The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit - Philosophy

1. The Human Person as an
Embodied Spirit
Lesson 3

2. Mohandas Gandhi, 1948
“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”

3. To recognize our own limitations and
possibilities it is right to know where
we are, what our world is.

4. According to Plato reality is made up of two
worlds namely, the world of Forms and the world
of Sense where human beings participate in both
these different worlds.

5. Heraclitus
 Proposed and believed that the world of
Sense is the world we see, experience, the
world of objects; a world of change, it is
made up of matter and is bound to
decomposition.
(The world of sense is the physical world.)

6. Parmenides
Proposed and influenced Plato in this type
of world ;the world of Forms is a world that
is eternal, perfect and unchanging.

7. 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.

8. Origen, a Christian theologian and philosopher
“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).”

9. Because of koros (sin) or our transgression and disobedience
to God we are punished by being given a body. To be free it
is a human task to gradually recollect the ideas the soul used
to know through education in order for it to be released from
being imprisoned in our body and be able to return to its
place in the world of forms, for the soul is superior and exists
eternally even after the body evanesces gradually. 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.

10. Human Composition
1. Monism. This theory holds that man is
composed of one basic substance or principle
as the ground of reality. In other words, the
reality of man consists of a single element,
whether matter or spirit.

11. Human Composition
2. Dualism. This theory holds that man is
made up of two irreducible elements—matter
and spirit.

12. Human Composition
2. Dualism. This theory holds that man is made up of
two irreducible elements—matter and spirit.
a. First View. Man’s matter and spirit are two
independent entities and they interact with each
other. As two independent elements, it is possible for
the spirit and the body to either temporarily or
permanently separate at a particular period of time.

13. Human Composition
2. Dualism
b. Second View. Man is matter-spirit.
c. Third View [Biblical View]. Man is
made up of body, soul, and spirit.

14. Man as the Living or Metaphysical
Paradox
 Man as Finite and Infinite;
Mortal and Immortal
 Man as Individual and
Universal
 Man as Changing and Permanent

15. Man as Finite and
Infinite; Mortal and
Immortal
Man is finite and infinite, mortal and
immortal. “Man is flesh [and] spirit in
divided union” [Felix Montemayor].

16. Universal
As a living existential reality, man is invested with
individuality, i.e., with individuating, differentiating,
accidental characteristics, such as height, weight,
complexion, sex, size, and all those qualities by
which he is physically and personally identified. As a
human being he shares the same human nature
with all other men, and is therefore a universal
human entity.

17. Man as Changing and Permanent
The most undeniable fact about man is that he constantly
changes. Yet equally undeniable and indisputable is that
he remains unchanged by change. He remains the same
before, during, and after the change. For example, in the
Law of Obligation and Contracts, the same person who
borrowed money, say 10 years ago, is the same person to
pay despite the many changes that took place in him in
the interval—physical, physiological, psychological, etc.
[Montemayor, 1995]