Person and Society

Extract

Our ideas of the freedom of man and of the rights of man depend on the view we take of human nature and of the purpose for which man exists. Whether we are fully aware of this or not, it is the basis of all our notions about ourselves, about the family, about the State, and about international order.

If man has dignity, freedom, rights, it is because he has, individually and personally, a certain value as a human being. Christianity teaches that this value is given to him by God who has created man in his own image and has made him for himself. That is, man has a soul which is able to know truth and love good and which finds its eternal happiness in the vision of God. God did not make man and then leave him to his own devices. He made him for a definite purpose. The basis of man’s rights is his right to fulfil this purpose. An attack on human freedom is an attack on the human person, on the dignity of man. We shall see that whenever man’s value in the eyes of God is denied, his dignity is debased and his freedom is attacked.

We take our fellow men for granted. But in fact we have one or two deep convictions about them. We think of them as equal. This does not mean that they are the same. Look round about you. You see every size and shape, age and ability. But try to think of the man next to you, the man next door, even those against whom we are fighting, as having a quite different, inferior, nature like a dog.