SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS
SUMMARY
The chapter I of this thesis frames about the over-all argument on man’s natural condition and human nature. It gives an over-view on the content and the series of the thesis.
Chapter II speaks Thomas Hobbes’ historical milieu. This tackled the philosopher’s down-to-earth experiences. Obviously, the chronology of discussions will commence from the dawn of the philosopher’s existence on the planes of the material universe to the setting of his intellectual and physical majesty. From the time he was born; grew in a said turbulent social shores of England; meeting people, who in the other hand drew him a radical influences, ’till the time he mustered philosophies that, in turn, shook the consciousness of the government, particularly, in England. But one of the most crucial treatise he formulated was his discourses on man, and that has been given a further ado on this endeavor.
Hobbes’ concerns on man, especially on human nature, are laid on chapter III. This highlights Hobbes’ own influences on man – as the ‘immanintistic’ reason of the troubles within himself and other beings. Man is the jest of the arguments; underlining man’s triumph and predicament in the field of his mundane viement.
The proceeding chapter underscores the evaluation and analysis of Hobbes’ brainchild on man’s condition as independent of a unifying power, and is cosigned on the drive of human nature. This chapter (tries to) reconciles the perennial inquiry on whether man by nature is good or evil; a peace or a conflict and that what causes much trouble in this world.
CONCLUSIONS
After the probation of the previous chapter, one may come up with considerable inferences. The researcher put Hobbes ideology into the crucible of evaluation, which later scoped at least two ideal elements with in the human arrest – peace and conflict. However, the bulk of their binary constitution in the human ephemeral existence runs multifaceted and complex.
Two general slots in the evaluation have to be arrayed with corresponding attentions, human nature as the cause of conflict, and the wider scope, the natural condition.
Few of Hobbes’ notions can never be wronged. It has an ultimate reflection in our society today. Prototypes of these are the varying particular crimes from the respective state all through the international exchange of disputes.
The researcher begun with the scrutiny of human nature. Before the toll of natural condition, it is first the induction made by human nature according to Hobbes. In general over-view we spell nature as a totality and a principle of action of a certain thing. However, we find it tough-sledding to spot the nexus between the general axioms on nature and that of man. Few thinkers don’t admit man’s nature as naturally evil, much more with the indifference of Thomas Hobbes. If man is naturally evil, then it follows that he is the cause of conflict and of wars, and there is no hope for peace. Since, what is nature, but the totality and principle of action. But it is absurd to find man there. Few intellectuals however deemed it in the horizons of mans integrity. Fulton Sheen states, “the intellectual world has suddenly rediscovered that man is a seat of conflict. Marx found conflict in society, Kierkegaard in the soul, Hiedegger in man’s being, and psychology in the mind.”
Leo J. Trese elaborates, “man is the bridge between the world of spirit and the world of matter.” He further elaborated,
The soul of man is a spirit and is similar to the nature of an angel the body of a man is physical matter, similar in nature to an animal. Yet man is neither an angel nor a beast; he is a being in his own right, a being with one foot in time and one foot in eternity. Philosophers define man as “a rational animal” – the word “rational” indicating man’s spiritual soul, the word “animal” indicating his physical body.”
Same foundation Fulton Sheen elaborated in man. He stressed,
“First, man is not an angel, nor is he is a devil. He is not intrinsically corrupt (as theologians began claiming four hundred years ago) nor is he intrinsically divine (as philosophers began saying fifty years ago). Rather, man has aspirations to good, which he finds it impossible to realize completely by himself; at the same time, he has an inclination toward evil, which solicits him away from these ideals. He is like a man who is down a well through his own stupidity. He knows he ought not to be there but he cannot get out by himself.”
One may consider the cause of conflict from the inflection of man in original sin. L. Trese further said,
“And in sinning, they brought the temple of creation crashing down around their ears. Lost in an instant were all those special gifts which God had bestowed upon them – the lofty wisdom, the perfect, self-control, freedom from suffering and death – above all, that bond of intimate union with God which we call sanctifying grace. They were stripped right down to the bare essentials which belonged to them by virtue of their human nature…because our human nature fell from grace in its very origin, we say that we born “in the state of original sin.”
If then we ask if human nature is naturally evil, in a theological and Christian perspective with the especial account to his creator, the divine master – he cannot be, though we cannot disregard his inclination to evil acts. Trese further states,
“Aside from the fact that their could be no actual “stain” on a spirit, I came to understand that our heritage of original sin is not something that is “on” the soul or “in” the soul. On the contrary, it is something, which is absent from the soul, something that ought to be there – the supernatural life, which we call sanctifying grace.
In other words, original sin is not a something, it is a “nothing,” just as darkness is a “nothing…darkness has no existence of its own at all; it simply is the absence of light necessarily disappears.”
