Israel and humanity - Of the perfectibility of man and his vocation as an imitation of God

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V.

Of the perfectibility of man and his vocation as an imitation of God

§ 1.

Human freedom allowed, we say that the perfectibility of man is not only possible, but it is even necessary. Can you imagine a free being who is capable of moral improvement? Imagine there be a being morally perfectible? which is free at the same time to bring more of an ideal of perfection? What good man to be free, if he will exercise this freedom to fill the voids of his being, so to speak, to continue his own creation?

The man is perfectible is necessarily free and freedom is precisely the means at his disposal to acquire what it lacks. And it does not object that God is free without being improved, since it is however absolutely perfect. It is precisely this quality of absolute perfection that we say he is free, because freedom is confused with the need in Him, as He is the Absolute Being, infinite and there is nothing besides Him who can act upon Himself, as He shall be no need for Him is freedom to act according to his own nature which is absolute and perfect, in other words, its freedom is exercised necessarily in the sense of right . Other beings rather than a relative perfection never needs are in their acts, because there are outside them causes that affect them and perfectible beings are free to progress or deteriorate precisely because they are capable of improvement and perfection that is conditioned by the proper use of their freedom.

The belief in human perfectibility gave birth to the great ethical principle of the Bible and the Rabbis, that the imitation of God. Man being created in God's image, it must recognize as a practical rule of conduct in imitation of his Creator, that is to say still more complete approximation of its divine model, an ever increasing effort reproduce in himself the image that is the law of his being. Hence the law of indefinite progress that arose, one side of the infinite perfection of the model and the other of the imperfect nature of the copy. For it would be unacceptable that have been said of the man he is created in the image of God if, being infinitely far from his model, he had been the least gifted of the opportunity to get closer still more.

We would note here that this theory of the divine image and its imitation transported on the floor of polytheism had stopped giving its incomparable fruit. This is because the model is absolutely unique and it is perfect and that imitation is an act of uninterrupted progress, the imitation of any particular god, apart from God and absolutely perfect, not may be the basis for the doctrine of continuous improvement. While the concept of God, religion really is, as shown by Mr. de Quatre, the distinctiveness of the human species, easily explained why all animals man alone is progressive. From then on, we will be willing to invest with Bunsen in the sense that the man of God and the prime force behind the constant Nations, the blast still alive pushing humanity towards truth and justice, the instinct for secrecy our breed, developing gradually, giving rise to any language, any social and political constitution, to all civilization. And monotheistic faith seems so indispensable in this system that the same scholar place in a primitive monotheism common to all men, the source of all religions of the ancient world. "The idea of a God who tolerates his side no other god," said another author, who appears more like a human surrounded by fiction fables unworthy, but as the Supreme Being and absolute claims for itself all the moral aspirations of man and discovers that omniscience to punish any transgression inevitably, the idea of God transmitted for centuries from generation to generation eventually react to science and even addictive to the human spirit design of a single reason of things, ignited his desire to know why

If these are, admittedly even scientists, the consequences of monotheistic faith in science, what results can we do not wait for the moral life of man and his development!

§ 2.

It is easy to find in the books of Moses further evidence of the belief in human perfectibility. This may not be a coincidence if, while the creation account of each day of Genesis ends with these words: "And God saw that it was good," he said nothing of the sort after the creation of man. This is only the man is not good before reaching its perfection of which he is himself a craftsman. It also cited the blessings that the Pentateuch presents so many examples and their effectiveness. They are the expression of religious faith in progress, for every blessing, implies the idea of a good that one does not already own and we want to achieve. And as one of the blessings there are moral, belief in the perfection of man is implied.

But here is yet more evidence. Domination over nature is the great promise made to man and the great duty which is imposed from the moment of its creation. But this rule, because of the nature of the worker and the conditions of the material on which he works, can not be that successive and gradual, so that this noble and great promise involves a belief in human progress. The man indeed will never become master of nature, unless it is tamed himself, he does discipline his qualities, he perfected his intellect and his will n'affermisse. It must, morally and intellectually, it makes still more worthy of his post and the interior progress and intervene as subjective condition of progress outside. The man in the Mosaic is so perfectible, that causes nature itself in its upward movement.

It is true that the domination of nature in Genesis takes the form of an empire exerted on the animal species that man is called to master. But we think of the special conditions of human existence in the early ages of the earth, the antediluvian animals likely to inspire the man so much terror, constant struggles he had to support themselves and cons of we agree that in the infancy of mankind, the divine idea could not take over any other form capable of striking the imagination. In general, moral struggles, and a fortiori social and ethnic wars, are easily among the ancient appearance of sustained melee combat with giants or monsters. The gods and heroes of paganism were, too, to fight against the beasts. However the blessing of Genesis was a much more general, because it extends domination positively predicted the man in the entire globe, "Fill the earth and subdue it "These words leap as accurate as possible and nothing n'exceptent the empire promised to the descendants of Adam. It is not just the soil that is arable, but of the whole earth. At these words are linked all the triumphs of humanity on the planet it inhabits.

