TRANSCENDENCE

Limitations & Transcendence of Man

 Reference:

• The contents of these slides are either direct

quotes, paraphrases or commentaries on:
– YEPES STORK, Ricardo, Fundamentos de
Antropologia: Un Ideal de la Excelencia Humana,
EUNSA, Pamplona, 1996, pp. 439-500.
THE LIMITATIONS OF MAN
 Limitations of Man

• The limitations of man are very clear: he

suffers fear, sadness, pain and death. His life
seems cannot be as perfect as he would
always want.
 Limitations of Man

• The reason for this limitation is the fact that

man is a living embodied creature. His
bodiliness puts limits and contingency in his
life.
 Limitations of Man

• Therefore, pain and suffering are inescapable,

and we need to somehow know what attitude
we should take in the face of pain and
suffering.
 Limitations of Man

• As we might know, Buddha had pondered on

the mystery of pain and suffering.
• The solution he found was Enlightenment with
the annihilation of desire as the way to
annihilate pain and sorrow.
 Limitations of Man
• Yepes Stork suggests the following:
1. The first thing to do is to accept pain,
sorrow and suffering as an ordinary part of
our life, even though it often a dramatic
moment of our existence.
This is the reason why it is often depicted
in art, especially in drama.
Acceptance of pain and sorrow brings
about a certain maturity in us.
 Limitations of Man
2. The maturity brings about a certain elevation
and purification, a catharsis. The acceptance
brings about and understanding of what is
truly important to us and what is not.
We will then understand the relative
importance of comforts and “needs” that we
thought we could never live without.
As in Buddhism, this catharsis distances us
from our desires.
 Limitations of Man
3. Suffering becomes even more meaningful
and easy to bear when it is the type of
suffering that means suffering for others.
In this type of suffering, love for the other
person is the reason why we are brave and
strong enough to bear the burden of
suffering, because we know that it is for
the good of someone we love.
DEATH
 Death

• Death is the ultimate limitation of man.

• It is the end of life, which is the only
experience of existence we really have.
• And death puts an end to that existence.
 Death

• During the entire length of human

history, the question of what happens to
“me” after I die continuously pops up.
• There seems to be great evidence in this
of man’s deep desire not to lose his
existence.
 Death
• Again, in the whole history of humankind,
several answers have been given to the
question “what will happen to me after I die”?
– The answer of scientific positivism.
– The hedonistic answer.
– The nihilist answer.
– The skeptic, fatalist or frivolous answer.
– The religious answer.
 1. Scientific Positivism

• For scientific positivism, the question “what

will happen to me after I die?” is meaningless
since we can’t answer it. We can have no
empirical data about what happens after we
die.
 1. Scientific Positivism

• The question of life after death is a non-issue

in scientific positivism.
• The only this of interest is what happens
within the framework of our experience.
• So this question is not answered or paid
attention to.
 2. Hedonism

• For the Hedonists, somewhat like the

positivists, the only life is this one.
• Man was made to live this life to the full.
• So the hedonist pays attention to this life
and sets aside the question about the
after life.
 3. Nihilism

• The answer of the nihilist is similar in the

sense that the nihilist just accepts our
complete annihilation at the moment of
death.
• Nothing of the “me” will be left, so we
better just accept it as a fact.
• Like the first two, nihilism is a materialist
view of man.
 4. Fatalist, Skeptic, Frivolous

• The fatalist, like the nihilist, encourages us

just to accept our fate.
• The skeptic doubts seriously any thought
about the afterlife that has not clear
empirical proof.
• The frivolous person does not want to
think about it, much like the hedonist.
 5. The Religious Reply
• Religion has always presented itself as
an explanation of what lies beyond this
life.
• And, even when we had already
entered the time of science, empiricism
and positivism, it still persists and is
accepted by a great majority of men as
the answer to the question “what will
happen to me after I die?”.
 5. The Religious Reply

• Religion is therefore completely unashamed to

confirm that, yes, there is life after death.
 5. The Religious Reply

• The specific claims of the different religions do

not rely on empirical data and, therefore, we
cannot “prove” it like we prove something in
science or philosophy.
 5. The Religious Reply

• But what we can do is to investigate on why

man seems to need religion, and even
investigate the possibility of immortality as
Plato had done in his dialogue Phaedo.
MAN’S DESIRE TO LIVE FOREVER
 Desire for Immortality

• Yepes Stork approaches the “proof of

immortality” by starting with the
experience of love.
• For the strange thing about love is that the
most authentic type of love aspires to
endure forever.
 Desire for Immortality

• If there is absolutely no immortality in

man, then complete and unending love
would not only be meaningless but it
should cease to be an aspiration of man.
• And yet the experience of humankind is
that a complete and unending love
seems to exist.
 Desire for Immortality

• This complete and unending love is what

makes a person be willing to die for the
sake of the person they love.
• They do not say: “I have to continue
living so that my love can endure (with
me, while I live).”
• They say: “My death is proof that my
love goes beyond death.”
 Desire for Immortality

