What Is & What Ought to Be

“Modern thought is short on arguments justifying the existence of men.”

— Rémi Brague, The Legitimacy of the Human

“In Aristotle’s opinion the better part of man is his weakest part, and his ‘humanity’ — the things most proportionate to his human nature — is at once the strongest thing in him and the less good part. Now the Roman virtue of humanitas could be cultivated only where man was indeed considered the best thing in the world. The new sense of ‘brotherhood’ of which scholars speak in presenting the development of political thought in this period was new because it was based on a love of man for himself as a being than which there is none better in the universe.”

— Charles N.R. McCoy,
The Structure of Political Thought

What happens to men in reality usually has already happened to them in thought. Studying intellectual history is, therefore, by no means a waste of time. It is, in fact, what we should spend much of our energy on. A small error in the beginning, Aristotle told us, leads to a huge error in the end. Thus, even deviant and erroneous ideas should be thought about. The knowledge of error is itself a good, if we can ascertain where erroneous ideas come from and where they will likely lead. The question of what justifies man being man is usually asked only after it becomes obvious that man may, by his own choice, cease possessing what it is to be man as a true and original gift of nature.

A collection of my essays on G.K. Chesterton is called The Satisfied Crocodile (The American Chesterton Society, 2017). The title comes from an observation of Chesterton’s. Let us suppose, he said, that a man eats or drinks too much, to the point where it is ruining his life. Seeing this situation, a friend takes him aside and bluntly tells him, “Be a man!” That is, rule yourself. Stop doing what is causing the problem.

In contrast, suppose we come upon a crocodile that is satisfied because it has just consumed its tenth missionary. We do not say to the animal, “Be a crocodile!” That’s because it is being a crocodile. Crocodiles, by nature, eat and enjoy what comes their way, even missionaries. Man, however, can only be a man if he decides to be what he already is, what he ought to be. His “being a man” includes his ruling himself. That’s the kind of being he is. Plato made the same point at the beginning of The Republic when Socrates observed that we do not return a borrowed sword to a madman, even if the sword is his.

I cite this crocodile story in the beginning of my comments on Rémi Brague’s insightful new book The Legitimacy of the Human (St. Augustine’s Press) because it indicates to us what his book is about. It is not so much about why it is alright to be a crocodile or a man, but why man is not an aberration in the universe. Why is man supposed to become what he is? The initial sentence from Brague’s book, cited above, indicates that some philosophers think that men should not exist at all or, if they do, that they should not exist as they are understood in the classical and revelational traditions. Men need to be “reconstructed” according to some other plan.

In this erudite book, Brague demonstrates a vast amount of learning in historical, philosophical, theological, and scientific spheres. He pays special attention to philosophers Günther Anders, Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, and Hans Blumenberg. He presents a straightforward argument designed to answer the implied query in the book’s title — namely, why is it “legitimate” to be a man?

Brague sees quite clearly that much of the history of modern thought has been an effort to answer this question by affirming that it is legitimate for man to be man because man “makes” himself what he is. If man’s sole justification to be what he is rests on himself, then his legitimacy can only be found in some version of Hobbes’s Leviathan, on power wherever located. The fact is, however, that man does not make himself. Rather, as Aristotle remarked, he is already man when he begins to wonder what he is and why he is as he is.

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In light of what Henri de Lubac called “the drama of atheistic humanism,” Brague examines the coherence, or logic, of man being man if God does not exist. If man legitimizes himself to be man, then by the same principle he is the highest authority and can legitimize himself to be not-man, or even in-human. Brague thinks that “exclusive humanism is simply impossible.” The humanism we have seen since the time of the Romans, as Charles N.R. McCoy points out in the above citation, has been premised on the notion that nothing higher than man is to be found. On this basis, humanism is, in principle, atheistic. And it is this independent humanism that has gained force in modern culture. The question is whether, on its basis, this type of humanism can save man or even wants to save him.

Today, Brague writes, “man gives himself more and more means of taking his future in his own hands, of deciding freely what he will be, and perhaps even if he will be or not, and at the outside he might be able to give himself the means of deciding the fate of the whole universe.” It should come as no surprise that, in some ecological circles, the very existence of man is the central problem.

Man usually considers the source of his presence in the universe to be the same source for everything else that is present there. But if we consider man’s presence itself to be an evil, as the Gnostic tradition often did, then the perfection of the order and beauty of the universe does not depend on man, as it does in the mandate of Genesis. Rather, because of overpopulation, pollution, or exhaustion of resources, the earth is threatened by man’s presence. Thus, the good of the universe becomes premised on the suicide or elimination of man.

But one might also argue that what is wrong is the present configuration of man’s body and soul: His natural needs and desires are the problem. The solution, therefore, lies in reconfiguring man with the help of science and technology. By eliminating the family, separating sex from begetting, and cloning and creating beings in between man and animals, we can eliminate the causes of evil. Evil is seen as a technological problem, not a moral one.

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The very notion of whether we ourselves can create a better being than the one given to us by nature is a central theme of Brague’s book. By seeking to bypass the order in man inherent in creation, do we not introduce a much greater evil into our existence than what might result from the old notions of sin and vice? Thus, Brague writes, “anti-humanism consists in no longer defining man by what is human in him.” Note that the “humanism” of modernity already has eliminated man’s relation to anything higher than himself in the universe.

What Brague is looking for is a reason why man ought to be what he is created to be. The original human condition, Aristotle said, includes the power to contemplate the divine things — without which power man is but a passing entity. “Is human life truly livable without the promise of an absolute joy?” Brague asks.

