Becoming Fully Human
by Joseph Pearce
Many years ago the English w riter
G. K. Chesterton claimed that the "coming peril" facing civilization w as "standardization by a low standard." Today, almost a century later, Chesterton's w ords have something of the mark of prophecy about them. s du n do n s e e p ed n er ca s w oefully beleaguered education system. Standards of literacy and numeracy, to say nothing of standards of morality, are not so much declining as plummeting.
The problem is that the architects of our education system consider Pontius Pilate's famous question, "Quid est veritas?" to be intrinsically unansw erable. In contradistinction, the mark of an authentic education is the asking of Pilate's axiomatic question w ith the aim of seeking an answ er to it.
The first step in answ ering the question, "What is truth?" is to ask the preparatory questions: How do w e know w hat is truth? What are the means necessary to achieve the end?
We discover truth through the use of reason and only through the use of reason. There is no irrational path to truth. The so-called mystical paths to truth, such as the experience of the kiss of beauty or the goodness of love, are merely rational paths by another name, and by any other name reason smells as sw eet. The good, the true, and the beautiful are nothing but the triune splendour of truth itself, each of w hich conforms to, and is an expression of, the rational foundations of reality.
The great pagan philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and r s o e arr ed a e con c on o e e s ence o the Divine through the use of reason. The great pagan r ers o er esc y us op oc es and r
Joseph Pearce is the series editor of the Ignatius Critical Editions, the Tolkien and Lewis Chair in Literary Studies at Holy A postles College and Seminary, and the author of several biographies of Christian literary figures.
arrived at the same conclusion through the rational observation of the follies, foibles, virtues, and vices of humanity and their respective consequences. These great pagans came to an understanding of the natural law through the rational observation of humanity's place w ithin nature, and saw it as a logical and ultimately theological expression of the Divine law . ou reason eads us o an accep ance o e existence of the Divine, and also to a rudimentary understanding of the Divine attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, justice, goodness, beauty, truth, and love, it cannot tell us much more. In order for our reason to grasp the reality of the Divine on any deeper level, it needs the Divine to reveal itself.
God's revelation of Himself in Scripture is the means by w hich our reason comes to understand Him more fully. U ltimately, it is God's revelation of Himself in the person of Jesus Christ w hich opens our minds to the fullness of truth and ensures that our faith is rooted in reason.
Pilate's question is answ ered by Christ in the latter's assertion (to His disciples) that He is "the w ay, the truth, and the life." In this revelation of Himself, God show s us that He is not only the Truth but the Reason. He is, furthermore, not only reason as a noun but reason as a verb. He is the reason Who is the end of our quest for truth, and He is also the rational means, the Way, by w hich the reason is discovered. In this sense, He is not only the Word but both senses of the w ord! In an apparent tautology that contains the totality of truth, He show s us that w e have to reason to believe the reason to believe.
Having asked and answ ered Pilate's question, thereby establishing the truth to w hich an authentic education should be directed, the other question that needs to be asked and answ ered concerns w ho w e are as human beings: Who is Man?
For the Christian, in contradistinction to the materialist, man is not simply homo sapiens. He is not simply the most intelligent of the primates. He is a creature made in the image of God in a manner that distinguishes him radically from the rest of the an a s e er na e or an s a en o by the Greeks, w ho called man anthropos. It is a w ord w hich, according to Plato in his Cratylus, implies that man alone among animals reflects or turns upw ards. U nlike the other animals that, governed by instinct, are unable to do so, man looks up at the heavens, seeking a purpose and meaning to life beyond the mere creature comforts of everyday life. Reminding ourselves of O scar Wilde's epigram, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars," w e might view the gutter as the symbol of natural instinct and the stars as the symbol of supernatural desire. Man looks up; the lesser creatures do not. Man gazes; the animal grazes!
What w e see reflected back to us in the magic mirror of the heavens is not homo sapiens—w ho is ultimately as enslaved by instinct as are the rest of the animals— but anthropos w ho seeks solace in the sun and the stars, seeing in the heavenly bodies and the music of the spheres the signifiers of the light of grace. It is in this w ay that Samw ise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings speaks for all of humanity w hen he affirms in the darkest hour that "above all shadow s rides the sun." no er unders and n o an re a ed o the Greek anthropos, is that of homo viator, the traveling man, or the man on the journey of life, the man w hose purpose is to get Home by taking the adventure that life throw s at him. The archetypal homo viator in Western culture is perhaps O dysseus, but in Christian terms the archetype is the medieval character Everyman, w ho is travelling on the road to heaven. For the Christian, every man is homo viator, w hose sole purpose (and soul's purpose) is to travel through the adventure of life w ith the goal of getting to heaven, his ultimate and only true Home, facing many perils and temptations along the w ay.
The enemy of homo viator is homo superbus ("proud man"), w ho refuses the self-sacrifice that the adventure of life demands and seeks to build a home for himself w ithin his "self." Such a man becomes addicted to the sins that bind him, shriveling and shrinking to the pathetic size of his Gollumized self. The drama of life revolves around this battle w ithin each of us betw een the homo viator w e are called to be and the homo superbus w e are tempted to become. This drama is mirrored in the perennial personal struggle in the heart of every man betw een selflessness (love) and selfishness (pride).
Who is Man? U ltimately He is Jesus Christ, the Perfect Man w ho show s us w ho w e are meant to be. In becoming more like Christ w e are ipso facto becoming more fully human.
Who is Man? The answ er w as given unw ittingly by Pontius Pilate as he show ed the scourged Christ to the people. Ecce Homo. Behold, Man!
In a nutshell, therefore, an authentic education is that w hich teaches us that truth is real and is present most fully in the Real Presence of Christ in the cosmos, and, follow ing logically and theologically from this Reality, it is an education that teaches us to be more fully human, more fully the person w e are meant to be, by becoming more like Christ w ho is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