It would ignore all that is great and fruitful in this blessing of the first page of Genesis than to attribute all the honor of feeling alone in nature. That feeling and polytheism resulting therefrom, are rather made for riveting rights in respect of material reality to a kind of fatalistic acceptance of all that exists, beautiful or ugly, useful or harmful, and therefore of evil as well. To achieve the legal changes as well as the wonders worked by science in nature, it requires the intervention of another factor which is not, that can not be reality itself; it takes faith to Ideally, we would say the opposition of the ideal to reality, for only when man rebelled against nature which crushes, when he stands face to face against the outside world, that it is necessary to combat it, the same material progress becomes possible. The word triumph by which means the success of human activity implies that.

However, to accept the ideal is to acknowledge that it exists beyond the nature of something transcendent nature which is a faint image, but in the mind of man shines more pure brilliance. And the proof that man does not keep this ideal of nature itself, that it is the perfect medium for her.

§ 3.

The name that human perfectibility is in Judaism indicates moral perfection, social, intellectual, along with religious perfection. It is a path, a path, a journey, a route, because everything is included in the word so expressive of derech , which offers a strange analogy tao Chinese. The act of development, all the effort, all human progress is a step ( alicha ) in this path, which still remembers the vocation of man to the imitation of God, for Any path necessarily involves a goal we want to achieve. The starting point, the rule and the end, or, as the Gospel is filled with these ideas Hebrew the way, truth, life, are divine. Also offers Hebrew there for the idea of moral perfection these three phrases significant: walking before God, walking with God, walk behind God. The fault, error, ignorance, evil, or disapproval is therefore a deviation , or a decline and with admirable clarity the Bible says perverts back and they will not forward; disobey the law of God is back. There is not only a beautiful picture, but a deep thought.

The idea of ascension is often added to the walk and it is called an ascending path, a mountain that you climb, a summit to achieve and, in these expressions, it is not always about the temple of Jerusalem. Perhaps the position of the shrine she gave birth to this figure by the habit that has been taken to attach the idea of holiness that high, but the image was already offering in itself a just convenience, to represent human perfectibility. Thus, in our modern language, it expresses the idea of material originally superiority a lot of thoughts that have nothing to do with the objects overlap.

It is this notion of moral perfection that relates the rabbinic doctrine of metempsychosis or reincarnation. This, according to doctors, has no other purpose than to allow the souls to achieve in successive lives perfection they are capable and have failed to perform under the conditions of their existence here below. We believe that, like the idea of resurrection that is the boldest statement of progress, the theory of metempsychosis is not the only rabbis and has its solid foundation in the Bible itself. But here we simply consider the philosophical point of view and say that just as the belief in palingenesis is the proclamation of progress in the cosmic order, renovations successive worlds designed for a purpose always better, even so the doctrine of reincarnation attests the faith of Judaism in human perfectibility.

"The ox is called a bull when it comes to the world, we Rabbis say and is about other animals. Only man becomes a man when he gave this character. " And about this verse from Leviticus, "You will, veacithem Otham (you will fulfill my commandments)" as the word Otham not punctuated is written in the sacred text so that it can be read atthem "you", commenting on the doctors say this sentence: You will make yourselves, that is to say you be your own creator. This idea reminds us of a word Hartmann: "The force that maintains and develops is the same that created" . Everyone sees that if somehow the man himself creates, it is a consequence of its perfectibility. It seems to us that the doctrine of Darwin and school-change the function creates the organ, is that the form is false, this paradoxical principle that the true self to be its intrinsic virtue perfects itself . This ability to change us to understand the influence that the soul exercises over its own future. It is not until Taine who, while speaking only of the body, not implicitly agree, because this ability could only be exercised on the body, if the vital force was changing organizer herself: "Here," he said, involved a property that distinguishes the nervous machine of our machines from regular alters its function. Plus one ground has been covered by previous flows, others have more chance to take it and follow .

We mention in closing a curious Midrash which proves that for the Rabbis, man is susceptible of improvement and that he must be himself the worker: "A philosopher asked one day to R. Oschaya this question: If circumcision is so dear to God, why did she not been ordered to the first man? The doctor replied: Why do you shave you then part of the hair and let you grow your beard? It said the philosopher, my hair has grown with me since my childhood. If that is the reason, "said the rabbi, should not you also cut your eyes and you cut the hand, they have also grown with you from your childhood? te philosopher told him: Is it to receive such answers that I came to find you? To which the doctor replied: Because it is not possible that I'll returns without an explanation, listen to this. Everything that was created during the six days of creation and development requires a man also needs to be perfected "Midrash Rabbah