This document discusses different philosophical perspectives on the human person as an embodied spirit. It discusses views from Plato that the soul is immortal and imprisoned in the body, participating in both the material world of senses and the ideal world of forms. It describes perspectives from Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity on the relationship between body and soul. Hinduism believes in karma and reincarnation until enlightenment is reached. Buddhism's teachings aim to end suffering through the Noble Eightfold Path. For Christians like Augustine, knowledge leads to God and faith supplements reason.

1. The Human Person As An
Embodied Spirit
(Recognize Own Limitations
and Possibilities)

2. 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].

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

4. The world of Sense which is proposed and believed by
Heraclitus, 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.
Heraclitus proves this through the statements “Cold things
grow hot, the hot cools, the wet dries, the parched moistens.”
and “We both step and do not step into the same revers. We
are and we are not.”

5. The world of Forms which is proposed by Parmenides who
influenced Plato in this type of world is a world that is
eternal, perfect and unchanging.
Parmenides proved the world of Forms by his statement “
We can speak and think only of what exists. And what
exists is uncreated and imperishable for it is whole and
unchanging and complete. It was not or nor shall be
different since it is now, all at once, one and continuous.

6. For Plato, reality is eternal and unchanging, it is the real
world, the world of forms. Everything in the world of senses
is but an imitation or a mere shadow of the ideal.
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.

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. 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).”
Because of koros (sin) or our transgression and disobedience
to God we are punished by being given a body.

9. 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. 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”.

11. Three main spiritual philosophies:

12. Hinduismis 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
it continues to hold everything together, the most sacred sound in
the universe arose from and was the first thing God created

13. 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.

14. Buddhismis 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.

15. 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.

16. 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:
Four Noble Truths:
1. Life is full of suffering.
2. Suffering is caused by
passionate attachment to
desires, lusts, cravings;
3. Suffering can be ended by
overcoming attachment to
desires
4. To end suffering is the
Noble Eightfold Path
Noble Eightfold Path:
1. Right understanding/belief in the acceptance of
the "Fourfold Truth"
2. Right intent/aspiration for one's self and others;
3. Right speech that harms no one;
4. Right action/conduct, motivated by goodwill
toward all human beings;
5. Right means of livelihood, or earning one's living
by honorable means;
6. Right endeavor, or effort to direct one's energies
towards wise ends;
7. Right mindfulness, in choosing topics for
thought, and
8. Right meditation, or concentration to the point
of complete absorption in mystic ecstasy

17. The way to salvation, lies through self-abnegation, rigid
discipline of mind and body, a consuming of love for all
creatures, and the final achievement of that state of
consciousness which marks an individual's preparation for
entering the Nirvana (enlightened wisdom).
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.

18. 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.
The Buddhist practice four states of sublime condition:
love, sorrow of others, joy in the joy of others and
equanimity as regards one's own joy and sorrows.

19. Christianity is the religion based upon the teachings and miracles
of Jesus where there is only one God. Suffering leads to the Cross, the
symbol of reality of God's saving love for the human being and Evil is
being disobedient, contradicting the nature of God and distancing to
God.

20. For Augustine (354-430 CE), philosophy is amor sapiential, the love of
wisdom; its aim is to produce happiness.
Wisdom is not just an abstract logical construction; but it is substantially
existent as the Divine Logos. Hence, Philosophy is the love of God; It is then
religious. Teaching of Christianity are based of love of God.
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.

21. 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.