Human nature

1
Human nature

• Christian Theories

2
Problem of the will

• Plato -gt Augustine
• Aristotle -gt Aquinas
• Christianity Human nature Sinful
• Faculties of the soul (intellect, memory, will)
• What is more important Intellect or will
  (medieval discussions primacy of will versus
  primacy of intellect)?

3
Will is significant because

• Adam had a deficient will
• Freedom of the will is necessary for the concept
  of sin.
• Only the will can control the passions.
• Historical continuity in current contexts
• Psychology What is more important for success?
  IQ or motivation?
• Education Should sex education focus on the will
  (Just say no), on the intellect (information)
  or on emotions (scare techniques).
• Politics Bush versus Kerry?

4
Augustine (354-430)

• Born and died in North Africa (now Algeria).
• Bishop.
• One of the most influential theologians in the
  Christian religion.
• The last great classical philosopher and the
  first great Christian philosopher.

5
Augustines philosophy

• Neoplatonist.
• Knowledge of the empirical world Lowest form of
  human activity.
• Natural philosophy (science) Subordinate to
  theology.
• True knowledge only occurred through religious
  contemplation.
• The function of the mind was limited to inferior,
  sensory processing and was inferior to faith in
  God.
• The source of ideas is in God.
• God is the great cause.
• Promised eternal life to the faithful.

6
The body

• The body is at war with the soul.
• The soul should control the body.
• The animalistic human body is prone to control by
  Satan.
• Illness The soul looses partial control of the
  body.
• Death Total loss of control.
• Sexual arousal (concupiscence) and the sexual
  members (genitalia) were inherently sinful.
• Sexual passion is not subject to reason
  (importance of the will).
• Only sex without lust is guided by the soul.
• God created women to be subordinate to mens
  power and control.
• Men should fear womens sexuality.

7
Confessions

• Augustine was one of the first persons in
  European culture to write from the perspective of
  the I.
• Describes the ascent of the soul to God. From
  body to sense, to inner sense, to the disregard
  of self.
• Augustine praises God, blames himself, and
  confesses his faith.
• Cleansing himself of the desires of the flesh,
  renunciation of sexuality and embracing a life of
  chastity.
• Critique of Manichaeism (founded by Mani) a
  dualistic religion/sect. (There is one soul
  fluctuating between conflicting wills)
• Cynical Meditations by a middle-aged man.

8
The role of introspection

• Augustine promoted introspection as the best
  way of finding and knowing God.
• Personal communion with God Transcends Platos
  highest stage of Knowing the Good.
• Introspection as inspired by the Holy Spirit
  Highest form of human activity.
• Will People have an internal sense of virtue or
  guilt that is fundamental to humans psychology
  (free will).

9
Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274)

• Aquinas reformed the Augustinian framework (based
  on Plato), by uniting it with the teachings of
  Aristotle and Avicenna, the Islamic scholar.
• Aquinas made the study of nature respectable for
  Christians. Reliability of sensory knowledge.
• Still Primacy is God, not nature.
• The individual needed to contain her or his
  passions through the exercise of reason and the
  will.
• It was the faculty of the will that enabled
  individuals to apprehend through reason the
  eternal truths.
• The soul subordinates the intellect to the will,
  which is motivated to seek goodness.
• Thus, will was primary in Thomistic psychology.

10
Contemporary psychologies based on Christian
theories

• Ranging from conservative to progressive.
• Example of a progressive Christian theory of the
  human condition Ignacio Martín-Baró.
• Not individuals are necessary sinful but social
  conditions that produce inequality, oppression
  and poverty.
• Individuals who do not change oppressive
  conditions are sinful.

11
Liberation theology

• Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go
  through the eye of a needle than for a rich man
  to enter the kingdom of God. (Matthew 1924)
• Popular in Latin America.
• God speaks through the poor.
• Bible can be understood only when seen from the
  perspective of the poor.

12
Ignacio Martín-Baró

• Jesuit priest and liberation psychologist.
• Murdered by Salvadoran military in 1989 on the
  campus of University of Central America (UCA) in
  San Salvador for his support of the poor and his
  publications.

13
Martín-Barós liberation psychology

• "Affirmation that the object of Christian faith
  is a God of life and, therefore, that a Christian
  must accept the promotion of life as his or her
  primordial religious task.
• Poverty is a sin.
• "True practice has primacy over true theory"
• "Christian faith calls for a preferential option
  for the poor."

14
A new horizon

• The objective need of the majority of the people
  of Latin America consists in their historical
  liberation from the social structures that
  oppress them.
• Psychology must focus its concern and energy on
  that issue.

15
A new epistemology

• Psychology must begin with the liberation needs
  of the people of Latin America.
• New ways of seeking knowledge.
• Truth Learning from the oppressed.
• Look at psychosocial processes from the
  perspective of the dominated, educational
  psychology from the perspective of the
  illiterate, industrial psychology from the
  perspective of the unemployed, clinical
  psychology from the perspective of the
  marginalized.
• What is mental health from the place of a tenant
  farmer, maturity from someone who lives in the
  town dump, motivation from a woman who sells on
  the street?

16
A new praxis

• To acquire new psychological knowledge it is not
  enough to place ourselves in the perspective of
  the people.
• It is necessary to involve psychologists in a new
  praxis.
• Praxis An activity of transforming reality that
  will let us know not only about what is but also
  about what is not, and by which we may try to
  orient ourselves toward what ought to be.
• Participatory action research.
• Taking an ethical stand while still maintaining
  objectivity.