The following series of articles serves as a very brief primer in some important aspects of Catholic anthropology, or the Catholic understanding of the human person, especially as a preface to understanding the moral life. A wise person who reflects on the human experience can understand that, in comparison with lower animals, there is something unique about the human race and our place in the world. They could understand that this means human beings do, and ought to continue, living their lives in a manner that is different from animals. When it comes to the kinds of activities that we share with animals —nourishing, sheltering, and defending ourselves or procreating and organizing ourselves into groups— we ought to continue to do these in a manner that is qualitatively different from the way animals undertake these activities. Where animals do these things by instinct, we ought to do these things by reason. But there are also activities that animals do not share in and that human beings undertake alone. Here you can think of things like art, religion, education, law, music, and scientific inquiry. The wise person could also understand that these things are worth doing, and doing well, as a part of the picture of what it means to be human.
Liked the stained glass window analogy.
“Because we are created in God’s image we strive to be like Him and nothing else will satisfy us.” How simple - yet profound! Thank you!