Man is like a gadget whose mainspring is out of place. Thus, he needs to be fixed within, however, the mending of the broken parts must be made (by somebody) from without. As a part of the package, there are things beautifully fused in man to perpetuate and preserve his mundane and ephemeral existence. However, with darkened intellect and decrepit willing faculty, passions tend to clash against reason, a propitious instincts such as sex becoming lust, hunger becoming gluttony, thirst becoming intemperance and anger becoming hatred. In a theological perspective, these are outsets of man’s disentanglement from God’s grace – which on the other hand gives them the caution and a clear panorama of an uprightly kindled life. Fulton Sheen further states,
“Second, this conflict has all the appearances of being due to an abuse of human freedom. As a drunkard is what he is, because of an act of choice, so human nature seems have lost the original goodness with which a Good God endowed it, through an act of choice. As St. Augustine said, “whatever we are, we are not what we ought to be.”
After the exposition of conflict can we now asked for the retrieval for true peace? Is it possible now to overcome the ‘natural condition’? Fulton Sheen answered,
“Could that discord be stopped? Not by man himself, for man could never reach it; time is irreversible, and man is localized in space. It could however be stopped by the Eternal coming out of His agelessness in to time, laying hold of the false note, arresting it in its flight. That original discord could not be stopped by man himself, because he could not repair an offense against the infinite with his finite self.”
On the other hand Thomas Merton complements by saying,
The paradox is this: man’s nature, by itself, can do little or nothing but our natures, our own philosophies, our own level of ethics, we will end up in hell…Because in the concrete order of things God gave man a nature that was ordered to a supernatural life. He created man with a soul that was made not to bring itself to perfection in its own order, not to be perfected by Him in an order infinitely beyond the reach of human powers…Our nature, which is a free gift of God, was given to us to be perfected and enhanced by another free gift that is not due it.
In the field of human phenomena; deep down the valley of his soul is a powerful will which we have to take note as the founding factor of the simply solicited offshoots of his actions. There are myriad of speculations, hypothesis and conjectures on human condition on the holistic lieu of human situatedness, yet we cannot be too sure of them. Affirming Thomas Hobbes’ statement that human reason is limited and naturally prone to error, it is hard to come-up with a clear-cut lore on human nature, as the invention cannot know of whom and for what he was except the inventor himself – God.
Fulton Sheen thought of human nature as not the cause of the conflict but the human personality. When man was delivered to his earthly dimension, he was complete as part of the package; he has freedom, will and reason that puts his life into an orbit. He is free to distort or play the note in a harmony of a musical rendition of an orchestra.
The conflict that mushroomed into an international conflict or such in a bigger planes, got its spark in mans soul before it came into such colossal sinister. Fulton Sheen stressed, “There can be no world peace unless there is soul peace. World wars are only projections of the conflicts wagged inside the souls of modern men, for nothing happens in the external world that has not first happened within a soul.”
We cannot just infer that man is naturally evil, because how can we find the nexus between his evilness or his evil actions with those of his charitable and virtuous actions. Secondly, in a Christian perspective, Jesus Christ the divine master, the savior of mankind underwent the crucible of incarnation, passion and resurrection to save mankind from damnation. Now, if by nature, that is, the principle of action and the totality of a being, man is evil, then what on earth did Jesus Christ died for? If man on earth are intrinsically hell bound, can he not their as much have done same thing on hell? The realm of Satan? Rather, as man has potentials to act in both ways, so he has the capacity for reparation. This calls for Jesus to descend. But for those who are stubborn-hearted, destruction and damnation awaits like those of the time of Noah and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the same line of argument, man’s nature highly pictures God’s image as the ‘Summum Bonum’ – the Greatest Good (not evil).
Man is highly knowledgeable that he is a part of a musical rendition in a circle of human orchestra. And he is by reason and conscience aware that a slight disobedience to play the intended notes and to synchronize with the fellow players will cause a radical reverberation to himself, to his fellow men and to the conductor.
Man is the reference point of the conflict, yet he is still the focus of the peace and unity within the family of mankind. Conflict and wars emanated from a meager spark in a human soul. However, potency to arrest the conflict is founded with the same plane – human soul.
Cooperation is a big rampart in arresting the discordant note. Fulton Sheen suggested that, it is only God who can make another arrangement for the orchestra. And man has to deal with it heedfully, so as to land in a goal the whole circle wants to attain, which is the peak of everything – the unthinkable glory – a glory beyond human consciousness beyond all telling and doubts.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Thomas Hobbes is renowned especially of his brilliant and remarkable discourses on politics, especially with ground to the sovereign. His discourses on man speak a lot on how he maneuvers the other arguments. He inhibits reach commentaries on man, commonwealth and religion, more in particular, Christianity.
To the proceeding researcher, I humbly and intelligently recommend the brain works of Thomas Hobbes that follows:
De Cive – the first elaboration of his political treatise.
Behemoth – his book on his exposition on the causes of Civil Wars.
De Corpore – his discourses on his scientific materialism.
Leviathan - His master brainwork.
The second elaboration of his political ideologies with added wit and firmness.
This was the book conceived and born out of the fertile mind of Hobbes; when found no match over the contending brutes of the disputing political England.
Taking into account our Christian margin which holds fair transcending scope on morality and faith, Thomas Hobbes’ works may contain conflicting ideals against our own. We therefore have to be meticulous enough in its utilization.
