Humanity: Angel, god, or animal?
The classic struggle of humanity to be comfortable with itself
Humanity has tended to skew its view of itself in one of three directions—to see itself as a animal, angel, or god. Either direction has been largely influenced by the intellectual pressures and milieu of the day.
As to humanity viewing itself as animal, this is the dominate view of today. As Mortimer Adler has put it, mankind views himself to be an animal in his “biological affinities or his evolutionary origins”.1 It is, thoughtlessly on my understanding, enough to define humanity in terms of biological commonalities with animals, as though humanity was the “paragon of animals”2—at least when it comes to humanities intelligence.
The skewing of humanities view of itself toward the angelic became dominant in the era of the contemplation of the super-natural and super-sensible elements of the soul. Because angelic beings were thought of as pure minds, to compare humanity to angelic beings when contemplating the mind of human being was completely natural. When the soul or mind is attributed to some sort of “purely spiritual substance” it seemed to “place man in the company of angels.”3
The view of humanity as gods or as an eventual god has had a resurgence as of late, though typically this was more dominant in polytheistic cultures. With gods, humanity found commonalities with the moral working of the gods. Though, by nature, humanity was seen as inferior, in the moral working of the life of human beings humanity had many similarities with the gods. As of late there has been a growing tendency to view technological innovations as the dawning of godhood itself—either in the gaining of new, super-human abilities or through the ability to change the nature of humanity itself.
What is most interesting about all of this is the fact that, though humanity views itself dominantly as either animal, angel, or god, it is none of these things. And that brings up the very good question—what is it to be a human?
Hutchins, Robert Maynard, and Mortimer J. Adler, eds. “Chapter 2: Animals.” In Great Books of the Western World, Volume 2: The Great Ideas I, Vol. 2. Chicago, Ill.: Encyclopædea Britannica, Inc., 1989, 15.
Ibid.
Hutchins, Robert Maynard, and Mortimer J. Adler, eds. “Chapter 1: Angel.” In Great Books of the Western World, Volume 2: The Great Ideas I, Vol. 2. Chicago, Ill.: Encyclopædea Britannica, Inc., 1989, 1.