What is Man

What is man? Is he merely a higher form of animal or is he something different in kind from the animals? Does man have a non-material nature, or is his “soul” merely the complex relationships in his brain?

These questions have been asked for millennia, and there is no simple answer. Much of theology has been tainted by Greek philosophy on this matter, so that many Christians view the soul as a separate part of man that will live on after the body dies. I don’t have time to go into all the biblical data, but I think that the Bible sees man holistically, having a body, soul and spirit integrally tied together into a cohesive unity.

That is why the resurrection is a fundamental Christian doctrine; the physical resurrection of the body is essential to a biblical view of man. Man will live for eternity in bodily form, having a new body that is imperishable. Man will not be floating around on clouds as disembodied spirits.

This is a Greek notion, not a biblical one. That is why the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill in Acts 17 laughed at Paul when we started talking about the resurrection of the body. To the Greeks, living forever in the body was a terrible notion since they sought freedom from the body to live on in a mental, spiritual world after death. However, Christianity rejects that notion and clearly sees man as a physical and spiritual being that cannot be separated.

Man, then, is more than an animal, since he has an immaterial soul that animates him. Yet he has a body and is tied to the physical creation. He is different in kind from the animals, yet he is like them in many ways. Man is also like the angels in some ways, but of a completely different kind.

The following quote from Pascal got me thinking on this subject:

“Man is a nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything. Since he is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of thing, and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret: he is equally incapable of seeing the Nothing from which he was made, and the Infinite in which he is swallowed up.”

“Man must not think that he is on a level either with the brutes or with: the angels, nor must he be ignorant of both sides of his nature; but he must know both. In recognizing both lies his Wretchedness and grandeur. Man knows that he is wretched. He is therefore wretched, because he is so; but he is really greater because he knows it."