311-12).</p> <p>The theories of the nature of man so far noticed are purely <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophical</a>. No one of them has been explicitly condemned by the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. The <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">"soul"</a> 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 the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> merely reiterate the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> maintained in the School. Thus Lateran in 649 (against the <a href="../cathen/10502a.htm">Monothelites</a>), canon ii, "the <a href="../cathen/09328a.htm">Word of God</a> with the flesh assumed by Him and animated with an <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellectual</a> principle shall come . . ."; Vienne, 1311-12, "whoever shall hereafter dare to assert, maintain, or pertinaciously hold that the rational or <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellectual</a> <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> is not <em>per se</em> and essentially the form of the human body, is to be regarded as a <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretic</a>"; <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">Decree</a> of <a href="../cathen/09162a.htm">Leo X</a>, in V Lateran, <a href="../cathen/03052b.htm">Bull</a> "Apostolici Regiminis", 1513, ". . . with the approval of this sacred council we condemn all who assert that the <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellectual</a> <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> is mortal or is the same in all men . . . for the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> is not only really and essentially the form of the human body, but is also <a href="../cathen/07687a.htm">immortal</a>; and the number of <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a> has been and is to be multiplied according as the number of bodies is multiplied"; <a href="../cathen/03052b.htm">Brief</a> "Eximiam tuam" of <a href="../cathen/12134b.htm">Pius IX</a> to Cardinal de Geissel, 15 June, 1857, condemning the <a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">error</a> of Günther, says: "the rational <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> is <em>per se</em> the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> and immediate form of the body".</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>In the sixteenth century <a href="../cathen/04744b.htm">Descartes</a> advanced a <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> that again separated <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> and body, and compromised the unity of consciousness and <a href="../cathen/11727b.htm">personality</a>. To account for the interaction of the two <a href="../cathen/14322c.htm">substances</a>—the one "thought", the other "extension"— "Occasionalism" (<a href="../cathen/09568a.htm">Malebranche</a>, Geulincx), "Pre-established Harmony" (Leibniz), and "Reciprocal Influx" (Locke) were imagined. The inevitable reaction from the <a href="../cathen/04744b.htm">Cartesian</a> division is to be found in the Monism of <a href="../cathen/14217a.htm">Spinoza</a>. <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">Aquinas</a> avoids the difficulties and contradictions of the "two substance" theory and, saving the <a href="../cathen/11727b.htm">personality</a>, accounts for the observed facts of the unity of consciousness. His <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a>:</p> <div class="bulletlist"><ul><li>disproves the possibility of <a href="../cathen/10234d.htm">metempsychosis</a>;</li><li>establishes an inferential, though not an apodictic argument, for the <a href="../cathen/12792a.htm">resurrection of the body</a>;</li><li>avoids all difficulties as to the "seat of the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>", by asserting formal actuation;</li><li>proves the <a href="../cathen/07687a.htm">immortality</a> of the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> from the spiritual and incomplex activity observed in the individual man; it is not my <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> that thinks, or my body that eats, but "I" that do both.</li></ul></div> <p>The particular creation of the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> is a corollary of the foregoing. This <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> — the contradiction of Traducianism and <a href="../cathen/10234d.htm">Transmigration</a>—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" of <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas</a>, 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, <a href="../cathen/12159a.htm">Plato</a> and <a href="../cathen/11306b.htm">Origen</a> — with whom Leibniz might be grouped as professing a modified form of the same opinion—the creation of <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a> at the beginning of time).</p> <h2 id="section2">The origin of man</h2> <p>This problem may be treated from the standpoints of <a href="../bible">Holy Scripture</a>, <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theology</a>, or <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophy</a>.</p> <h3>A</h3> <p>The Sacred Writings are entirely concerned with the relations of man to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, and of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> dealings with man, before and after the Fall. Two accounts of his origin are given in the <a href="../cathen/14526a.htm">Old Testament</a>. On the sixth and last day of the creation "God created man to his own image: to the image of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> he created him" (<a href="../bible/gen001.htm#vrs27">Genesis 1:27</a>); and "the <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">Lord God</a> formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>" (<a href="../bible/gen002.htm#vrs7">Genesis 2:7</a>; so <a href="../bible/sir017.htm#vrs1">Sirach 17:1</a>: "<a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> 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 by <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> from the "slime of the earth". This becomes a "living <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>" and fashioned to the "image of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>" by the inspiration of the "breath of life", which makes man man and differentiates him from the brute.