be all you can be

8/14/2019 Be All You Can Be

1/10

Be All You Can Be

Kevin Vail

P 632 Foundations of Healing

Dr. Felicity Kelcourse


2/10

Kevin Vail Be All You Can Be 2

Introduction

Be all that you can be is a well-known slogan used by the U.S. Army in a recruiting

commercial in the 1980s and 1990s. It was an exhortation to young men and women to improve

themselves and gain experiences and skills they could get nowhere else. It was also a promise of

character building experiences. It was certainly a successful ad campaign, at least insofar as the

slogan was remembered and is still repeated two decades later but is it more than that? What can

it tell us about health and healing? If we parse the wording and examine its meaning (and

certainly in the process make more of it than the slogans authors intended) can we find an

eternal truth?

There is much confusion about health and healing, primarily because we are no longer

sure about what constitutes health. While nearly all will agree that physical disease or injury

cancer, heart disease, or broken bones constitute a lack of health, what of mental or spiritual

illnesses? Some doctors may discount one or both of those as unreal and untreatable, and perhaps

they are from the point of view of modern, Western medicine. There is a growing awareness of

the importance of mental and spiritual health; most, if not all hospitals provide services such as

mental health counseling, Reiki, massage therapy and chaplaincy but the confusion remains.

Entelechy

I contend this confusion is due to the loss of our awareness of the human person as a

hylomorphic unity of body and soul with a purpose beyond ourselves. To recover this knowledge

I will turn to two primary figures in the intellectual history of the West St. Thomas Aquinas and

the man St. Thomas referred to simply as The Philosopher, Aristotle. Aristotle taught, and St.

Thomas accepted, that to know an object you must know its four causes:

1. Material cause that from which, present in it, a thing comesto be


3/10


2. Formal cause the form, i.e., the pattern the form is the account of theessence and the parts of the account.

3. Efficient cause - the source of the primary principle of change or stability4. Final cause somethings end ()i.e., what it is for (2001a, pp. 240-1)

By far the most important cause, for Aristotle, is the final cause. This he calls the cause of

causes. The good of an object is always found in what it is ordered towards (also called its

end). It is also true that one cannot know the final cause of a thing if one does not know the

formal cause, its substance, for the essence of a thing defines what it is ordered to. In the

Aristotelianized neo-Platonism of St. Thomas, the formal cause declares in which eternal

the object participates.

Aristotle defined growth and change as motion and divided motion into categories of

potentiality and actuality. He often used term (entelechy) as all but a synonym for

actuality. Entelechy means, to have completion and is often also translated as perfection or

state of fulfillment (Stravinskas & Shaw, 1998, p. 378). In order for us to know what the

entelechy of an object is, we must know its essence. St. Thomas accepted Aristotles definition of

man as a rational animal. The first act of a living thing is its existence; the second act is its

operation. In other words, the entelechy of the human body is the soul (Aquinas, 1951). The

form, which gives essence to the human body, is the rational soul and he divided the human soul

into three primary powers: 1) the appetites, 2) the will and 3) the intellect. Each power is ordered

to (has its in) one of the three transcendentals. The appetites of the human soul refer to its

sensitive (in St. Thomas this term refers to the five senses of the body) power, which is ordered

towards the Beautiful; the will is ordered towards the Good and the intellect is ordered towards

the True. In moving towards the transcendentals, the soul is in its second act (Aristotle, 2001b).

According to St. Thomas, the soul does not exist as a ghost in the machine (Cartesian

or Platonic dualism) but is rather the substantial form of the body. The soul is, according to


4/10


Aristotle, the formal, efficient and final cause of the body (2001b). It is dependent upon the

physical structures of the body, which must be properly disposed for the operations of the soul.

For example, an infant cannot be said to use the power of reason but nevertheless the child does

possess a rational soul. Its power to reason awaits the proper disposition of the bodily organ (the

development of the brain) to become operational. For Aristotle, the connection between soul and

body is so intimate he could not decide if the human soul could survive the death of the body. St.

