The Human Person As An

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.

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.
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.”
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.
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.
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).”

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.
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:

Four Noble Truths: Noble Eightfold Path:

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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.