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12. Beyond anthropology?

According to the anthropological view we have proposed, the pattern and condition of personal growth could be summed up as follows: openness to values, discernment of values, response to values, assimilation of values.

In this "anthropology of values", man cannot realize or fulfill himself from within. To grow inside, he must open outwards. The quality of the values he finds, as well as the nature of his response to their worth - this is what determines his fulfillment. Thus a panorama of unlimited personal growth extends before each person. Only if one has exhausted all the values to be found in life, or if one has lost one's own capacity to appreciate them and to respond to and assimilate them, does one cease to grow.

We must then maintain an open outlook, without letting ourselves be trapped and dwarfed in a closed view of life. Yet an anthropology of "openness", if seriously proposed, finds difficulty in determining its own limits. It runs into a number of fundamental questions to which it may not be able to offer any sure answer within its own terms of reference.

If man cannot achieve fulfillment without being open and looking beyond himself, how open must he be? How far does the openness of man's view extend? What in other words are man's ultimate horizons? If a satisfactory answer cannot be given to these questions, in such a way that they can be considered closed, then anthropology itself must leave them open. If man's own development depends on his being open to higher values, the progress of anthropological science also calls for a particular openness. A closed view of man is always limiting. Anthropology's last word about some of the basic questions raised by man may honestly have to be, "we do not know". Each one may then feel called to investigate whether the answers that anthropology cannot provide may possibly be found in some other area of investigation.

Is death the end?

Man's physical life follows a curving path - upwards towards a moment of maximum development, and then gradually downwards in the decline of later years. The development of man's psychic or spiritual life is not necessarily the same. Many people seem to conserve and increase the vigor of their spiritual faculties right into older age. In theory, since the values and riches of life are inexhaustible, there seems no reason why a person should ever cease to grow spiritually.

However, a very blunt fact appears to put an end to all growth and development: the fact of death. No one escapes death. Death is the one absolutely certain anthropological experience that lies before each of us. Is it the final experience? Is death the last thing that happens to the person? In other words, is death really the end of each individual's life? [1]

Certainly, just as birth is not a sufficient explanation of the beginning or origin of each one's life, so death is not a sufficient guarantee of its end. Man's inquiry reaches naturally farther in both directions. What answers can he come up with?

If death is the final destination for each person, then we are all heading for nothing. All development then leads to final extinction. The values one has gradually found and by which one has been nourished - nature, beauty, art, music, scientific discovery, loyalty, friendship, love - remain for others; but as for me, I disappear definitively from the scene. And if the world itself, and not just each individual person, is to come to an end, then everything ends in nothing. Values are little more than passing illusions. Or, more properly, it is we who in our passing are little more than illusions, and Macbeth's words no longer seem exaggerated; life is no more than "a walking shadow, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" [2]. Nor could one dispute Sartre's conclusion to Being and Nothingness, that "man is a useless passion" [3].

No serious study of man can ignore the fact that he dies. Psychologists insist on need to face this fact, and even urge its tranquil acceptance - learning to "be at home" with death - as an integral part of self-acceptance and a means of avoiding alienation. "We must be at home with fear of death and with the enigma of death if we are not to become alienated from our nature and destiny and lose basic contact with who we are and what we are about. Acceptance of personal mortality is one of the foremost entryways to self-knowledge. Human maturity brings along with it a recognition of limit" [4].

This is not convincing. The person who refuses ever to advert to his mortality is certainly not mature. But the "recognition of the limit" shown by acceptance of the inevitability of death, does not make one more "at home" with the enigma represented by death. Whoever cannot find an explanation to this enigma always senses himself alienated from his nature and from "what he is about". All of us, at least in our youth, sense that we "are about" something really great, that our nature and destiny aspire to the infinite (to what knows no limit). If maturity and true self-knowledge ultimately mean realizing how groundless all these aspirations are, the effort to be genuinely "at home" with death - regarded as the absolute limit and real end - surely involves a self-acceptance that, in its radical frustration of what is most natural to a person, becomes indistinguishable from the deepest self-alienation.

