MAN: THE CROWN OF CREATION The different facets of man’s being
 Man and religion‐ refers to the “human‐Divine”
Flower in the Crannied Wall
by Alfred Tennyson
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies;    Man and social relations‐ man by nature and
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower ‐ but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
A Christian Philosophy of Man
 Man is considered as the crown of all of God’s
creation because he is the only created thing
made in the “image” and “likeness” of God and,
therefore, uniquely distinct in his existence.  No
other creature is like man; he is one of a
kind.  Only man has been “crowned with glory
and honor.”
 Moreover, according to the Holy Writ, man,
following his redemption by the Savior from
eternal bondage, now shares in the infinite
merits of his Redeemer and has become not
only the inheritor of the new earth but also the
heir of the heavenly kingdom (Montemayor,
2008).
partnership and communion.
 Man and Morality‐ morality connects good
moral conduct with happiness, the goal of man.   
This relation constitutes the human activity
which is attributed to Ethics.
inclination tends towards group life.    This
human activity results to a social relationship.
 Man and Politics ‐ refers to the relationship of
man and the state, the ruler and the ruled.
 Man and Economics‐ because man has the
natural right to live, he has the right to satisfy
his wants and needs such as food, shelter,
clothing...etc.    The relation of man with
material goods which are necessary for his
survival is governed by a branch of social
science called Economics.
The Gifts of Man
Purpose of Man’s Gifts
 To serve for the betterment and perfection not
only for the individual man but for all humanity
of which he is inseparably a member
(Montemayor, 2008)
 Intended to be dynamic and dialectically
directed towards man’s supreme purpose and
destiny which is happiness ‐ not only for himself
but of all human beings
“Whoever has received from the divine bounty a large
share of temporal blessings, whether they be external
and corporeal, or gifts of the mind, has received them
for the purpose of using them for the perfecting of his
own nature, and, at the same time, that he may employ
them, as the steward of God's Providence, for the
benefit of others.”
 ST.  AUGUSTINE’S PHILOSOPHY OF MAN Christianity, she had successfully attracted her
husband to Catholic faith.
Biblical  Augustine studied at Madaura (a pagan place)
1 John 4:8 1 John 4:1b
Versions where he enriched his knowledge about Latin
“whoever does “God is love. literature and grammar.  His mother, who was a
New not love does Whoever lives devoted Catholic, failed to transform her son to
International not know God, in love lives in become a religious child.
Version because God is God, and God in  Augustine, as a youth was influenced to indulge
love” him”
into the doctrines of
“God is love,
“anyone who Manicheans. Manichaeanism is a belief
and whoever
English does not love founded by Iranian prophet, Mani.    It is a
abides in love
Standard does not know combination of Persian and Christian beliefs
abides in God,
Version God, because which claims that the soul is the product of
and God abides
God is love” good principle because it is eternal and
in him”
“but anyone “God is love, composed of light while the body is composed
who does not and all who live of evil principle.
New Living
love does not in love live in  Later on, Augustine was influenced by the Neo‐
Translation
know God, for God, and God Platonists, whose influence is discernible
God is love” lives in them” throughout his writings.
“God is love,  While working as a professor of rhetoric in
“he who does and he who Milan, Augustine was influenced by
New King James not love does abides in love St.  Ambrose, bishop of Milan, who succeeded
Version not know God, abides in God,
in leading him into the Christian fold.
for God is love” and God in
him”
 Augustine was appointed as bishop of Hippo
“God is love; (present‐day Annaba, Algeria) in 395 and
“he that loveth and he that dedicated the remainder of his life to the
King James not knoweth dwelleth in love strengthening of the church, especially in North
Version not God; for dwelleth in Africa.
God is love” God, and God in
him” St.    Augustine on the Meaning of Philosophy

