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The Artist and the Story of Man (A commentary)
By Professor the Rev. Fr. C. A. Obi
“Man,” according to Battista Mondin, “is the supreme question
for man”. It is the interrogative of all interrogatives – the
most pressing and piercing interrogative of all, one that even
baffled the inspired authors of the books of the Bible (cf . Ps.
8: 4; Heb. 2:6). It has, and rightly so, remained a harvest
question in all fields of life. Attempts to answer the question
seem to distance man in obscurity. This is so because “Man is a
being so vast, so varied, so multiform, that every definition
demonstrates itself as too limited. Man’s aspects are too
numerous,”2. For Aristotle, man is an “ens rationis.”
Sophocles projected him as a “chained prometheus”. Plato
described him as a “fallen soul”. Philo contended that he is “an
image of logos”. Origen posted that “he is an image of God”.
Thomas Aquinas defined him as “a rational subsistent”. Bloch
said he is a “utopic being”. Heidegger saw him as a “symbolic
being”. Ens Cassierer presented him as an “alienated essence”.
Karl Marx opined that he is “an economic being”. For most
scientists, he is only but a “technological animal”. All these
postulations about man point to one origin – attempts made by
man to understand himself and better his world, in other words,
man’s efforts to re-recreate, to beautify the cosmos that
predates him. He sees himself as the only being that can give
meaning to the world so that for him, “it could no more be world
without me than I could be myself without it.” What has led man
into this and how far has he succeeded?
Man in Himself
Man’s position and act in creation is not accidental. He alone
of all other myriad creatures is gifted with rationality,
freedom and will, a being created in the image of God. This view
is validated by biblical evidence to man’s special position in
creation.
Biblical View on
Man’s Special Grandeur
Biblical anthropology depicts man as a creature of God. Unlike
other creatures, man is the apex creation. The creation of man
launches a completion to creation. He was created in god’s image
(cf. Gen. 1: 27). He alone called for a reflection on the part
of God before the creative act: “Let us make man…” (cf. Gen. 1:
26). It was in allusion to this that John F. Cronin submitted
that “Man’s dignity springs from his nature as a child of God,
created with an immortal soul…He knows that the spark of the
immortal infused in him by the Almighty raises him to a higher
and nobler level than any other form of life on this earth”.4
New Testament
Christ makes it clear that he came not to abolish the law and
the prophets but to fulfil them (cf. Mt. 5: 17). Man’s special
position as the apex of creation is made clearer in the New
Testament. For the sake of man, God sent His only Son to die for
man’s redemption and that man will have life and have it in full
(cf. Jn. 10: 10). Man is assured of God’s special concern for
him so much so that He carried him in his palms, counted the
number of the hairs on his head and before Him, man is worth
more than many sparrows. (cf. Is. 49: Mt. 10: 30 -31). A clearer
manifestation of man’s privileged position is that he of all
creatures is the only subject for resurrection. (cf. Rom. 8:
11).
Man as a Homo
Religiousus
No epoch, no age has existed without some form of religion.
There is something innate in man that fires a feeling of awe
towards the supernatural. Man expressed this in various forms.
Hence the various forms of religion blossoming in the world
today. Man has recorded observable advances in his religion.
Think of the hymns composed, the liturgies, establishments of
priestly class, erection of big temples and places of worship.
All these came to be in time. They were not there ab initio.
They express man’s creative ingenuity.
Closely akin to religion is man’s maintenance of morality. If
morality lacks in creation, all is lost. To maintain this, man
has developed a moral theory and principle to every challenging
moral question.
Man as Co-Creator and
Beautifier
“…Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Be
masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all the
living creatures that move on earth”5. This is God’s
man datum to man. He created the world. He has given it over to
man to conquer, to dominate and to beautify. Man has interpreted
this differently in different epochs.
Classicial
Interpretation and Man’s Thirst for Perfection
Man’s intelligence is a cause for his restlessness. The world
for man is not a bed of roses. He faces many and often
distressing challenges. Yet “… the fact ‘that I am and have to
be’ stares him in the face in inexorable mysteriousness…”6.
His only alternative is to make efforts to “… constantly
surmount or transcend the present state”7. He makes
attempts to be perfect as his Creator is perfect. (cf. Mt,
5:48). Realization of one feat therefore invites still greater
quests. He transcends his confines. There is in him, that
“constant tension to go beyond all the already acquired results:
there is a push to go beyond, to go further, there is a will to
reach the most advanced levels”8. This accounts for
the enormous progress man has made in all spheres of life.
Man and Agriculture
Man’s economic past has been dominated by scarcity, want, famine
and squalor. Man did not rest lamenting his woes. He sought to
surmount his problems. “More important in improving man’s
condition were techniques developed to provide a more continuous
supply. These comprised the storing of foods; the growing of
food crops, preserving techniques such as drying; the planting,
growing and cultivation of fruits, vegetable, or cereal crops;
and the domestication of animals”9.