Only a superficial anthropology, therefore, can avoid the topic of death. The fact that each one will die is as certain in anthropology as the fact of a common humanity. Yet the peculiar difficulty of this anthropological fact - that no one escapes death - is also evident. For all of us who think or write about death, it remains a "something that happens to other people", but a future fact for me. I can observe the deaths of others, and am at times obliged to do so. I can verify the end of one life after another - life in the basic mode as I myself currently experience it. But whether this gives way to a different mode or a different level of life, I cannot say. And the people who perhaps could say - those who have already died - , do not speak to me. Or, if they seem to do so, am I to count on such testimony which so many current scientific views would disqualify?

Insofar as the study of man is not just of theoretical interest but of practical concern for the individual, death is the most important question of all to clarify: a question that anthropology can and should ask, yet apparently cannot answer.

The person who is, may choose to be unconcerned about his origins or about when he never was. He can hardly be equally indifferent about whether or not he will be. To learn from the past, which cannot be changed, so as to shape the future, which still lies in our hands, is an often enunciated rule of life. How far does my future extend? Just to death? Or beyond? Just during time as I know it? Or continuing in an unknown measure of duration that some call eternity?

Death is too tremendous a prospect for anyone to be calmly "at home" with it, or to draw much therapeutic reassurance from being told there is nothing beyond it. When Harry Potter is astonished that someone can casually accept death, Professor Dumbledore dismisses his amazement with a simple "after all, to the well-organised mind, death is the next great adventure" [5]. Dumbledore is, of course, not really explaining death - just leaving it as an unexplored venture. But in his philosophy it remains a personal adventure to be undertaken, and a great one, not the end of one's story. In this view, to look on death with indifference is a sign of a poorly organized mind.

Each human person finds his life fixed between two points, birth and death. We can more or less know how the world was without us; we do not know how we may be without the world. The certainty of death favors the human sense of "the beyond", opens up the "great unknown", and leaves before us, unanswered, the vital questions of whether there is anything in that "beyond"; and if there is, what it is; and, even more importantly for each, whether I will have some share or be present in that beyond, and what kind of share or presence that may consist in.

There may indeed be nothing beyond this visible limited life we are living. Nevertheless the very curiosity of our human mind cannot help wondering if there is not something more to life than what meets our present eye, at the same time as the hankering after values tends to make us hope that there will be more, and also that it will be better than what we have so far experienced.

The "idealism of youth" may be just a cliché of the past; or a perennial characteristic of adolescence - which is simply being more quickly lost today through contact with a real world apparently bereft of genuine ideals. It may be optimism to hold that most young persons, at some moment in their early years, still cherish high ideals; it may be more realistic to hold that nowadays few do. Whatever the proportion, it does seem that not many adults who recall having had great ideals as adolescents would now say that the ideals are still there in all their greatness. Is this inevitable? Must people always "lose their fairylands" [6]? Is it possible that such idealistic dreams correspond to nothing? Are they a mere illusion? When a young person dreams that he or she is meant for something great, is that an insight into the deeper nature of his or her existence, or just a high point of auto-suggestion or self-deception - as it must be if death truly draws the final curtain?

If death is absolutely the last act for each of us, then indeed each person ends in solitude; and all the love and fellowship of life are little more than passing fantasies of happiness. Another passage of Hemingway's comes to mind, more poignant still in the light of his own death. "There is no lonelier man in death, except the suicide, than that man who has lived many years with a good wife and then outlived her. If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it" [7]. If two people love each other and nothing else, then it is hard to see what happy end either of them can have. But such a constricted love is at best the union of two egoisms each of which feels that all he or she needs is satisfied in the other. A love of that kind is bound to end in disillusionment; certainly at death, and indeed perhaps long before. As we saw in chapter two, genuine love for another tends to draw a person out of self-centeredness. It opens the horizons of one's life to a new awareness of goodness and values. We could follow out Viktor Frankl's idea that "love does not make one blind but seeing" by saying that such love turns a person into a "seer", one with a prophetic vision that sees values even beyond death. A false prophecy? Who can tell? What does each one say to oneself inside? What does he or she hope for?

Self-actualization or self-transcendence?

Can a clue to the problems posed by death be found in that remarkable fact about man that we have noted - his tendency and apparent need to go beyond and transcend himself? Transcendence in our context means man's desire [8] to surpass himself and the limitations of his own nature. "The real aim of human existence cannot be found in what is called self-actualization. Human existence is essentially self-transcendence rather than self-actualization ...; self-actualization cannot be attained if it is made an end in itself, but only as a side effect of self-transcendence" [9].