</p> <h3>B</h3> <p>This <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> is obviously to be looked for in all <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theology</a>. The origin of man by creation (as opposed to emanative and evolutionistic <a href="../cathen/11447b.htm">Pantheism</a>) is asserted in the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church's</a> <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogmas</a> and definitions. In the earliest symbols (see the Alexandrian: <em>di ou ta panta egeneto, ta en ouranois kai epi ges, horata te kai aorata</em>, and the Nicene), in the councils (see especially IV Lateran, 1215; "Creator of all things visible and invisible, spiritual and corporeal, who by this <a href="../cathen/11251c.htm">omnipotent</a> power . . . brought forth out of nothing the spiritual and corporeal creation, that, is the <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angelic</a> world and the <a href="../cathen/15183a.htm">universe</a>, and afterwards man, forming as it were one composite out of spirit and body"), in the writings of the Fathers and <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theologians</a> the same account is given. The early controversies and <a href="../cathen/01618a.htm">apologetics</a> of <a href="../cathen/04045a.htm">St. Clement of Alexandria</a> and <a href="../cathen/11306b.htm">Origen</a> defend the theory of creation against <a href="../cathen/14299a.htm">Stoics</a> and <a href="../cathen/10742b.htm">neo-Platonists</a>. <a href="../cathen/02084a.htm">St. Augustine</a> strenuously combats the <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagan</a> <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">schools</a> on this point as on that of the nature and <a href="../cathen/07687a.htm">immortality</a> of man's <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>. A masterly synthetic exposition of the <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theological</a> and <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophical</a> <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> as to man is given in the <a href="../summa">"Summa Theologica"</a> of <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas Aquinas</a> (<a href="../summa/1075.htm">I.75</a>-<a href="../summa/1111.htm">I.111</a>). So again the "Contra Gentiles", II (on creatures), especially from xlvi onwards, deals with the subject from a <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophical</a> standpoint — the distinction between the <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theological</a> and the <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophical</a> treatment having been carefully drawn in chap. iv. Note especially chap. lxxxvii, which establishes Creationism.</p> <h3>C</h3> <p><a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholastic philosophy</a> reaches a conclusion as to the origin of man similar to the teaching of revelation and <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theology</a>. Man is a creature of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> in a created <a href="../cathen/15183a.htm">universe</a>. 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 created <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> became the informing principle of matter already pre-existing in another determination. Either mode would be philosophically tenable, but the <a href="../cathen/14698b.htm">Thomistic</a> 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 (<a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas</a>, I, Q. cxviii, a. 2, ad 2um), a succession of preparatory forms preceded information by the rational <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, it nevertheless follows necessarily from the established principles of <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholasticism</a> that this, not only in the case of the <a href="../cathen/01129a.htm">first man</a>, 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 created <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> 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 of <a href="../cathen/07672a.htm">imaginative</a> life; i.e. the possibility of the presence of phantasmata. But note also the opinion that the creation of, and information by, the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> takes place at the moment of conception.</p> <h2 id="section3">The end of man</h2> <p>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. The <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> 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 of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, which is the end of all creation. <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> 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 by <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>) future existence, as <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proved</a> in <a href="../cathen/12545b.htm">psychology</a>, 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 the <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> of moral philosophy, which thus presupposes as its ground, <a href="../cathen/10226a.htm">metaphysics</a>, <a href="../cathen/04413a.htm">cosmology</a>, and <a href="../cathen/12545b.htm">psychology</a>. The distinction of <a href="../cathen/06636b.htm">good</a> and <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a> rests upon the consonance or discrepancy of <a href="../cathen/01115a.htm">human acts</a> with the nature of man thus considered; and moral <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a> has its root in the absolute necessity and immutability of the same relation.