Archaeological and anthropological studies of human artefacts
and other technological and cultural remains have enabled
experts to suggest a convenient frame-work of three prehistoric
periods, embracing these development stages. The oldest is the
Palaeolithic (old stone) age, characterized by the use of fire
and stone, bone and wood tools and weapons including bow and
arrow. The next is the Mesolithic stage (Middle stone) age,
marked by the emergence of settled fishing. Agricultural
community is the latest stage.
These advances could not free man from drought, famine and
pestilence, but they helped make his life less savage and
primitive. “In short, primitive technologies provided food
surpluses and leisure time that made possible the urbanizing of
mankind.”
Man and Communication
According to Majorie Grene, “Human being in its everyday mode is
promiscuously public; it is life with others (mitsein, mitdasein),
for others”, Hence for Roosevelt “man’s chief problem is how to
live with his neighbour”. All these imply that man is a social
animal. A view defended by Aristotle when he observed that “A
social instinct is implanted in all men by nature…He who is
unable to live in society or who has no need because he is
sufficient for himself must be either a beast or a god”10.
Thomas Aquinas has a similar view. Man’s sociality calls for
communication.
Man and Language
Man is the only creature that expresses itself through
intelligible sounds. Man has so much advanced in linguistic art
that today; linguistics is a professional course in the
universities. With this development, transference of ideas has
become easier.
Visual Communication
Urbanization led to more civilized cultures. Man advanced higher
to the development of communication by visual symbols – writing.
It developed first in Mesopotamia in the 4th
millennium B.C. Viewed as a technological phenomenon; it became
a power-cultural tool as the Phoenician alphabet spread among
eastern Mediterranean peoples at one end of the 2nd millennium
B.C. Traditional as well as useful knowledge were recorded on
clay tablets, papyri scrolls and leather sheets.
Man and the Inventor
Engineer
Construction of Roman roads and aqueducts, alchemical equipment,
the mouldboard plough, fallow field and crop-rotation practices,
mining machinery, water and mechanical clocks, medieval
Cathedrals, and other structures too numerous to mention have
been singled out as significant indicators of man’s progress in
creation. However, muscle power was still the main source of
power. The task of checking the use made on man’s muscles led to
the Industrial Revolution and the inventor – engineer.
In the antiquity and European middle ages, the inventor-engineer
was an anonymous figure. By the 12th and 13th
centuries however, the inventor-engineer was achieving great
respectability and social status. This is romantically
epitomized in the heroic figure of the 15th c –
Leonardo da Vinci – the Florentine artist – engineer –
investigator. He is respected more today for his vision than for
his accomplishments. He is symptomatic of the progress then
going on in the military, civil and mechanical arts.
The invention of printing in the middle of the 15th
century is the most prominent and profound example of the
progress made then. L. J. Coster, J. Gutenberg and P. Schoffer
all living in the 1440s or 1450s have been credited by the
pioneers as prominent hands behind the invention.
Man and Natural
Phenomena
“Curiosity”, a saying holds, “is the mother of invention. Man
has always pondered on the things around him. This was what
motivated the early lonian Cosmologists as early as the 6th
century B.C. to seek for the Urstoff of all things.
Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries
witnessed an unusual concentration of talent and attention upon
the problems of understanding natural phenomena. Men such as N.
Copernicus, W. Gilbert, T. Brahe, J. Kepler, Galileo, R. Boyle,
C. Huygens and I. Newton instituted the greatest revolution in
the intellectual history since the rise of Christianity – the
scientific revolution.
Geographical
Exploration and Colonization
Dispersal of printed books all over Europe with the consequent
spread of tales of adventure in sea-faring voyages of discovery
undertaken first by the Portuguese and then by world-ranging
European expeditions in the 15th and 16th
centuries spurred up the desire to explore the universe. These
explorations opened up wider avenues of the world to European
expansion, colonization and trade with the consequent
exploration of European politico-economic practices, technology
and scientific thought all over the globe.
Even invention cost so must in labour, time and in money, but
man is undaunted. He goes on. He is insatiable. He has explored
beyond the globe. The first spot-nik was taken in 1967/68. Man
traversed the pull of gravity and went into space. He landed on
the moon. Like other feats, it cost a lot.
Man and Steam Engines
The earliest technological advance was made in this area in the
18th century. It came into limited use in the early
part of the 18th century sequent to inventive labours
of Thomas Newcomen (1663 – 1729) and the engineering
improvements of John Smeaton (1724 – 92). Newcomen erected his
first full-scale engine in 1712. His fire-engine- a name
indicating source of new power being tapped – employed the heart
of steam and its subsequent cooling to produce a partial vacuum
under a piston in a close-fitting cylinder; the reduced pressure
in the cylinder permitted the weight of the atmosphere to move
the piston. Its high consumption of fuel made it a device of
limited use. Man did not rest. He moved for more perfection. In
1765, James Watt (1736 – 1819) incorporated a separated
condenser that drastically reduced the fuel consumption and
increased the speed and efficiency of the machine.