This is the paradoxical position of man. If he is to become himself, he must become more than himself; and even in achieving what might seem to be his maximum, he wants to become still more. Does this anthropological analysis, which appears to be well grounded, mean that man is constitutionally designed for ultimate frustration in the sense that no human life can ever fulfill all its potential?

Either one leaves this question without any real investigation, or else one opens anthropological inquiry itself to the possibility not only that man wants to transcend himself, but that something actually exists which transcends man - some reality or way of being, some mode of life, that is more than human but to which man's life is also naturally directed. If that is so, then something or someone "more than man" offers the key to what man is, possibly also to why he is, and perhaps to what he can in fact become.

But, it may be objected, does anthropology not overstep itself if it extends its inquiry to issues that go "beyond" man - life after death, transhuman or transnatural life? Surely what transcends man does not fall within anthropology? The objection loses its apparent force in the face precisely of the anthropological fact that the desire for self-transcendence is native to man. If man has a natural tendency to transcend himself in search of ever greater values and realities, if he has a natural repulsion towards the idea that death marks the final end and total destruction of his own existence, if he has a natural desire to possess and enjoy unlimited knowledge and goodness, then either we write off these deep-rooted human tendencies and attitudes as nonsense and absurdity, or else we allow that it is logical and reasonable to hypothesize a mode of existence - beyond our present experience - in which these values can be attained and enjoyed, as well as living beings (and perhaps one ultimate Being) who are in possession of such values or from whom the values themselves proceed. Thus, even if it cannot proceed farther, anthropology has every ground not just to admit but to firmly assert that to propose hypotheses concerning an after-life, a mode of perfect existence, a Being in unlimited possession of all values, is humanly reasonable from every viewpoint, since some such hypotheses occur naturally to man within his own experience and reflections.

Anthropology may not be able to give adequate answers to all the questions that arise from man's longing for self-transcendence. But it must allow the legitimacy, within its own field dedicated to the consideration of man, of the questions themselves.

God as an anthropological hypothesis

Obviously, the capacity or tendency to form a notion of an "afterlife" or of a Divine Being does not prove that either really exists. Nevertheless, any truly rational and consistent anthropology cannot but accept the logic with which these notions themselves are formulated.

Here we are brought face to face with the advantage - or, depending on one's inclination, the disadvantage - of an anthropology of values: it leaves man potentially open to "everything". Once he reflects on his capacity and need for truth and goodness, for wisdom and beauty, he realizes that there is no end to it, for his potential and hunger cannot be satisfied with anything less than the infinite.

Man finds precisely in himself the capacity - the vital need - to enter into contact with what surpasses the visible or physical dimensions of his existence. The very scope of his intellect and his will transcends what is finite; he finds himself naturally led toward the infinite. In words of the Second Vatican Council, "as a creature man experiences his limitations in a thousand ways. At the same time he feels limitless in his aspirations and destined for a higher form of life" [10].

Human knowledge and creative ability - in science, philosophy, technology, art - grow constantly and are far greater than the capacity of any single individual to make his own. The greatest geniuses contribute so much - and yet so little, in proportion - to the whole in its never-ceasing growth. The greater the genius, the broader will be the perspectives opening before him or her: of new knowledge, new discovery, more progress. The perspective of knowledge is limitless; as is that of practical research and experiment; of exploration through earth and space; of creative development in form, literature, art, music ...

The very scientific spirit animating the pursuit of knowledge, if it is true to its own nature, rebels against the idea of one day coming to the end of its task because it will have discovered everything. No genuine scientist would ever accept the assertion, "Now there is nothing more for us to know". The field of science naturally appears as lacking in boundary or limits. Man, in other words, in his mind's search for truth, finds himself necessarily projected toward the infinite.

The same happens with the will in its search for good. The lover thinks the loved one perfect, only to find, if they marry, that he or she is not. Then comes the alternatives: the (hard) option of learning to love the imperfect, or the (unwise) option of trying to make the imperfect perfect [11]. Wisely worked out in some cases, unwisely in others, what underlies that constantly repeated human story is the desire for perfection.

God, at least as an hypothesis, is also a human question, one therefore to be examined on the anthropological level and not exclusively in the realm of theology. No serious consideration of man can prescind from his sense of God; his desire to enter into a relationship with the infinite. Even on a natural level, it is difficult to escape the impression that man is a reflection of something higher; given his awareness of this, his personal destiny is frustrated if he does not seek to discover, know, and appreciate transcendent reality.

