Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Human Person As An Embodied Spirit Lesson 3
The Human Person As An Embodied Spirit Lesson 3
Embodied Spirit
(Recognize Own Limitations
and Possibilities)
Man is not only body, but he is something infinitely higher. Of all
the animal creations of God, man is the only animal who has
been created in order that he may know his maker. Man’s aim in
life is not to add from day to day to his material prospects and to
his material possessions but his predominant calling is from day
to day to come nearer to his maker [Mohandas Gandhi, 1948].
To recognize our own limitations and possibilities it is
right to know where we are, what is our world.
Human beings participate in both the senses and the ideal world
because they have a material body and immaterial soul, synthesis
of change and permanence.
Human beings is a body and soul, according to Plato,
body is evil for it is inclined to temporal things; objected
to temporal satisfaction and happiness.
As stated by Origen, a Christian theologian and philosopher that is
also a Platonian “all rational beings were once pure intellects in the
presence of God, and would remain so forever had they not fallen
away through Koros (satiety).”
However, failure to recall everything the soul used to know, the soul has to
undergo another imprisonment and this process will continually occur until the
soul is ready to go back to its place in the world of forms.
The freedom of the soul from the body, its imprisonment is
transcendence.
Transcendence is the existence that is present beyond normal or
physical level.
Transcendence means that: “I am my body but at the same time I
am more than my body. The things that I do, all those physical
activities and attributes which are made real through my body,
reveals the person that I am”.
Three main spiritual philosophies:
Hinduism is the belief in karma and reincarnation.
• Brahman is Self-Hood Hinduism lies the idea of human being's quest for
absolute truth, so that one's soul and the Brahman or Atman (Absolute
Soul) might become one. For the Indians, God first created sound and the
universe arose from it.
• The Aum (Om) is the root of the universe and everything that exists and it
continues to hold everything together, the most sacred sound in which the
universe arose from and was the first thing God created
Four primary values of Hindus:
wealth, pleasure, duty and enlightenment
Wealth and Pleasure are worldly values, but when kept in perspective they
are good and desirable.
The spiritual value of duty, or righteousness, refers to patience, sincerity,
forgiveness, love, honesty and similar virtues.
The spiritual value, though, is enlightenment, by which one is illuminated and
liberated and most importantly, finds release from the wheel of existence.
Buddhism is the life experience and teaching of Prince Siddhartha
Gautama (Buddha -he who achieves his aim), a tradition that focuses on
personal spiritual development, solutions is lay in his own mind and is
famous for its belief in Nirvana; a place of perfect peace and happiness.
Buddhism, contained in the teachings of its founder, Siddhartha Gautama or
Buddha. The teaching of highborn Prince Gautama of the Sakya clan in the
kingdom of Magadha, lived from 560 to 477 B.C, sprang the religious
philosophy we know as Buddhism.
Turning away from the Hindu polytheism and palace pleasures, searching for
answers to the riddle of life's sufferings, disease, old age and death. Gautama's
life was devoted to sharing his "Dharma" or Law of Salvation; a
presentation of the gospel of inner cultivation or right spiritual attitudes.
Buddha set about sharing his discovery with anyone who would listen to him:
Four Noble Truths leading to the Eightfold Path to perfect character of arhatship Gautama taught:
The Law and Cause and Effect (Karma) are overcome; the cycle of
rebirth is broken; and one may rest in the calm assurance of having
attained a heavenly bliss that will stretch out into all eternity.
Sangha, or Order of Monks and later the nuns also monks, nuns, laymen, laywomen). With
single-heart purpose, this brotherhood of believers dedicated itself to a life of self-
purification, in total loyalty to the Buddha,
The Dharma and Sangha. Committed itself to a life of poverty whose sole aims was the
evangelization.
For Augustine's Christianity, the revelation of the true God, is the only full and
true philosophy.
All Knowledge leads to God, so that faith supplements and enlightens reason that
it may proceed to ever richer and fuller understanding.
St. Thomas of Aquinas, another medieval philosopher, of all creatures, human
beings have the unique power to change themselves and the things for the
better.
His philosophy is best grasped in his treatises Summa Contra Gentiles and
Summa Theologica. Considers human as moral agent, the spiritual and
material and that choosing between 'good' or 'evil' is our responsibility.