Man and
Transportation
Man went on foot for thousands of years. He then thought of a
bicycle and then a car. The car is very much like a human being.
The windscreen is like the human eye, the bonnet is like the
mouth. This man’s creature as an improvement has four legs.
Inadequacy of this invites a search for greater perfections. He
built the kind of motor that could run on liquid highway. Hence
– the boat, canoe and then the ship. Greater advances in
theoretical and experimental physics and progress in the
chemical sciences in the 17th and 18th
centuries effected profoundly greater feats in technology in the
19th century. As engineering technology progressed,
new modes of transportation appeared. Canal building that was
much elaborated in the Middle Ages, yielded place to rail-road
building by the 19th century. Then came the plane, a
figure that reduced and conquered distance. The first one was
small and could not carry much load. Further improvement gave
birth to Cargo plane which not only carries human beings but
even cars and other big machines. In Smith’s own evaluation, “By
1900 man, unlike any other creature on earth, was remoulding the
world he lived in”11.
Man and Medicine
Death rate has been minimised. Most sicknesses that were tagged
incurable have today got remedies. Simple surgical operation
gets an appendicitis patient healed. Cancerous patients are
resurrected with application of gamma ray. Thanks to the
successes in pharmacological and bio-chemical researches, one
can today exist with one kidney.
Man and Art
Much of what we have today in building constructions are results
of man’s ingenuity in art. Literary works like Shakespeare’s
have contributed a lot in the development of the world
literature.
Man as Destroyer
Man’s inventions for good are also for destruction. The great
steam boats, the warships carry mounted machine guns that could
be used to destroy a nation. Cargo boats can also be used for
military war-fare. The Lucitania used during the First World War
is an example. Air jets could be used to bomb nations.
Developments in nuclear physics have led to a discovery of
nuclear bombs that could exterminate the human race within aeons
of time. That man is a destroyer is evident from the
documentations made by F. Menna. He said, “But the optimistic
positivism and the faith in progress inherited by European
culture from the 19th Century suffered a shock with
the outbreak of World War I which seemed to prove that the 19th
century myth of the ‘magnificent destiny and progress’ of
society was false”.
Man’s life and freedom is not even guaranteed in the present day
computer-minded society which”…Plots with instruments of
technology against the nature of man with consequences which
will prove that the explosion of the A-bomb was a minor
misfortune for mankind”.13
Critical Evaluation
and Conclusion
Man had successfully juxtaposed older technical tradition with
younger scientific tradition in such a way as to fashion a
spectrum of productive scientific research and engineering
development activities. This has given birth to a more perfect
understanding of electricity and electromagnetic radiation, of
scientific agriculture, of thermodynamics and the internal
combustion engine, of public health and private medicine, of
aerodynamics and the airplane, of nuclear energy, of logical
computing machines, of techniques and instruments of war, of the
physics and chemistry of fuels, of rockets and of space flight.
With all these advances, the ethos of the society/city is no
more that of the polis nor the metropolis but the megapolis.
For the first time in human history, man in this age “provided
the practical means both to end privation, pestilence and famine
throughout the world, and to annihilate all mankind. It remained
for the proper economic, political, social and ethical policies
to be recognized and applied in order to control the awesome
powers of the new technology and complete the conquest of
physical poverty that scientific technology had begun”14.
We can therefore safely submit that man is a remedy to the
imperfections of the material universe for he is the epitome of
creation.
REFERENCES
-
B. Mondin, Philosophical Anthropology, Rome, (Urbaniana
University Press), 1985 p.1.
-
M. Scheler, Man’s Place in Nature, Milan, (Fabri
Publications), 1970 p. 98.
-
M. Grene. Martin Heidegger, London. (Bowes and
Bowes) p.21.
-
J. Cronin & H. Flannery, The Church and the Working Man,
N.Y. (Hawthorn Book publications), 1965, p.16.
-
Gen. 1: 28
-
M. King, Heidegger’s Philosophy: A guide to his basic
thought, N. Y. (The Macmillan Company) 1965 p. 16.
-
H. J. Blackham, Six Existentialist Thinkers, London,
(Routledge and Kegan Paul) p. 88.
-
B. Mondin, Ibid, p.196.
-
T. M. Smith, “Technology, History of” published in the
New Catholic Encyclopaedia vol. 13, U.S.A. (Jack Heraty
and Associates Inc.) 1981 p. 968.col 1.
-
Aristotle, Politics, ed, by Mickeon Richard;
Chicago: (Random House Inc.) 1973 p. 599 art. 26.
-
T. M. Smith., Opcit, p. 971.
-
F. Menna, “Art, Modern European” published in The
New Catholic Encyclopaedia vol. 1 p. 905.
-
R. Borzaga, Contemporary philosophy: phenomenological and
existential currents; Milwaukee, (Bruce Publishing Co.)
1966 p. 199.
-
T. M. Smith, Opcit, p. 971
-
As at the time of writing in 1994, Fr. Obi was Professor of
Anthropology and Church History at the Bigard Memorial
Seminary, Enugu. Nigeria.
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