No doubt not all anthropologists will accept the validity of such reasoning, and the conclusions it leads to. Perhaps, then, one could legitimately distinguish between a "great" anthropology, open to all that man can aspire to, and a "small" anthropology that reduces man's aspirations to his material or physical needs, allows a narrowly predetermined area for his "spiritual" experiences, and firmly declines to speculate on whatever might go beyond that.

Which of the two establishes anthropology on a more scientific basis? Since we are dealing not with an exact science but with one which necessarily builds from certain presuppositions, there is no sure and verifiable answer to this. Which is a more open and complete analysis of man? Let the reader decide.

Halfway born?

Where do our reflections on man lead us? What does it mean to be "open" to values? What is the ultimate nature and source of the values which can really fulfill man? If in this work's first eleven chapters (where the objective was to establish the main parameters of a sound anthropology) the transcendent dimension of man was purposely avoided, it now seems that no anthropology can be sound if it completely ignores man's desire for transcendental perspectives - regardless of where they may tend to lead. Anthropology is not called to pronounce on what lies at the end (or "at the other side") of the perspectives, but neither can it fail to take account of these perspectives.

Anthropologists with a closed world view can never explain the glaring disproportion between the unlimited aspirations man has within himself and the narrow panorama of life that their anthropology offers. Their reduced view of man seems to be based on a priori suppositions which in the end reveal a preference - that is, a free choice of the will, rather than a necessary and rational conclusion of the mind - for a sort of "Homunculus anthropology". In Goethe's Faust, "Homunculus", a nineteenth century "in vitro" concoction, is given a certain degree of humanity by a knowledge-crazed scientist; but he is not given enough. He is conscious of his incompleteness: "To come to being is my keen desire". He is "a shining dwarf", and feels himself "only born halfway" [12]. So much of modern anthropology leaves man as a dwarf, not even halfway born, with no hope of attaining the state of being which is his deep desire.

Such hopelessness can drive a thinking person mad. Nietzsche, an undoubted genius who left a deep mark on much of modern thinking, erected a philosophy of nihilism. Rejecting all "received" or objective values, he left man to put what he wishes in their place, and thus to fulfill himself - as a true Superman - on his own terms. It seems significant and not merely ironic that this philosopher of self-creative superhumanity - rooted in nothing - lapsed into an insanity covering the last eleven years of his life, to his death in 1900.

That man is capable of looking above himself and needs to do so, is a truth which helps discredit the cliché (the repetitious saying and the unexamined feeling) that being a believer makes man smaller, while being an atheist makes him bigger. It is the exact opposite. The recognition of a personal God means overcoming all the bounds of reality, of time and space. It is, as Paul Claudel wrote, to set out on "the one way that really satisfies our need for space, and leads us to something other than fallen bridges and marshes, towards horizons ceaselessly renewed" [13].

Wanting to meet the Artist

It is not empty space or distant horizons, however broad, that man seeks. His desire for transcendence will not stop there. His hunger for values, his search for truth and beauty and goodness without limit, is bound to end in frustration if it is not also a quest for dialogue and communion. Man is not fulfilled by impersonal values, however great; he wants to find and commune with the person from whom these values proceed. In the face of values, the open spirit always "wants to know the artist". It is a sign of closedness - of having a narrow outlook and a poor and unambitious spirit - to prefer to contemplate "anonymous" works, lest admiration might have to turn into tribute to a person. As we saw in chapter seven, the petty jealousy of self-centered pride can block the way to ever-greater fulfillment.

Values are never perfect if they do not offer the possibility of dialogue. We cannot carry on a conversation with an abstraction, no matter how perfect it is conceived to be. An impersonal god, incapable of dialogue, offers man no promise of fulfillment [14]. When perfection or near-perfection is encountered, the reasonable human reaction is to seek its intelligent and personal origin; also in order to be able to dialogue. Contemplating Niagara - since we cannot talk with a waterfall - , the natural response is "Praise be to you, O God".

