[On The Beach, 2009, JAVanDevender]
Image was taken at Lake Erie, Eastern Shore, NY.
Job 7:17–18 (NKJV)
17 “What is man, that You should exalt him, That You should set Your heart on him, 18 That You should visit him every morning, And test him every moment?
Following from Essay on Man, Alexander Pope
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
.....
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all,
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;
The glory, jest and riddle of the world.
We all go through periods when certain topics, infatuations, projects, obsessions, what-ever occupy our minds almost to the exclusion of all else. You know, when something claims your attention and consideration so much so that you can actually become irritated when ordinary life intrudes and demands equal time. Such has been my case recently with... hang on... wait for it... "man" himself.
I've been reading quite a few things, coming at this whole idea of "what is man?" from several different vantage points. I don't particularly see this as anything exceptional, at least not any more. What is very clear is that the question has occupied man for as long as he has had a chance to do something other than fight off the saber-toothed tiger whose answer to the question "what is man" was "lunch". In the list of attributes that distinguishes man from other creatures, certainly the sense of "self" is at the very top. We know that we are "somebody" and that as "somebody" we are distinguished from other human beings and other cats and dogs and reptiles in a fundamentally significant way. But what does that mean? "Who" or "What" am I is a question that demands an answer for a very simple reason. It fundamentally affects every facet of our daily life and every expectation we have of the future.
Philosophers have grappled with it, theologians have tried to nail it down, sociologists have sought a statistical description, psychiatrists have given it their best shot, and, after thousands of years, all we can say is... it's a mystery. I don't think anyone has said it better than Pope in the quote above - man is the "glory, jest and riddle of the world."
On the one hand we know that we stand in a superior relation of some sort to all the rest of creation (glory). On the other hand, strive as we might to be rational in all that we do, to build structured lives of reason and discipline, yet, our lives are not only punctuated by but often times dominated by irrational behavior. We just do stuff... on impulse or willfully or just because we feel like it... with no way to explain it. How can we better describe ourselves than as "silly clowns" and hence the "jest" of the world. And lastly, how do we bridge the gap between our thinking selves and our physical selves? How do we explain that complex reality which is but cannot be explained? How can we go from acknowledging our deterministic body that is physically carefully responsive to all the demands of medical analysis but conversely is directed in its endeavors along the lines of a clearly undetermined will that directs it from other than physical causes? How can we be both determined and free? Aye... that's a riddle for you, but that is man.
But here, as always, even as we revolve around the circle that always terminates on the mystery from which we began, there is the inescapable conclusion. Whatever man is, he is and must always be, in relation. Even as we consider the individual, walking along the shore, we cannot even conceive him, except as he exists in relation. Job cries out "what is man that You should exalt him?" or think about him, or deal with him, or anything. Job thought about man, particularly himself, but only in terms of relation to the most High God. Man exists in relation. The most clear and concise statement that man can make about man is this: "Man IS and man IS NOT alone!" Thinking about man, confronting the mystery that is man, leads inevitably to the conclusion, that whatever it is about man that makes him man, at the very same instant establishes the reality of the "Other."
John Calvin said that all knowledge is comprised under two heads: knowledge of God and knowledge of self. I would suggest that both "heads" are in fact one. For that which makes man in fact man, is the image of God that he bears, and no knowledge of man is possible (for it does not exist) which is not at the same time knowledge of God.
Descartes in his famous statement ("I think therefore I am") might be best taken in a different sense than he presented it. "I think therefore.... Yahweh (I AM)". Man is God's witness to Himself. If all my pondering leads me to that conclusion, it is not wasted. Now, if I can just live my life, as He has given it, striving to truly fill that role, then all the rest will fall into place. Thus this knowledge will indeed shape and inform everything I do.
"What are you?"
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