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>With regard to the last end of man (as "man" and not as "soul"), it is not universally held by <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholastics</a> that the <a href="../cathen/12792a.htm">resurrection of the body</a> is <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proved</a> apodictically in <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophy</a>. Indeed some (e.g. <a href="../cathen/05194a.htm">Scotus</a>, Occam) have even denied that the <a href="../cathen/07687a.htm">immortality</a> of the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> is capable of such demonstration. The <a href="../cathen/12792a.htm">resurrection</a> is an <a href="../cathen/01755d.htm">article of faith</a>. Some recent authors, however (see Cardinal Mercier, "Psychologie", II, 370), advance the argument that the formation of a new body is naturally <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> on account of the perfect final <a href="../cathen/07131b.htm">happiness</a> of the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, for which it is a condition <em>sine qua non</em>. A more cogent form of the <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> would seem to lie in the consideration that the separated <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> is not complete in <em>ratione naturæ</em>. 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.</p> <p>But there is <em>de facto</em> another end of man. The <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">Faith</a> teaches that man has been raised to a <a href="../cathen/14336b.htm">supernatural</a> state and that his destiny, as a son of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> and member of the <a href="../cathen/10663a.htm">Mystical Body</a> of which Christ is the Head, is the eternal enjoyment of the <a href="../cathen/02364a.htm">beatific vision</a>. In virtue of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> infallible promise, in the present <a href="../cathen/05041a.htm">dispensation</a> the creature enters into the covenant by <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>; he becomes a subject elevated by grace to a new order, incorporated into a <a href="../cathen/14074a.htm">society</a> by reason of which he tends and is brought to a perfection not due to his nature (see <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">CHURCH</a>). The means to this end are justification by the merits of Christ communicated to man, co-operation with grace, the <a href="../cathen/13295a.htm">sacraments</a>, <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayer</a>, <a href="../cathen/06636b.htm">good</a> <a href="../cathen/01115a.htm">works</a>, etc. The <a href="../cathen/09071a.htm">Divine law</a> which the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> obeys rests on this <a href="../cathen/14336b.htm">supernatural</a> relation and is enforced with a similar sanction. The whole pertains to a <a href="../cathen/14336b.htm">supernatural</a> providence which belongs not to <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophical</a> speculation but to revelation and <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theological</a> <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a>. In the light of the finalistic <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> 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.</p> <p>The theories that are sometimes put forward of the place of man in the <a href="../cathen/15183a.htm">universe</a>, 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 human <a href="../cathen/10715a.htm">nature</a>. If the <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellectual</a> 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 the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> 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 the <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a> 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.</p> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-bottom' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <div class="cenotes"><h2>Sources</h2><p class="cenotes">ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, <em>Opera</em> (Parma, 1852-72); BRADLEY, <em>Appearance and Reality</em> (London, 1890); CATHREIN, <em>Philosophia Moralis</em> (Freiburg, 1895), DR WULF, <em>Historie de la Philosophie Médiévale</em> (Louvain, 1905), tr. COFFEY (London, 1909); DUCKWORTH in <em>Cambridge Theologial Essays</em> (London 1905); HAGENBACH, <em>History of Doctrines</em> (Edinburgh, 1846); HURTER, <em>Theologiæ Dogmaticæ Compendium</em> (Innsbruck, 1896); LODGE, <em>Substance of Faith</em> (London, 1907); LOTZE, <em>Microkosmos</em> (Edinburgh, 1885); MAHER, <em>Psychology</em> in <em>Stonyhurst Series</em> (London, 1890); MERCIER, <em>Psychologie</em> (Louvain, 1908); NIETZSCHE, <em>Jenseits von Gut und Böse</em> (Leipzig, 1886); NYS, <em>Cosmologie</em> (Louvain, 1906); RICKABY, <em>Moral Philosophy</em> in <em>Stonyhurst Series</em> (London, 1888); RITTER AND PRELLE, <em>Historia Philosophiæ Graecæ</em> (Gotha, 1888); SCOTUS, <em>Opera</em> (Lyons, 1639); SUAREZ, <em>Metaphysicarum Disputationum tomi duo</em> (Mainz, 1605); WINDELBAND, tr. TUFTS, <em>History of Philosophy</em> (New York, 1893).</p></div> <div class="pub"><h2>About this page</h2><p id="apa"><strong>APA citation.</strong> <span id="apaauthor">Aveling, F.</span> <span id="apayear">(1910).</span> <span id="apaarticle">Man.</span> In <span id="apawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="apapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company.</span> <span id="apaurl">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09580c.htm</span></p><p id="mla"><strong>MLA citation.</strong> <span id="mlaauthor">Aveling, Francis.</span> <span id="mlaarticle">"Man."</span> <span id="mlawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="mlavolume">Vol. 9.</span> <span id="mlapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company,</span> <span id="mlayear">1910.</span> <span id="mlaurl"><http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09580c.htm>.</span></p><p id="transcription"><strong>Transcription.</strong> <span id="transcriber">This article was transcribed for New Advent by Douglas J. Potter.</span> <span id="dedication">Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.</span></p><p id="approbation"><strong>Ecclesiastical approbation.</strong> <span id="nihil"><em>Nihil Obstat.</em> October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, Censor.</span> <span id="imprimatur"><em>Imprimatur.</em> +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.</span></p><p id="contactus"><strong>Contact information.</strong> The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster <em>at</em> newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.</p></div> </div> <div id="ogdenville"><table summary="Bottom bar" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"><center><strong>Copyright © 2023 by <a href="../utility/contactus.htm">New Advent LLC</a>. 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