What is the real and ultimate value of values? Are they no more than concepts? Are they just subjective impressions? Or are they objectively great? Is beauty, for instance, greater than me? Or is my capacity to appreciate beauty greater than beauty? Is beauty a passing attribute? Is it a mere product of my mind? Or is there a Beauty that really is; which, moreover, I can not only admire and even love, but also commune with? Can I converse with Beauty, with Goodness, with Truth, as I converse with a person? Can I converse with a Someone who is Beauty, Goodness, Wisdom, Truth, Happiness, and Eternal Life, all in one? Can I commune with such a Someone: share my life with him, and participate in his life? If the answer is Yes, then I am faced not with the problem of God, but with the limitless possibilities that God opens to me.

The "problem of God" is in the end the problem of the man who does not manage or does not want to accept the existence of the Infinite. So, remaining out of touch with the fullness of reality, he is left without any ultimate key to his own nature, and his life is always felt in practice to be enclosed within four walls, or to be a corridor leading up (or down) to an end that is either a full stop or else a plunge into total darkness.

As we have noted, the central question posed by anthropology - "What is man?" - is not just one of scientific interest to specialists in the field. It becomes a question of utmost personal interest to all of us. For each one, "What is man?" equals "Who am I?". No question is more important to the individual. If a person does not know who he is, he is lost. A lost person, unsure of his identity, looks for some reliable source of information or for someone he can absolutely trust, to solve the mystery of his own life and existence. Only the one who stands before God can truly solve the problem of personal identity [15].

Whoever lacks the sense of transcendence cannot think about or deal with man in his most dramatic predicament: placed between everything and nothing, and tending to one or the other. Such a person could never manage to understand, let alone to create, truly great art or literature - whose proper subject is always man. The great themes of freedom and responsibility, good and evil, virtue or sin, fortune or destiny, cannot be set in any context of real importance, nor do they lend themselves to any truly dramatic treatment, in the absence of belief in the transcendent dimension of man. When the background of such belief is lacking, man and topics about man always remain small, marked by ultimate and pathetic futility.

It is not irrelevant here to note the distinction between the agnostic and the atheist. The agnostic attitude is not totally unreasonable: for it may be a consequence of an inability to overcome the 'objection' to the existence of God offered by all the violence, suffering, and injustice that marks our world. But even then one would expect the agnostic to hope that there is a God, despite everything. The attitude of the atheist - preferring to eliminate God - is unworthy of man. It can be compared to the attitude of a person who is on principle hostile to the possible discovery of a hitherto unknown play of Shakespeare or symphony of Beethoven. Could there not be something in all of that rather like Salieri's jealousy towards the work of Mozart [16]?

If this line of reasoning is sound, no one who reflects on life and takes it seriously can remain satisfied with dogmatic atheism. But, it may be objected, is this necessarily so? Am I not entitled to say: "God and eternity are pure hypotheses for me; they fall outside any experience of mine, and so I can rightly ignore them?". You are; but only at the cost of preferring a life without any real explanation, which is basically an unscientific and irrational approach [17].

However, without pressing that point here, let us continue to reflect on what does fall within human experience. We have spoken of death - a future experience for all of us. There is another reality that enters into our everyday experience and constitutes a problem no less critical for our understanding of man: the presence of evil in the world.

The problem of evil

A question that at some time faces all of us is what attitude to adopt toward the world, and especially what judgment to make of it. Is the world good, or is it bad? One may answer that it is both; but the inquiring mind will still ask, what is the explanation of this mixed-up, good-bad world? What can be its peculiar origin? Does it have just one source, producing both good and bad? Or are there two separate sources? May it not be more logical to suppose that the good comes from a good source, and the bad from a bad one? If so, how do they relate? Are they in conflict (as they so often seem to be inside each one of us)? If so, which of them is stronger?, which is going to prevail?

People believe in God because when all is said and done it is impossible, for anyone who really thinks, not to do so [18]. People believe in God because they want an adequate explanation of things, and unless one posits a personal, all-powerful God, the world has no reasonable explanation at all. It remains irrational and absurd, and no one wants to live in the context of total absurdity. People believe in God as the ultimate origin of things. But, swayed by the evidence of evil in the world [19], this basic and natural faith is often accompanied (today perhaps more than ever) by the temptation not to believe in the goodness of God. And so people can end up believing in hidden forces and spirits: in good ones and (perhaps more easily) in bad ones. Belief in God gives way to belief in gods: invisible, powerful, and often malignant powers. The current vogue of spiritism suggests that such a process is in active operation today.

