The human being is incomplete (or lacks something) in the sense that the Creator gave him only powers – mind, senses, and will – on the basis of which each person is invited by the Creator to implement his or her unique vocation. Striving for the good and perfecting one’s nature, the person becomes a mature personality (Plėšnys 2016: 40).
In theology, human lacking is manifested in people being limited as compared to God. All created beings lack the fullness of being which only God possesses. Lack is an immanent mark of creation: All created beings, including humans, are finite beings, participating in God’s being. They are limited because they lack the foundation of existence in themselves. Therefore, human beings and all creatures are “involved in being” and this participation in being is “borrowed” from God, who is the true Being (Kėvalas 2016: 57).
If people were not lacking, they would not have space to realize their freedom and to advance. Theological studies explain that, as people get to know the world, they find a moral code in it, a kind of “grammar.” With their reason, people recognize the law of human existence, or the natural law. The existence of natural law in the context of human existence speaks about a drawn line, reminding people that they have to accept their own corporeality or the ontological deficiency, compared with the divine Being (Kėvalas 2016: 58).
3.2. Understanding lack as good and evil Lack and scarcity are often regarded as a negative phenomenon. It is associated with poverty and injustice. The philosophy of Enlightenment in particular advanced this understanding, claiming that a person can eliminate all possible deficiencies and change human nature and the whole structure of the world. Lack is seen as a shortage of something specific which can be avoided, a defect of being that can be amended. Such an interpretation narrows the concept of lack and ignores its function as an essential element of being:
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