REAL debate thread for RELIGION

[Guillaume le Maréchal]

Ruinel, I agree with what you said earlier about capitalism/communism (though not the Godless, part, I suppose), and I am definitely in agreement with your most recent proviso. Human nature is not sinful, but is basically, or essentially, good, just as everything that exists, because they have being, is good. The one truly noble aspect of Catholic theological anthropology is that throughout the history of Christianity it has insisted upon the essential dignity of not just the essence of humanity, but also the dignity of the human person. But as Boethius points out, there is a rather big difference between being good and acting good: Being good has to do with essence whereas being just has to do with action. In Him [the Good] being and action are one and the same and therefore being good is the same as being just. But for us being and action are not one and the same. For we are not simple beings. Therefore, being good and being just are not one and the same for us. But being in essence is the same for all of us. Therefore, all things are good but not al things are just. Moreover, the good is something general wereas the just is something specific and this species does not extend to all things. Wherefore, some things are just, others are something else, but all things are good (Quomodo substantiae in eo quod sint bonae sint cum non sint substantialia bona, 50).

I also agree with your statement, “we are creatures of desire and wants,� properly understood, of course. All human action is dependant on volition in as much as all human action is directed toward an object of desire. However, to speak of will in any way that displaces reason from its proper place, as the master of the will, is to sink the will to the level of base desire. Boetius of Dacia has this to say: The supreme good for man should be his in terms of his highest power, and not according to the vegetative soul, which is also found in animals and from which their sensual pleasures arise. But man’s highest power is his reason and intellect. Therefore, men who are so weighed down by sense pleasures that they lose intellectual goods should grieve. For they never attain their supreme good. It is insofar as they are given to the senses that they do not seek that which is the good of the intellect itself. Against these the Philosopher [Aristotle] protests, saying: “Woe to you men who are numbered among beasts and who do not attend to that which is divine within you!� He calls the intellect that which is divine in man. For if there is anything divine in man, it is right for it to be the power of reason. Just as that which is best among all beings is divine, so also that which is best in man we call divine (De summo bono, 212). In other words, not all desires lead human beings down the path toward Aristotle’s happy life.

Of course, Aristotle, himself, is in complete agreement: Thus we see that the irrational element of the soul has two parts: the one is vegetative and has no share in reason at all, the other is the seat of the appetites and of desire in general and partakes of reason insofar as it complies with reason and accepts its leadership; it possesses reason in the sense that we say its “reasonable� to accept the advice of a father and of friends, not in the sense that we have a “rational� understanding of mathematical propositions. That the irrational element can be persuaded by the rational is shown by the fact that admonition and all manner of rebuke and exhortation are possible. If it is correct to say that the appetitive part, too, ahs reason, it follows that the rational element of the soul has two subdivisions: the one possesses reason in the strict sense, contained within itself, and the other possesses reason in the sense that it listens to reason as one would listen to a father (Nicomachean Ethics, I, 13).