Only Christianity "saves" God - saves our knowledge of God - from this temptation, revealing to us a God who has turned suffering and evil into opportunities to show an all-powerful love. We may not be able to explain (and we certainly should not try to "explain away") the presence of evil. We may be at a loss to understand the reason for suffering. But God's goodness has been placed beyond all doubt. That is why the Incarnation alone provides a sufficient and optimistic answer to the presence of suffering and evil. God has not taken evil away but has chosen to suffer it himself, with sufferings that show the extent of his love and become a source of hope and a means of salvation for us [12]. God himself has come among us, to live this checkered human life of ours. In becoming Man in Jesus Christ, God reveals how much he values and loves the world, and gives us an example - the example - of how evil, however great, can be absorbed and overcome in a love that is infinite. In doing so, he has shown that he is loving and powerful enough to use evil for good, and great evil for great good.

In the whole of history no greater act of evil has occurred than the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ - God become Man, put to death by men. Yet Jesus himself turned the very Crucifixion - his voluntary submission to death on the Cross for our sake - into the greatest act of love in the annals of mankind.

In this way, evil is not ignored or explained away, but it is set side by side with an infinitely stronger and greater Goodness. The optimism which this gives rise to - that "good is stronger than evil" [13] - is at the heart of the Christian faith.

Salvation

The presence of evil in the world is an immense mystery that must distress every thoughtful person. We should be neither obsessed with nor depressed by it, for it is something we can neither fully grasp nor solve. We should try not to make any personal contribution to this evil, not even by negative attitude or criticism, whenever (as is usually the case) this can have no positive effect; and if possible we should try to reduce it. We can also choose to ignore that evil, although (except in the depressive person) this is seldom more than the isolationist attitude of one's not wanting one's peace of mind disturbed.

No doubt we would like everything and everyone - including ourselves - to be good. But many things are not good. Many people seem not to be good. And I myself, if I take a deep look inside, may hesitate to say that I am good - in any event not as I would like to be.

Evil, then, is not just the external problem constituted by what I see around me. It is also the intimate and personal problem of what I find within me. Each one of us, if he knows his own heart, is acutely aware that he is "divided against himself"; that he appears (at least to himself) as a sort of split personality in his actions, often not wanting to do, but doing, what his conscience disapproves of, and often again wanting, but failing, to do what his conscience approves [14].

We are free; yet we are often pulled (irresistibly, it seems) in ways we would rather not go. Our fulfillment lies in opening out, and our tendency is to close in. We are made to admire, and we lapse into envy. We would like to be self-forgetful and generous, and are frequently calculating and stingy.

We could adapt and apply here one of Pascal's thoughts: "man's greatness and his miseries are so visible that any true anthropology must necessarily teach us that there is some great principle in him of greatness, and at the same time some great principle of misery" [15]. Any realistic anthropological analysis discovers in man all the indications of some grave imbalance or disruption rooted in the very depths of his being and constantly influencing his thoughts, desires and choices. Natural anthropology can offer no adequate explanation of this, and still less suggest a remedy. But it must take cognizance of the fact; otherwise it remains a surface science, content to study man's external conduct and social interaction but failing to consider the inner workings of his spirit. The study of man leads on from one fundamental question to another: What am I? - Who am I? - Why am I? [16]. Then, passing from philosophical detachment to existential anguish: Why am I so? And, finally, Why do I find it apparently beyond my powers to be as I wish to be?

Anthropology would not be genuine, it would be falling woefully short of its goals, if it did not dwell on questions regarding the wounded inner condition of man and his longing for healing. However, having posed the questions, it must leave them unanswered. It would overreach itself if it were to point to any one way of healing or redemption. It is only from a revealed source that knowledge of any real redemption for man can come.

G. K. Chesterton, holding that there is no other optimistic theology but that of Christianity, recalls the remark of a friend of his: "Anyhow, it must be obvious to anybody that the doctrine of the Fall is the only cheerful view of human life" [17]. It is truly the only view that offers an explanation for our internal conflicts and contradictions, placing them at the same time within the context of a divine plan of salvation.

The very man who faces the need to overcome self-centeredness - to rise above self and open out from self, so as to be human - finds in practice that he can never fully succeed in the endeavor. This, in christian terms, corresponds to our inability to save ourselves. We are in a fallen state, and cannot rise on our own. Hence comes the necessity of salvation and the need for grace: for a constant help from above to fight against our defects and to realize our ultimate goal [18].