 Philosophy, according to Augustine is amor

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart,
with thy whole soul and with thy whole strength; and
for love of God thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Life of St.    Augustine
 Born in 354 A.D.  in Thagaste, a province of a
Roman City in North Africa which is now the
Souk Ahras, Algeria.
 He came from a poor family, with
unconsolidated religion.   His father, Patricius
was a pagan and his mother, Monica was a
devoted Christian.  Because of her devotion to
sapientel or love of wisdom which aims to
produce happiness that can only be found in
God alone.  According to Augustine, Plato’s and
Aristotle’s imperfectly perceived God in their
concept of the absolute and immutable good,
the summum bonum, should be seen with the
aid of the light of divine revelation as the living
personal God, the creator of all things and the
supreme ruler of the universe.  The idea of the
Good of Plato is revealed, to Augustine as the
living reality, God (Montemayor, 2008).   
 Philosophy to St.  Augustine is insufficient in
itself in discovering this blessed life.  It does
however offer a means to improve the
understanding of the faith and hence is a
 positive asset in the rational approach to the
love of God.  The place of rationalism is clear in
the famous maxim Credo ut intelligam (I
believe in order to understand), an expression
of the preeminence given by Augustine to faith
over reason (Nabor‐Nery, 2006).
St.    Augustine on Moral Evil and Moral Obligation
St.  Augustine on Moral Evil
 Moral evil according to St. Augustine is man’s
abuse or misuse of his freedom. Man naturally
tends towards the good, but owing to his free
nature, there is always a possibility that he may
choose to turn away from good and cling
instead to the goods of this earth even if it
means the loss of his supreme end and
purpose.  God enables humans to freely choose
their actions and deeds, and in some cases, evil
inevitably results from these choices.
 On the question, “if God created the universe
and everything in it, and God is both
omnipotent and perfect, then why does evil
exist?” Augustine went on to explain that evil
(including physical evil such as pain, etc.) is the
very negation and privation of being and,
therefore, cannot be the object of God’s
positive act of creation.
Moral Obligation
 Physically man is free, yet morally bound to
obey the law.   This Eternal law is God himself.   
According to this law, humanity must do good
and avoid evil; hence, the existence of moral
obligation in every human being.
 According to St.  Augustine, living a Christian life
is not easy.   However, no human being should
become an end to himself.   We are responsible
St.    Augustine's Spiritual Ladder:
to our neighbors as we are to our own actions
Mounting To Eternal Wisdom
(Hare, et.al., 1991).
St.    Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge
 Man’s effort to search for the true knowledge
does not intend to have an academic
satisfaction.  Instead, Augustine postulated that
the main purpose of the continuing search for
the absolute truth/knowledge is to bring
happiness (beatitude) to the soul.  He also
interpreted this precept in a religious way when
Augustine stated that the knowledge of truth is
synonymous to finding Christ and the Christian
wisdom.
 Although Augustine was skeptic in determining
the certainty of existing principles/phenomena,
his theory of knowledge believes that there is
such a thing as “principle of contradiction” and
“principle of subjective impression.”
o Principle of Contradiction‐ every
principle has both affirmative and
negative sides.  If it can be said that the
universe is expanding, it can also state
that the universe is static.
o Principle of Subjective Impression‐ in
this principle, a theorist or a thinker is
certain that s/he has subjective insight
about a particular issue /
phenomenon.  For instance, if a person
states that, “this subject seems hard to
me,” skeptics could not argue if the
statement is certain or not.    The
aforementioned statement is the
product of subjective impression.
 Augustine believed that the lowest form of
knowledge is that of the senses or sense‐
knowledge.   Knowledge is composed of two
levels: the lowest level, which is the sensation
(uses senses/body parts to acquire knowledge
and which is common to man) and the highest
level, which pertains to wisdom.  As man ascend
higher to knowledge of rational principles, it is
the will that directs the mind’s eye to the truth,
first invading into the mind itself, and then
upward to the eternal truth.  
Seven Steps
 Fear  ‐  it is from fearing God that we first learn
to recognize His Will: what He wants us to do
and what He wants us to avoid.   
 Piety  ‐ fear is tempered by piety, by which we
become gentle and humble.   
 Knowledge ‐ learning to love God for His own
sake and love your neighbor as yourself, for His
sake.
 Fortitude ‐ it is to maintain courage, no matter
what the cost, in our efforts to obtain True
Justice‐‐ which is giving God and our fellow men
their due, not about getting what “I want.”
 Counsel of compassion/mercy  ‐ it is the act of
counseling mercy and kindness towards one’s
neighbors in the treatment of one’s own soul.
 Purification of heart ‐ when we can truly see
that the more we cleanse ourselves of the love
of inferior things in this world, the closer we
come to seeing God.
 Wisdom ‐ at this level God so cleanses the heart
that we rarely compare our neighbors or other
