Religious Speculation Concerning Man’s Essence

Abstract

In many religions including Christianity, philosophical-theological attempts have been made to determine the place and the significance of man in the totality of creation. They have led to speculations which were sometimes of a very theoretical nature, but in any case were closely related to religious faith, for they were prompted by the consciousness or sense of the infinite context in which man lives and by which he is determined. The concern was thus with relationships of a suprarational nature whose reality was unquestioned. The modern “enlightenment” is characterized by an agnostic attitude towards this subject (Huxley), which does not take into consideration an irrational but recognized reality. For the religious man of any era such an attitude is unthinkable; for him the infinite relations are all determining.