human

What is human is what is natural to man, and what is most essentially or most specifically natural to man is what relates to the Absolute and which consequently requires the transcending of what is earthly in man. (GTUFS: DivineHuman, Consequences Flowing from the Mystery of Subjectivity)

There is a great deal of talk these days about “humanism,” talk which forgets that once man abandons his prerogatives to matter, to machines, to quantitative knowledge, he ceases to be truly “human.” What is most totally human is what gives man the best chances for the hereafter, and this is what also most deeply corresponds to his nature. (GTUFS: UIslam, Islam)

What is most profoundly and authentically human rejoins the Divine by definition. (GTUFS: HaveCenter, Concerning a Question of Astronomy) There is nothing human which is not an evil from some point of view: even tradition itself is in certain respects an “evil,” since it must handle evil things in man and these human ills invade it in their turn, but it is then a lesser evil, or a “necessary evil,” and, humanly speaking, it would obviously be far truer to call it a “good.” The pure truth is that “God alone is good” and that every earthly thing has some ambiguous side to it. (GTUFS: LSelf, The Meaning of Caste)

Human Animality: It should be noted that human animality is situated beneath animality as such, for animals innocently follow their immanent law and thereby enjoy a certain natural and indirect contemplation of the Divine Prototype; whereas there is decadence, corruption and subversion when man voluntarily reduces himself to his animality. (GTUFS: SufismVQ, Paradoxes of an Esoterism)

Human Nature: When we speak of man, what we have in mind first of all is human nature as such, that is, inasmuch as it is distinguished from animal nature. Specifically human nature is made of centrality and totality, and hence of objectivity; objectivity being the capacity to step outside oneself, while centrality and totality are the capacity to conceive the Absolute. First, objectivity of intelligence: the capacity to see things as they are in themselves; next, objectivity of will, hence free will; and finally, objectivity of sentiment, or of soul if one prefers: the capacity for charity, disinterested love, compassion. “Noblesse oblige”: the “human miracle” must have a reason for being that is proportionate to its nature, and it is this that predestines – or “condemns” – man to surpass himself; man is totally himself only by transcending himself. Quite paradoxically, it is only in transcending himself that man reaches his proper level; and no less paradoxically, by refusing to transcend himself he sinks below the animals which – by their form and mode of passive contemplativity – participate adequately and innocently in a celestial archetype; in a certain respect, a noble animal is superior to a vile man. (GTUFS: HaveCenter, Survey of Integral Anthropology)