creatures to Him by choosing these 'lesser gods'
over Him.   Moreover, souls will be so holy and
on fire with love of God at this stage, that they
will seldom prefer to turn away from the
Eternal Truth, through a desire for pleasing men
or self‐gratification, no matter what.   
 ST.  THOMAS AQUINAS’ PHILOSOPHY OF
MAN
Life of St. Thomas Aquinas
 St. Thomas, the offspring of Italian nobility, was
born in the family castle of Roccasecca north of
Naples in about 1225.   then the first object in motion needed a
 While a student at the University of Naples,
Thomas met the Dominican friars and received
the habit. Thomas’ family, preferring for him
the powerful position of abbot of the
Benedictine Abbey Monte Cassino, rather than
life as a begging friar in a humble new order,
had him kidnapped and imprisoned, in the hope
that this would change his mind.  
 Thomas’ brothers even sought to destroy his
vocation by sending a prostitute to seduce him,
but the young Thomas drove her from his cell
with a flaming torch, then knelt and prayed for
deliverance from all temptations against
chastity. God sent angels to minister to Thomas
and to gird him with a cincture of perpetual
chastity.
 After a year of imprisonment, Thomas escaped
with the help of his sisters and returned to the
Dominicans.
 Following a period of formation and study at
Cologne and Paris under the tutelage of St.
Albert the Great, Thomas began his life’s work
of teaching and writing.
“St. Thomas Aquinas is generally acclaimed as the
greatest Theologian in the history of mankind for many
reason. One of these reasons are his classic written
works  ‐The Summa Theologica and Summa Contra
Gentiles.”
The Five Ways
 The Argument from Motion (There must be a
Prime Mover)   cannot exist without a necessary being causing
St. Thomas Aquinas as influenced by the works
of Aristotle, concluded from common
observation that an object that is in motion (ex:
the planets, a rolling stone) is put in motion by
some other object or force. From this, Aquinas
believed that ultimately there must have been
an “unmoved mover” (GOD) who first put things
in motion.  
From this argument, St. Aquinas concluded the
following:
o Nothing can move by itself. 
o If every object in motion had a mover,
mover.  
o This first mover is the Unmoved Mover,
called God.  
 The Argument from Causality (Every effect
must have a cause)
This argument deals with the issue of existence.
St. Aquinas concluded that common sense
observation tells us that no object creates itself.
In other words, some previous object had to
create it. Aquinas believed that ultimately there
was an “uncaused first cause” (GOD) who began
the chain of existence for all things.  
From this argument, St. Thomas concluded the
following:
o There exists things that are caused
(created) by other things.  
o Nothing can be the cause of itself
(nothing can create itself.)  
o There cannot be an endless string of
objects causing other objects to exist.  
o Therefore, there must be an uncaused
first cause called God.
 The Argument from Necessity or Contingency
(All beings are possible but one must be
necessary if there are to be any beings at all)
This argument defines two types of objects in
the universe: contingent beings and necessary
beings. A contingent being is an object that
its existence. Aquinas believed that the
existence of contingent beings would ultimately
necessitate a being which must exist for all of
the contingent beings to exist. This being, called
a necessary being, is what we call God.  
 From this argument, St. Aquinas made the Man on his present existence on earth is mortal, finite
following conclusions: and imperfect according to St. Aquinas and the Christian
teachings. However, through the attainment of his
o Contingent beings are caused.
purpose and the union with God, man is elevated in the
o Not every being can be contingent.  
rank of the Divine ‐ the Immortal, the Perfect.   
o There must exist a being which is
necessary to cause contingent beings.  The Transformation may be shown in the following
o This necessary being is God.  schema.     
 The Argument from Gradation or Exemplarity
(our ideas presuppose some standard of
perfection)
Present State of Existence Ultimate Destiny
This argument was formulated by St. Aquinas
from a very interesting observation about the Imperfect
qualities of things. For example one may say Perfect
that of two marble sculptures one is more Finite Infinite
beautiful than the other. So for these two
objects, one has a greater degree of beauty Temporal Eternal
than the next. This is referred to as degrees or Supernatural
gradation of a quality.  Natural
From this fact Aquinas concluded that for any Human Divine
given quality (examples: goodness, beauty,
knowledge), there must be a perfect standard
by which all such qualities are measured. These Furthermore, due to the immortality of the human’s
perfections are contained in God. soul, when a man dies, he does not really cease to exist,
he merely transcends his mortal bodily life, his
From this fact Aquinas concluded that for any limitations and imperfections in space and time. Thus, in
given quality (examples: goodness, beauty, the light of the wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas and the
knowledge), there must be a perfect standard Christian teaching, it can be concluded that man has a
by which all such qualities are measured. These supernatural transcendental destiny.      
perfections are contained in God.