• The second reality that is at complete

odds with a nihilistic death is the idea of
true happiness.
• This is exactly what man is looking for
and not something else.
• If everything ends with death, then
there is no true happiness.
 Desire for Immortality

• The pursuit of true happiness is not the

same as the pursuit of maximum pleasure
(which the hedonists prescribe).
• If true happiness exists, then somehow
man should not die.
• If man is immortal then love is stronger
than death.
BODY AND SOUL
 Body and Soul

• Also from the beginning of the history of

humankind, man has referred to the life
principle as something different from the
body.
• In fact, the difference is what explain
death: when the life principle leaves, the
body dies.
 Body and Soul

• The issue of the existence and

immortality of the soul has been tackled
in Plato’s dialogue Phaedo.
• The discussion seems believable from
the metaphysical philosophy point of
view.
 Body and Soul

• We acknowledge the attitudes that reject

the existence of the soul, which are
basically the same as those mentioned
above as regards the attitude towards
death: scientific positivism, hedonism,
nihilism, skepticism, etc.
 Body and Soul
• All those attitudes suddenly end their
argumentation at the moment of the
non-acceptance of the enduring side of
man.
• Since all the other attitudes go quiet at
this point, we now pursue the only
remaining attitude that seems willing to
continue: the religious attitude that
accepts the possibility of an enduring
part of man.
 Body and Soul

• The reasoning of Yepes Stork is interesting:

death is a reality, and yet there is enduring
love.
• His conclusion: there must be a part of man
that truly suffers death, and another part of
him that continues to live.
• This is what will make both experiences
valid.
 Body and Soul

• The existence of the two parts—one part that

dies and another that continues to live—
connects seamlessly with the ancient concept
of the composition of man as body and soul.
 Body and Soul

• The part that dies is what makes it

possible for man to participate in the life
of this material world.
• The part that does not die, is the part
that gives the transcendent experience of
may while he is still biologically alive.
 Body and Soul

• It is the soul, not the body, which makes

man capable of loving perfectly and
forever.
• It is the soul, not the body, which enjoys
true happiness.
• It is the soul that experiences true love
and true joy (beatitude).
RELIGION
 Religion
• We can approach the reality of religion
in two ways:
– The first way is as a body of knowledge
about the afterlife which rings true in the
heart of man but cannot be proven
empirically;
– The second way is as a phenomenon in
man that reaches out towards
transcendence and expresses externally
this attempt to reach out.
 Religion

• We shall not discuss the first way, because

that properly belongs to theology, although
the contents of the claims can be critically
assessed and analyzed by philosophy and
science.
 Religion

• We are interested in discussing the second

way, for that is very fitting for Philosophy of
Man: how to explain why man likes religion.
 Religion
• As we said, there are two enduring
transcendent ideas that seem to be
entrenched in man’s heart:
– The spontaneous expression of complete and
endless love to persons who are very special
to him; and
– His desire for true happiness which,
essentially, should be unending.
 Religion

• As we have seen in the previous lessons, man

celebrates deep values like these with symbols
and rites.
 Religion

• From the point of view of the genesis of

culture, religion is this: man’s effort to
remember these transcendent values and to
represent them with symbols and rites.
 Religion

• In Philosophy of Religion, Theodicy and

possibly in the subjects about individual
philosophers, like Thomas Aquinas, the
students of the Faculty of Philosophy will
tackle the proofs of the existence of God.
 Religion

• Because it will be tackled in other subjects, we

will not discuss the proofs of the existence of
God here.
• It is enough to keep in mind that some
philosophies think that the proof of the
existence of God is possible.
 Relgion

• If the truth of the existence of God, especially

God as the Creator of man, is reachable for
the human being, then God will become part
of all discussion about the afterlife and
religion.
 Religion

• The possibility of proving the existence of God

seems to be the reason why He is present in
most religions.
 Religion

• When God is present in religion, then

that religion (which is true for the great
religions of this world) would not only be
a celebration of transcendent ideas but
also and primarily an attempt to
communicate with that God who has
created us.
 Religion & Ethics

• Although the topic is interesting and much can

be said about it, in this lesson we are merely
going to say that, in the majority of cases,
religion has been a guarantee for ethical
behavior.
 Religion & Ethics

• The question of what will happen to man in

the afterlife, dovetails seamlessly with the
obligation to act ethically in this one.
 Religion & Ethics

• Several approaches have been served by

the religions of this earth as regards this.
• Two of the widely-accepted ones are: (1)
eternal retribution, that is, reward or
punishment after this life; and (2)
reincarnation, which involves repetitions
of earthly live until reaching eternal
bliss.
Acknowledgements:
 Pictures:

• The Death of Socrates:

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/501955/15-things-you-
should-know-about-jacques-louis-davids-death-socrates

• The soul rising: https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-

free-stock-photo-rising-body-ray-image15436335

• Dove: https://www.healyourlife.com/how-to-ascend-to-
higher-realms