Human nature

1. Human nature Christian Theories

2. Problem of the will • Plato -> Augustine • Aristotle -> Aquinas • Christianity: Human nature = Sinful • Faculties of the soul (intellect, memory, will) • What is more important: Intellect or will (medieval discussions: primacy of will versus primacy of intellect)?

3. Will is significant because: • Adam had a deficient will • Freedom of the will is necessary for the concept of sin. • Only the will can control the passions. • Historical continuity in current contexts: • Psychology: What is more important for success? IQ or motivation? • Education: Should sex education focus on the will (“Just say no”), on the intellect (information) or on emotions (scare techniques). • Politics: Bush versus Kerry?

4. Augustine (354-430) • Born and died in North Africa (now Algeria). • Bishop. • One of the most influential theologians in the Christian religion. • The last great classical philosopher and the first great Christian philosopher.

5. Augustine’s philosophy • Neoplatonist. • Knowledge of the empirical world: Lowest form of human activity. • Natural philosophy (science): Subordinate to theology. • True knowledge only occurred through religious contemplation. • The function of the mind was limited to inferior, sensory processing and was inferior to faith in God. • The source of ideas is in God. • God is the great cause. • Promised eternal life to the faithful.

6. The body • The body is at war with the soul. • The soul should control the body. • The animalistic human body is prone to control by Satan. • Illness: The soul looses partial control of the body. • Death: Total loss of control. • Sexual arousal (“concupiscence”) and the sexual members (genitalia) were inherently sinful. • Sexual passion is not subject to reason (importance of the will). • Only sex without lust is guided by the soul. • God created women to be subordinate to men’s power and control. • Men should fear women’s sexuality.

7. Confessions • Augustine was one of the first persons in European culture to write from the perspective of the “I.” • Describes the ascent of the soul to God. From body to sense, to inner sense, to the disregard of self. • Augustine praises God, blames himself, and confesses his faith. • Cleansing himself of the desires of the flesh, renunciation of sexuality and embracing a life of chastity. • Critique of Manichaeism (founded by Mani) a dualistic religion/sect. (There is one soul fluctuating between conflicting wills) • Cynical: Meditations by a middle-aged man.

8. The role of introspection • Augustine promoted “introspection” as the best way of finding and knowing God. • Personal communion with God: Transcends Plato’s highest stage of “Knowing the Good.” • Introspection as inspired by the Holy Spirit: Highest form of human activity. • Will: People have an internal sense of virtue or guilt that is fundamental to humans’ psychology (free will).

9. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) • Aquinas reformed the Augustinian framework (based on Plato), by uniting it with the teachings of Aristotle and Avicenna, the Islamic scholar. • Aquinas made the study of nature respectable for Christians. Reliability of sensory knowledge. • Still: Primacy is God, not nature. • The individual needed to contain her or his passions through the exercise of reason and the will. • It was the faculty of the will that enabled individuals to apprehend through reason the eternal truths. • The soul subordinates the intellect to the will, which is motivated to seek goodness. • Thus, will was primary in Thomistic psychology.

10. Contemporary psychologies based on Christian theories • Ranging from conservative to progressive. • Example of a progressive Christian theory of the human condition: Ignacio Martín-Baró. • Not individuals are necessary sinful but social conditions that produce inequality, oppression and poverty. • Individuals who do not change oppressive conditions are sinful.

11. Liberation theology • “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24) • Popular in Latin America. • God speaks through the poor. • Bible can be understood only when seen from the perspective of the poor.

12. Ignacio Martín-Baró • Jesuit priest and liberation psychologist. • Murdered by Salvadoran military in 1989 on the campus of University of Central America (UCA) in San Salvador for his support of the poor and his publications.

13. Martín-Baró’s liberation psychology • "Affirmation that the object of Christian faith is a God of life and, therefore, that a Christian must accept the promotion of life as his or her primordial religious task. • Poverty is a sin. • "True practice has primacy over true theory" • "Christian faith calls for a preferential option for the poor."

14. A new horizon • The objective need of the majority of the people of Latin America consists in their historical liberation from the social structures that oppress them. • Psychology must focus its concern and energy on that issue.

15. A new epistemology • Psychology must begin with the liberation needs of the people of Latin America. • New ways of seeking knowledge. • Truth: Learning from the oppressed. • Look at psychosocial processes from the perspective of the dominated, educational psychology from the perspective of the illiterate, industrial psychology from the perspective of the unemployed, clinical psychology from the perspective of the marginalized. • What is mental health from the place of a tenant farmer, maturity from someone who lives in the town dump, motivation from a woman who sells on the street?

16. A new praxis • To acquire new psychological knowledge it is not enough to place ourselves in the perspective of the people. • It is necessary to involve psychologists in a new praxis. • Praxis: An activity of transforming reality that will let us know not only about what is but also about what is not, and by which we may try to orient ourselves toward what ought to be. • Participatory action research. • Taking an ethical stand while still maintaining objectivity.