 The Argument from Design (The consistent and

coherent operation of the whole universe
demands some intelligent and purposeful
designer)

The last argument has something to do with the

observable universe and the order of nature.
Aquinas stated that common sense tells us that
the universe works in such a way, that one can
conclude that is was designed by an intelligent
designer, God. In other words, all physical laws
and the order of nature and life were designed
and ordered by God, the intelligent designer.

The Transcendental Man

 IMMANUEL KANT’S PHILOSOPHY
“All grandeur, all power, and all subordination to
authority rests on the executioner: he is the horror and
the bond of human association. Remove this
incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very
moment, order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and
society disappears.”
Introduction to Kantian Philosophy
Life of Immanuel Kant
 He was born in the East Prussian town of
Königsberg (Kaliningrad). He also came from a
poor family; his father was a respected saddler
who influenced him to become a Protestant.  
 At an early age of sixteen, he entered the
Univesity of Königsberg. From there, he
extensively studied theology, philosophy and
mathematics.
 Because of his extensive study about the key
disciplines, he became a private tutor in
different rural households. While he was
performing his temporary career as a private
tutor, he began developing his theory entitled
“General History of Nature and Theory of the
Heavens.” He claimed that heavenly bodies
originated from undeveloped (unformed)
nebula.   
 Kant published another essay which was
entitled as “On Fire” (his doctoral dissertation)
wherein he received his doctoral degree. Upon
receiving this academic degree, he was offered
to render lectures on various universities.   possible to develop a consistent moral system
A priori ‐ a given proposition is knowable a priori if it
can be known independent of any experience other
than the experience of learning the language in which
the proposition is expressed.
A posteriori  ‐ a proposition that is knowable a
posteriori is known on the basis of experience. For
example, the proposition that all bachelors are
unmarried is a priori, and the proposition that it is
raining outside now is a posteriori.
Transcendentalism
 Immanuel Kant coined the term Transcendental
Philosophy by which means that a priori
knowledge transcends, or goes by beyond,
experience and is the key to understanding the
truth about the nature of reality.
 Kant believed that man can only know “that
world which his mind, because of its nature,
constructs from the sensations received by
contact with the outer universe.” However,
Kant argued that knowledge derived from the
senses was not everything. He maintained that
mankind also has an a priori knowledge; that is,
“knowledge that does not come through our
senses, but is independent of all sense
experience; knowledge belonging to us by the
inherent nature and structure of the mind.”
 Transcendental Idealism  ‐  one of the
philosophical precepts of Immanuel Kant which
claims that knowledge is gained by means of
experience.
 Transcendental Deduction ‐ intelligible
experiences will be arranged into forms of
intuitions and categories, and afterwards will
become series of a priori judgments that shall
apply to the world of experience.   
Deontological Ethics
Autonomy of Reason ‐ according to Kant, man
with his pure unaided speculative reason,
cannot know reality as it is, but only as it
appears to be when disclosed to him by his
sense‐ experience. Thus, Kant argued that it is
by using reason. There are moral laws that all
rational beings had to obey simply because they
were rational beings, and this would apply to
any rational beings in any universe that might
ever exist.
Deontological or Duty‐based Ethics
 Deontology came from the Greek word, deon
which means duty. According to the
Deontological Ethics, man cannot justify his
action because of its consequence.
  It is more concerned with what people do and good or bad intentions; most people think these
not on the consequences of their actions. are highly relevant to moral judgments. Duty‐
 It teaches that some acts are just naturally right based ethics can include intention in at least
or wrong because of the principle of the “thing two ways. If a person didn't intend to do a
in itself” which describes things or events as particular wrong act ‐ it was an accident
objects of a purely intellectual and nonsensuous perhaps  ‐ then from a deontological point of
intuition and not as a product of man’s view we might think that they hadn't done
perceptions based on senses. Thus, Kant anything deserving of criticism. This seems to fit
concluded that people have a duty to act with ordinary thinking about ethical issues.
accordingly, regardless of the good or bad Ethical rules can be framed narrowly so as to
consequences that may be produced. include intention.
 Deontologist believe in the following universal
Disadvantages of Duty‐based Ethics
moral laws:
o It is wrong to kill innocent people  It sets absolute rules ‐ the only way of dealing
o It is wrong to steal with cases that don't seem to fit is to build a list
o It is wrong to tell lies of exceptions to the rule. Hence, there will be
o It is right to keep promises people who will disobey the duty‐based
universal concept of goodness due to the
Advantages of Duty‐based Ethics unattractiveness of fixed rules.  
 It emphasizes the value of every human  It allows acts that make the world a less good
being ‐ duty‐ based ethical systems tend to place ‐  because duty‐based ethics is not
focus on giving equal respect to all human interested in the results it can lead to courses of
beings. This provides a basis for human action that produce a reduction in the overall
rights ‐ it forces due regard to be given to the happiness of the world
interests of a single person even when those
are at odds with the interests of a larger group.
 It says some acts are always wrong  ‐ Kantian
duty‐ based ethics says that some things should
never be done, no matter what good
consequences they produce. This seems to
reflect the way some human beings think.
 It provides 'certainty'  ‐  Consequentialist
ethical theories bring a degree of uncertainty to
ethical decision‐making, in that no‐one can be
certain about what consequences will result
from a particular action, because the future is
unpredictable. Duty‐ based ethics don't suffer
from this problem because they are concerned
with the action itself ‐ if an action is a right
action, then a person should do it, if it's a wrong
action they shouldn't do it  ‐  and providing
there is a clear set of moral rules to follow then
a person faced with a moral choice should be
able to take decisions with reasonable certainty.
 It deals with intentions and motives  ‐ 
Consequentialist theories don't pay direct
attention to whether an act is carried out with