Human Nature Despite the Fact

Human Nature Despite the fact that human beings have been recording the events of their lives for millennia, and espousing their theories of morality and human nature, there are stark contrasts between the way in which major religious and philosophical strains around the world have viewed mankind and their place in the universe.

Fundamentally, these disparities are likely to arise from basic differences in spiritual beliefs; after all, most major events in world history, whether occurring in the Far East or in the West, possess loose corollaries among different peoples possessing different beliefs. In other words, despite cross-cultural similarities in wars, social and political structures, revolutions and rebellions, how these events have been interpreted spiritually and philosophically have been in variance.

Within the Hindu tradition, every individual is believed to be at a certain step in their ancient and ongoing spiritual journey; this journey extends far beyond the life of the individual. At the heart of Hindu belief is the notion of duty or "dharma"; the idea that everyone has a place in society, and that this position was determined by their actions in past lives.

In this way, the actions of every person over the course of their lives are far more ephemeral than in many other world religions; they are not the soul's only chance at attaining a greater level of spiritual enlightenment: "Beyond the senses is the mind; above the mind is true being; over true being is the great soul; above the great is the unmanifest. Higher than the unmanifest is Spirit, all-pervading and without any mark whatever," (Beck).

This way of viewing the state of man takes into account the numerous, and obvious, injustices in the world, and the inequalities that persist between different people and different social classes. Overall, man is viewed as a vehicle through which the soul is charged with the task of attaining spiritual perfection.

However, the Hebrew old testament interpretation of human nature, interprets man's disconnection with God as being a consequence of his basic character: "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat," (Bartleby). With the knowledge of sin, man became capable of choosing a path that did not lead to God.

So, although man is not innately evil, in the Hebrew version of his nature, he is naturally prevented from living in total harmony with God, because of his ability to do evil -- though paths to God still exist, they can only be attained by adhering to His laws. In the Far East, by contrast, we see a different version of mankind. Mengzi maintained that all human morality was held together by a single concept: ren, or natural humanistic love.

Simply put, ren is a love and respect for all things human (McGreal 6). To Mengzi, a person can only achieve ren if they undergo an attainment of knowledge to the point where they reach a workable grasp of the place for each form of love. The rituals and education that bring about knowledge is li; the ultimate form of li is yi -- the highest principle governing the adoption of li.

So, although Mengzi believes that all people possess a certain amount of these qualities naturally, in order to fully attain ren and yi a person must cultivate their inner courage individually. In this respect, the way in which man's spirit is cultivated is similar to the interpretation put forward by most sects of Islam: "God created us with a fitrah, or inherent nature, which can, if neglected, over time become corrupted.

The closer a person is to his or her fitrah, the purer he or she is and the closer he or she becomes to God," (Elnaggar). In some ways, this is analogous to the Hebrew interpretation of human nature -- man was made by God capable.