Journal: Emmaus Journal
Volume: EMJ 09:2 (Winter 2000)
Article: What Is Man?
Author: Larry Dixon

EmJ 9:2 (Win 00) p. 155

What Is Man?1

Larry Dixon2

“What a chimera [an impossible and foolish fancy] is man! What a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a subject of contradictions, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, witless worm! Casket of truth, sewer of incertitude and error, glory and refuse of the universe.” (Pascal, The Pensées, frag. 246)

“Man can count on no one but himself; he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.” (Jean-Paul Sartre)

EmJ 9:2 (Win 00) p. 156

“Men are carried by horses, fed by cattle, clothed by sheep, defended by dogs, imitated by monkeys, and eaten by worms.” (Hungarian proverb)

“Lord, what is man? Why should he cost Thee so dear? What had his ruin lost Thee? Lord, what is man, that Thou hast overbought so much a thing of naught?” (Richard Crashaw)

Ecclesiastes 3:11— “He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end” (NIV).

Alternative Anthropologies

“What is man?” asks the Psalmist (Psalm 8:4). Indeed, the very question of man’s3 identity does not receive a uniform answer in today’s world. There are a variety of perspectives with which we must be familiar.4

Man as a Machine

First, man can be seen as a MACHINE. The human being is valued for what he or she can accomplish. Looked at as a means to an end, man has significance only as he can produce. His worth is based on his usefulness. Others who take this view argue that man is capable of great acts of good or evil. A variation of this perspective, the mechanistic view, suggests that the human being is reducible to chemical reactions. Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize who helped decipher the DNA code that defines genes, declared in his book The Astonishing Hypothesis:

“You,” your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.5

EmJ 9:2 (Win 00) p. 157

Man as an Animal

Second, ma...