The concern of anthropology is natural man; the role and activity of grace fall outside it. However, the study of man on the natural plane remains a fundamental presupposition for tackling the subject of salvation operated by grace, since grace builds on nature and does not succeed in building well if nature is not adequately understood - in its main elements, possibilities, finalities and defects.

How high can we rise?

If man is open to infinite values and will always remain dissatisfied if he does not attain them, it seems that there can be no real fulfillment for him unless in the end he either "becomes" God, or else somehow "possesses" God. The first alternative, conceived as an immanent process, is unreal and unthinkable. It is not possible to "become" infinite. The infinite really exists, or else it cannot come to exist.

The second alternative is conceivable. Man's aspirations go as far as to reach God, in whom all values are infinitely present. Since God is the ultimate "Value" and the source of all values, man's total fulfillment depends on his being open to God, responding to God, "assimilating" God - so that God becomes man's, becomes mine. These are limitless ambitions and aspirations; their actual achievement clearly depends on God himself permitting it and opening the way to it [19].

Christian belief is that this incredible fulfillment is in fact possible for man, precisely because God has wished it and made it possible. If this is so, this second alternative in a certain sense absorbs the first. The early writers of the Church did not hesitate to say that "God became man so that men might become gods" [20]. In possessing God, in sharing his life, man "becomes" God in a participatory but real way. So Christianity offers in fact the fullness - divine fullness - of personal fulfillment to everyone.

You can "have" God, but only if you let him do the sharing, and according to his plan. If you try to take him over or to supplant him, in the end you reduce yourself to frustration, sinking to a subhuman level.

Understanding man has become important as never before, both for the personal faith of those who follow Christ and for their work of bringing the Gospel to the world. Disbelief in man has become almost as great a danger today (even for Christians) as disbelief in God. Jesus shows his belief in man; he saves man and offers a new image of man that reflects God and leads to God. Unless Christians believe in man - not just in the Man, Jesus Christ, but also in every single person around them, as someone capable of acquiring the new likeness that Christ wishes to give them - , they are not likely to have or retain a strong belief in God, and they will be less able to find him in their own souls or to reflect him to others.

Man was originally made in the image of God, and therefore in a limited but natural way reflected God. Even "fallen" man offers some image of God. But if he falls farther, the likeness becomes more and more obscured. It is a process which is evidently taking place today. As man grows more alienated from himself, more distorted in the human image he reflects, he looks around and finds no image of a God capable of attracting him and offering him hope. So, the theological difficulties of unbelievers, springing from their negative idea of God, are compounded by anthropological difficulties, inasmuch as they have acquired such a flawed idea of man. If their very understanding of man is deformed, they are not likely to be drawn to God through Jesus Christ.

As for Christians themselves, if they are to reflect a more convincing image of God, they must possess and project a more adequate image of man. Deep in the hearts of unbelievers there always remains the perhaps unacknowledged desire to find God. If they are not attracted by the image of man Christians reflect in their human lives, they will not begin to be drawn by the Christian God.

An early Christian apologist addressed to the pagans the reproach that perhaps it was their defective humanity (that they could and should try to correct) which prevented them from understanding and being drawn by the God of Christians: "If you say to me, 'Show me your God', I will reply: 'Show me your man, and I will show you my God'" [21]. Modern pagans might well be entitled to address a slightly different reproach to today's Christians: "Show me your humanity, show me in your lives something of the humanity of the Christ you profess to believe in, and then I may be more drawn by the God you say loves and saves us all".

Albert Camus was revolted by the persistent heritage of nineteenth-century Victorian self-justification and other-condemnation. In a world (for him) without God or absolute values, he felt that everyone must admit his or her guilt before a minimum of human understanding and solidarity could become possible. In La Chute, he writes: "When we are all guilty, that will be democracy" [22]. It is indeed possible that an admission of guilt by each one (at least to himself) might result in greater mutual understanding and provoke a more active humanitarian pity. But it would probably be a bitter pity, like that of Dr. Rieux in another work of Camus, La Peste, who saw men as victims of a merciless world, of their own misery, and of the selfishness of others. If such a "democracy" could bring men together, it would be in the solidarity of a meaningless and loveless society. Christianity is the democracy of all being guilty; but also of all being loved, forgiven, cleansed, and fitted for a new life.