Thomas resolves this by differentiating the lower parts of the soul (the appetites), which are

generated by the body and the higher parts of the soul (the will and the intellect), which are

immaterial and can survive death. In this way too, St. Thomas was able to highlight the

importance of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. The souls of the blessed in heaven are

not perfect because they lack the sensitive powers, they can only be made perfect and thus their

joy be made perfect by being reunited with their bodies on the last day (Aquinas, 2008).

The Entelechy of the Human Person

John Sanford writes, everything alive in this world seeks to become what it is meant to

be (1992, p. 6). The Christian knows his/her because God has revealed it. The Baltimore

Catechism, in use in Catholic schools in the United States in the late 19th and the first part of the

20th centuries, stated it very simply:

Q. What do we mean by the "end of man"?A. By the "end of man" we mean the purpose for which he was created:

namely, to know, love, and serve God.

The scriptures tell us that the ultimate cause of illness and death is sin. Sin is separation from and

a rejection of God. God never intends for us to be ill, God created humanity without illness or

death. Illness is an evil, a privation of being. It is not caused by the personal sins that we all

commit but the original sin of our first parents, which deprived the human race of sanctifying


5/10


grace. (cf. Gen. 3; Rom 5:12-20). Christ came to pay the price for our sin and to

reconcile us to God. St. Paul calls us to put on the new man (Eph 4:24),

however in another place he acknowledges it is a battle; we struggle daily

under the bondage of sin, which shatters us and separates us from God and

from ourselves.

Sin is concept psychology has had little use for, which is perplexing

given that the very word literally means words about the soul.

Aristotle penned the first treatise, in the West, on human psychology and he

called it On the Soul (Gr. ). John Sanford identifies 8 different

words and their corresponding concepts used in the New Testament for sin.

He notes,

[I]n the early church, to indulge in sin was to shut oneself off from thelight. This only increased the ignorance and darkness of the soul,leading to the souls loss of contact with God and ultimate to its death.Ignorance tended to darken the soul and lead the soul into sin, and sinfurther darkened the soul, obscuring the souls capacity for self-

knowledge and understanding (1992, p. 70).

Sanfords understanding of sin here is perfectly Thomistic. Sin makes one

unable to see the Truth. Sin affects the soul whether it is intentional or not.

While certainly intentional sin is more destructive, Catholic moral theology

has always differentiated between venial sins those that are of a less

serious nature or are committed unintentionally and mortal sin those of a

serious nature, committed with full knowledge and consent of the will; all sin

is damaging to the soul. The most important word for sin in the New

Testament is (hamartia), which means, to miss the mark. The


6/10


word and the concept is tied to archery since for the Greeks, the inability of

the archer to hit the target lies in a fault in the character or consciousness of

the archer (Sanford, 1992, p. 113). The Thomist/Aristotelian tripartite

division of the soul is a hierarchy. The intellect directs the will and the will

disciplines the appetites. To act in accordance with the principles of right

reason to the ends which man is ordered towards is to act humanly. St.

Thomas writes,

Of actions done by man those alone are properly called "human,"which are proper to man as man. Now man differs from irrational

animals in this, that he is master of his actions. Wherefore thoseactions alone are properly called human, of which man is master.Now man is master of his actions through his reason and will;whence, too, the free-will is defined as "the faculty and will ofreason." Therefore those actions are properly called humanwhich proceed from a deliberate will. And if any other actions arefound in man, they can be called actions "of a man," but notproperly "human" actions, since they are not proper to man asman. [Summa Theologica I-II, Q. 1 ad 1) (2008).

The ultimate , for the Christian, is to become a saint. As St. Paul

wrote, To all that are at Rome, the beloved of God, called to be saints.

(Rom 1:7). In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle identifies the final of

human life to be , a word often translated as happiness. But

Aristotle does not mean happiness as we modern English speakers typically

mean happiness. In the modern vernacular, happiness typically refers to the

satisfaction of desire but his makes no sense for a reading of Aristotle or for

Christian ethics. The beatitude, happy are those that mourn (Matt 5:5) is a

meaningless contradiction if we assume happiness means satisfaction of

desire. is better understood, in modern English as blessedness.