The major difference between Greek philosophy and Christian revelation is not whether the gods exist but whether man could participate in the life of the Godhead, and, if so, on what conditions. This question confronts head-on the problem of death. Brague remarks, “Foucault does not seem to have been very troubled by the actual disappearance of man.” Death means that each existing man disappears one by one in this world. The very meaning of creation is that it provides a place for man to decide how he ultimately stands vis-à-vis the Godhead. Thus, the eventual disappearance of man from the cosmos simply means that the plan of salvation is working itself out in time and eternity. It is not an accident that the summary of what Christian revelation offers to man is “eternal life.”

This contrast can be seen in how Brague relates Nikolai Berdyaev and Foucault. According to Berdyaev, Brague writes, humanism is “the direct cause of the death of God,” after which the death of man follows as a “paradoxical consequence.” Foucault, on the other hand, sees the death of man as “the means of being done completely with humanism.” For the Christian, the death of God necessarily entails the death of man. Man is, as it were, God’s own invention or making. To rid oneself completely of “humanism,” man must die in such a way that there is no connection with either God or a substitute man-god. “What if the absence of faith must eventually entail, via an entire series of mediations,” Brague asks, “the disappearance, this time not metaphorical but entirely real, of the human species?” By ridding ourselves of both God and humanism, we can finally concentrate on a new man or being who has no relation either to God or to man.

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The title of Brague’s second-to-last chapter is “Who Makes Man?” Even though it is tempting to say that man makes man to be man, this solution cannot be coherently maintained. Either man is already man, or what he makes of himself that is different from what he is cannot be man. The alternatives are these: “Was everything done by chance — i.e., in virtue of the interplay of factors whose relationships are regulated by necessary natural laws? Or can one find traces of an intention. In which case, is it benevolent?” Evolution does not explain why things evolve in the first place; Gaia, the earth goddess, may not look kindly on men.

This consideration brings Brague to re-examine the original alternative to God. That is, both the world and God are in themselves good: “If the goodness of God extends to all, the created things must be considered a whole, unified in an order.” To be created means to come to be from nothing. That is, in the beginning there were no finite beings. Creation is, therefore, a good in the sense that it is “capable of harboring a freedom, one that creates history.” Thus, its goodness is “not a perfection that would render human action impossible or superfluous. On the contrary, it is what makes action possible and meaningful.” These are remarkable lines. Action is possible only if it is free and, therefore, responsible. The good of man includes his freedom. Creation was not opposed to human freedom, even though man can use this same freedom wrongly.

“The only way of imitating an invisible God who does not give himself in any other image than that which produces his imitation in us, is liberty,” Brague writes. The invisible God created things that need not exist: finite, free beings outside of Himself, but beings with whom He ultimately intends to share His inner life. What God created is in His “image” — that is to say, the free gift of love that was not God, which He called into being, finds its meaning in the reciprocity of this freedom as it exists outside the Godhead. The end of the universe, therefore, is not to be achieved by force or necessity but by freedom. No other way is possible. Man is thus responsible for all being, but most especially for the being that brings him out of nothingness.

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The last chapter in Brague’s book is provocatively titled “Being as a Command.” What can it possibly mean to maintain that being is commanded? Brague’s final chapter is essentially a commentary on the creation account in Genesis. He wants to relate being and action in such a way that the action that flows from being (actio sequitur esse) is the completion of being. This approach assumes the primacy of contemplation over action, and it reaffirms McCoy’s assertion that the best part of man is his weakest side.

The meaning of command in this context is like the command Chesterton touched on when he said, “Be a man!” Someone who is already a man has to complete himself by using his freedom to become what he is designed to be and ought to be. The command is already present in his initial being; it is up to him to freely activate its completion.

The creation of “light” in Genesis enables us to see the goodness of our being. The being that God creates is reflected in each being according to its own kind. In the case of men, our being reflects back on the goodness present in our own existence outside of nothing. Brague comments: “This unique and fundamental command is the first of all the ‘orders’ that the Creator gives according to the Genesis account: ‘Be!’ Being is a commandment.” This command to be already includes existence and essence, both is and what is.

The “thou shalt nots” of the Ten Commandments are merely ways of protecting being from non-being. The commandments prohibit us from doing the few things that, if we do them, prevent us from doing all the good things we are capable of doing. Basically, not only is it a “good to exist,” Brague writes, but “it is good for each being to coincide with what it is.” Man not only is man from nature but he ought to be man from nature. The denial of order in nature is, implicitly, the denial of man.

“Men are perfectly capable of grasping what allows them to lead a harmonious and peaceful existence. For they do not need a reference to a divine foundation,” Brague concludes. “It suffices for them to understand, thanks to their reason, that certain ways of ‘doing’ permits them to establish themselves in ‘being.’ But at this point one remains at the level of a hypothetical imperative: for man, if he ought to have being, then a certain way of ‘acting’ is required.” Being and being good in the case of man require action on the part of man, action that is not coerced. The source of this acting is already present in man in the sense that he is created good, created free to be what he is.

This resolves the legitimacy issue. “But who can tell us that he ought to have being?” Brague asks. “In particular, who can tell us that it is good that we are, that our very existence, our possessing the characteristics that make us men, is good? Who other than God?” The legitimacy of the human lies in the creation of man who is. “Man did not make man to be man,” as Aristotle put it. When God created man, He said to him, “Be what you already are.” With that command, made before anything existed, we already have the particular good that is each created person. What is not up to God is the free response of each person to his own being.

Without the possibility of rejecting God, man would not be free. With this possibility, we have the history of ancient and modern humanism that seeks to find an alternative to man by rejecting God. It turns out, in the end, that all the proposed alternatives to “be what you are” are anti-human. This lineage is what unifies the history of modern humanism. It is precisely illegitimate because it freely chooses to reject what it is to be man.

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