Religious & Psychological Definitions of Man Question #1 For several centuries, one of the

For several centuries, one of the central philosophical and social questions that has plagued humans is the nature and place of mankind in the cosmic schemata. Some early philosophers, Aristotle among them, found man to be a central entity within himself, part of the universal but separate by nature. Other ideals connect the individual with the cosmic, whether that be a centralized conception of God and man, or a more humanistic approach to the interrelationship of the individual to the species of man, Homo sapiens sapiens.

This paper will analyze the definition of man in the works of the traditional Christian philosopher John Calvin, the humanistic approach of Karl Marx, and the psychoanalytical ideas of Sigmund Freud. An underlying thesis within this essay will be that despite their differences in the very nature of man, all three had a deep and unbinding faith in the "idea" of man as a species being.

John Calvin was a Protestant reformer and clergyman born in 1509 in France. His major work was the Institues of the Christian Religion, which was first published in 1536. In this work, intended as a critique of traditional Catholicism and a restatement of Calvin's own religious ideals, most of Calvin's major beliefs are outlined. In general, the overriding thesis of the work is Calvin's belief that, "Nearly all the wisdom we possess consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves." Thus, the major question is how mankind gains this twofold knowledge an

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originated.5 Freud this breaks the conception of man into three distinct categorizations: the id, ego, and superego. The id is the seat of the sexual and aggressive instincts as well as of the selfpreservative instincts; the superego is the seat of conscience, which places harsh restrictions upon the gratifications of the instincts; ego is the seat of intelligence, which mediates between the id's unrealistic demands for immediate gratification and the punitive superego's constraints upon them.6 In each case, humans are seen as a product of both their internal being and external motivation. For Calvin, this motivation came from above (God), for Marx from history through the class struggle, and from Freud through the subconscious into the conscious mind, all working together to form the possible human. ____________________ 4 Karl Marx, "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts," in The MarxEngels Reader, (New York: Norton, 1978), 75. 5 De Bono, 1758. 6 See the section on Freud in T.Z. Lavine, From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest, (New York: Bantam Books, 19840, 534. Question #2 Although Christian tradition has a lengthy basis in the historical, the conception of mankind and the place of God in the un

Category: Psychology - R

Religious & Psychological Definitions of Man Question #1 For several centuries, one of the

Religious & Psychological Definitions of Man Question #1 For several centuries, one of the