On Human Nature

All ideas of a purely “immanent” human nature are based on a philosophical oversight: the failure to recognize that affirmation of an “immanent reality” has metaphysical meaning only in its association with a truth of “transcendent reality”—that the two notions arise as linked, mutually illuminating terms when the understanding of human participation in the cosmos reaches (in various cultures) a certain degree of clarification.

“You say I am repeating / Something I have said before. I shall say it again.” (T. S. Eliot)

Reality is humanly apprehended as a fullness of meaning, a cosmos; this cosmos can, through certain experiences and insights, be differentiated into the two distinct “realms of meaning” indicated by the terms transcendence and immanence; and the achievement of this differentiation is both a historical feature and a recurring capacity of human consciousness.

In fact, the human ability to differentiate the wholeness of the cosmos in this way has led numerous philosophers to define “human nature” partly in terms of precisely this capacity: humans are those beings whose consciousness is capable of—and ontologically shows—the dissociation between the world and a world-transcending ground of being. A human being is “human,” in other words, because of openness to transcendent reality; participation in transcendent reality; and the showing-forth of transcendent reality.

To put this in Western religious terms: human beings are where God and world consciously encounter each other, with persons having, consequently, the responsibility to remain in openness to the divine ground of order (and to writings and teachings deriving from this openness), and the obligation to act in a manner reflecting the influence of such openness.

No later refinements in anthropology annul this principle embedded in the initial historical conceptions of “human nature” (whether philosophically or religiously expressed), however profoundly they might explain complexities of physical, chemical, biological, psychological, evolutionary, cognitional, linguistic, social, and cultural structures that constitute humans. Whatever its multitudes of conditioning elements, human nature remains foundationally defined by its being an “in-between” being where immanent and transcendent realms of meaning consciously intersect.

Given this principle, what would the most basic elements of a sound conception of human nature look like?

An account of something’s “nature” entails, by definition, an identification of constants belonging to it—constants manifested under all historical circumstances and in every individual case. Some elemental constants of human nature that properly answer to the history of revelations of transcendence may be described as follows.

First, there is the unique manner in which human beings participate in reality. A human is the (relatively) autonomous “being” that 1) knows that it exist; 2) wonders about its existence; and 3) seeks, and feels drawn, to understand intelligibilities within reality. This seeking of understanding, which is simultaneously a being drawn toward understanding by the mysterious ground of being to which we belong, may be considered the most comprehensively defining, most essential, constant of human nature. Because of this, Eric Voegelin describes human consciousness—the locus of seeking/being-drawn—as a kind of  “tension”; and because this tension is a participation in the reality of the cosmos, as a “participatory tension.”

A second constant is awareness of the cosmos to which we belong. As the human search for meaning has advanced in its historically differentiating course, the understood structures within the order of reality have grown enormously; but the cosmos for all that never disintegrates. The cosmos remains present to human consciousness as the whole of reality within which all meanings are understood and all knowledge occurs, the constant “encompassing completeness” within which all concern, questioning, knowing, and loving take place.

Thirdly, the “participatory tension of consciousness” that each person is, always includes awareness of the ground of being. Human consciousness is always aware that it is not the cause of its own existence; and therefore, at the center of consciousness, there is a concernful question as to what its ground truly is. Because of this question, every human being is constituted, by nature, as a sort of “tension toward the ground” (Voegelin)—a desiring to understand the whys and wherefores of our being in the cosmos. One might end up brushing aside this question as a nonsensical business, or smothering it with every distraction at hand—but it is as elemental to human existence as blood and bone.

A fourth constant is that the object of the human search for understanding is meaning. We want to understand the meanings that make up the intelligible structures of reality; we desire to know the meaning of the ground of being; and we want to grasp those meanings that will guide us toward personal and communal fulfillment. Historically, consciousness unfolds as a long search for the meanings of things, causes, values, and the ground of being, developing from early, cosmologically compact forms of knowing into the differentiated appreciations of social, political, technological, artistic, and cultural life with which we are familiar.

The process of seeking meaning by consciousness also has its constants—which may be found in the operations of human thinking. These have been especially well clarified by Bernard Lonergan.

Lonergan explains that human thinking, propelled always by the urge to understand, entails a recurrent pattern of related operations. First, we question; and questioning is initially an effort to discover meanings in data made present to us through experiences. The most obvious “experiential data” are those encountered through the five outward senses, although “inner” sensations of feeling and emotion also engage our attention.

At some point in our development, however, we become aware of our own awareness, of our thinking activities, and of our decision-making. It is important to recognize that the data encountered here are not data of sense, but data of consciousness, consisting of multiple operations propelled by desire, shot through with emotions, and accompanied by self-awareness.

Whatever the data of experience, though, what questioning aims for is the understanding of that data—or more precisely, the understanding of the intelligible structures (or forms) that might be present in the data.

When it does arrive at an understanding of some data encountered in experience, though, questioning is not yet finished. For the further question arises: is my understanding correct? Early in life we come to realize that insights can be mistaken. So we are led to consider if there is sufficient evidence to assure us that our insight is correct. When we are sure that there is, we proceed to make a judgment, in which we claim our insight to be true based on the sufficiency of the evidence (or, perhaps, make a judgment that it is not true, due to sufficient contradictory evidence; or, again, make a judgment that the truth of an insight is merely probable, or possible).

Our accumulated judgments of fact, then, provide us with our presumptive horizon of knowledge. (Always remembering that we do make errors of judgment—but also, that these can often be corrected.)

Finally, based on what we know, or presume we know, we make decisions about how to act. Most of our decisions are minor and have little consequence: what to eat for breakfast; whether or not to take a walk. Some are of significance; and a few are existentially momentous. How do we arrive at decisions? We realize that we have a range of options regarding actions that we might take in a given situation, and we deliberate about these, drawing both on our knowledge and on the feelings attracting us toward this or that preferred action. Which feelings? Perhaps we will let ourselves decide for the most pleasurable (or least painful) option. Maybe, however, we will find in ourselves feelings arising from awareness that a certain act is the most worthwhile, most valuable, most dignified, among our options—and that feeling will lead us, together with reflection, to make a judgment of value which becomes the basis for decision and action.

(Judgments of value, of course, can be erroneous, just like judgments of fact. Growth in virtue, like growth in learning, involves continual self-correction.)

Questioning our experiences; understanding experiences; judging the truth of our understandings; deliberating and deciding what to do: these make up a dynamic flow of recurrent operations in human consciousness, altogether constituting another constant of human nature.

And how might one verify any of the constants described above?

By attending—with courtesy!—to oneself.

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