Notes
[1] "The first absolutely certain truth of our life, beyond the fact that we exist, is the inevitability of our death. Given this unsettling fact, the search for a full answer [to the meaning of life] is inescapable. Each of us has both the desire and the duty to know the truth of our own destiny. We want to know if death will be the definitive end of our life or if there is something beyond - if it is possible to hope for an after-life or not": John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, no. 26.
[2] Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Sc. V.
[3] Being and Nothingness, p. 784.
[4] Herman Feifel: "Psychology and Death. Meaningful Rediscovery": American Psychologist, vol. 45 (1990), p. 541.
[5] J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, p. 215.
[6] cf. H. Belloc: Cautionary Verses, Preface.
[7] Death in the Afternoon, ch. 11.
[8] which either corresponds to a capacity, or just reflects an illusion. Imagination, dreams, hopes, ambitions ... There is so much inside each one of us that stretches beyond the surrounding reality and perhaps beyond the realm of what seems possible. Reality is limited; human ambition is not. In the last analysis, one of two conclusions must be drawn from this restless inner world of ours: either human dreams are just illusions and vain hopes, or else man points to something more than man.
[9] V. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, pp. 112-113.
[10] Gaudium et spes, no. 10.
[11] There is of course a third alternative: the "pragmatic" option of ceasing to love, or of looking for an "easier" love. It is an option that involves an even more radical contraction of one's horizons.
[12] Faust, Part II, Act II.
[13] Paul Claudel and André Gide, Correspondence, 1949, p. 196.
[14] Human love tends to idealize and even to "deify" the loved one, easily believing that the values the beloved offers or represents are perfect; and wanting absolutely to commune and converse with him or her.
[15] cf. John Paul II: The Theology of the Body, Pauline Books, p. 36.
[16] As portrayed in Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus (1979).
[17] cf. Appendix I: Science, reason, and God.
[18] cf. ibid.
[19] Commenting on "the terrible experience of evil which has marked our age", John Paul II made this observation: "Such a dramatic experience has ensured the collapse of rationalist optimism, which viewed history as the triumphant progress of reason, the source of all happiness and freedom; and now, at the end of this century, one of our greatest threats is the temptation to despair": Fides et Ratio, no. 91.
[12] cf. John Paul II's encyclical, Salvifici Doloris (1984), passim.
[13] "bonum fortius est quam malum": Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-I, q. 100, art. 2; I-II, q. 29, art. 3, etc.
[14] cf. Rom 7: 15-24.
[15] Pensées, p. 83. Pascal of course does not say "anthropology", but "religion".
[16] "A cursory glance at ancient history shows clearly how in different parts of the world, with their different cultures, there arise at the same time the fundamental questions which pervade human life: Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life? These are the questions which ... have their common source in the quest for meaning which has always compelled the human heart. In fact, the answer given to these questions decides the direction which people seek to give to their lives": Fides et Ratio, no. 1.
[17] Autobiography, Chapter 7.
[18] The Encyclopaedia Britannica presents grace as "the divine influence operating in man for his regeneration and sanctification". The Council of Trent describes (actual) grace as a "gift of God and an inspiration of the Holy Spirit ... giving the impulse that helps the penitent make his way toward justice" (Denzinger, 898).
[19] The idea that man can "be God" has been an ambition - a vague longing or a proud deception - in all civilizations. But the idea that God could become man is so totally original that it could not come from human reason, neither humble nor proud - though the humble man can accept it, once it is revealed.
[20] St. Augustine, Sermo 128.
[21] "Si dicas: Ostende mihi Deum tuum, dicam tibi: Ostende mihi hominem tuum, et ego tibi ostendam Deum meum": St. Theophilus of Antioch: Ad Autolycum, lib. 1, 2, 7 (PG 6, 1026).
[22] This view is, of course, just the opposite of contemporary humanistic psychology's insistence that we all be declared, or declare ourselves, guiltless. A sense of guilt is considered to be destructive of self-esteem, and no morality is acceptable which asks one to level a finger at oneself or to "repent" of one's actions. "Therapy" has replaced the admission of guilt and the need for forgiveness, while therapeutic counseling is professedly aimed at the rehabilitation of self-love: "I was able to renew my self-esteem. I learned again to like myself". The paeans of Philip Rieff's The Triumph of the Therapeutic (first published in the mid-1960s) have a hollow sound fifty years later.