7/10


Aristotle identifies that a final must be something we desire for its own

sake, rather than for the sake of something else. St. Thomas identifies that

this can only be the vision of the Divine Essence. He writes,

Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the visionof the Divine Essence. To make this clear, two points must beobserved. First, that man is not perfectly happy, so long as somethingremains for him to desire and seek: secondly, that the perfection ofany power is determined by the nature of its object. Now the object ofthe intellect is "what a thing is," i.e. the essence of a thing, accordingto De Anima iii, 6. Wherefore the intellect attains perfection, in so faras it knows the essence of a thing. If therefore an intellect knows theessence of some effect, whereby it is not possible to know theessence of the cause, i.e. to know of the cause "what it is"; that

intellect cannot be said to reach that cause simply, although it may beable to gather from the effect the knowledge of that the cause is.Consequently, when man knows an effect, and knows that it has acause, there naturally remains in the man the desire to know aboutthe cause, "what it is." And this desire is one of wonder, and causesinquiry, as is stated in the beginning of the Metaphysics (i, 2). Forinstance, if a man, knowing the eclipse of the sun, consider that itmust be due to some cause, and know not what that cause is, hewonders about it, and from wondering proceeds to inquire. Nor doesthis inquiry cease until he arrive at a knowledge of the essence of thecause.

If therefore the human intellect, knowing the essence of some createdeffect, knows no more of God than "that He is"; the perfection of thatintellect does not yet reach simply the First Cause, but there remainsin it the natural desire to seek the cause. Wherefore it is not yetperfectly happy. Consequently, for perfect happiness the intellectneeds to reach the very Essence of the First Cause. And thus it willhave its perfection through union with God as with that object, inwhich alone man's happiness consists, as stated above (1,7; 2, 8)[Summa Theologica I-II, Q. 3, ad 8] (2008).

In Thomism, both ethics and epistemology are ontologically grounded.

The perfection of any faculty in the soul is to reach its . Therefore when

the intellect knows the Truth, the will serves the Good and the appetites love

the Beautiful, those faculties are perfected. Each individual has different


8/10


strengths and weaknesses - some are of average or below intelligence,

some lack good self-control, and so on. The process of human growth and

change always involves confronting our defects, moral or otherwise and our

unrecognized strengths. Its then pushes us to confront our childhoods, our

assumptions and our prejudices. Finally we wrestle with the problems that

have always confronted human beings and come to some level of peace with

those problems. Mythologist Joseph Campbell called this the journey of the

hero and identified its universal components and steps in the mythologies

and religions of the world.

The Healer

Though it is God Himself who has opened the gates of Heaven and healed the breach

between man and Himself, some of us are called to participate in this healing. St. Thomas

identifies two types of grace 1)gratia gratum faciens and 2)gratia gratis data. The first of the

two is the type of grace given to a person that justifies him/her and make him/her a friend of God

and deserving of eternal life. The second type is grace given to one so that they may aid another

in achieving the proper end of human life; that is to lead them to God (Ripperger, 2003). Ulanov

identifies that one function of depth psychology is to bring Spirit down into the matter of our

daily living but she also cautions, spirituality in the consulting rooms can also possess us, burn

us up, destroy us (2004, p. 22). Healers need to remain in the humility that it is God who heals,

not us.

Ripperger specifies how St. Thomas emphasizes three qualities that are needed for one to

cooperate with God and to aide another:

1. A full knowledge of divine things this includes the certitude of faith; knowledge of the

principle conclusions of theology and knowledge of the human sciences


9/10


2. One must provide evidence that his/her knowledge is true. In other words, the patient

must see that he/she is actually getting better under the care of the healer

3. One must possess the skill of speaking to others in a way they understand and can relateto.

Gratia gratis data is a freely given gift of God for the benefit of others and of the Church. It

indicates nothing about the holiness of the person who receives it and cannot be merited.

Healing occurs in the sacred space set aside for it and only in Gods time (2003).

The healer cannot walk the journey of the hero for the patient. Individuals must do that

for themselves, but we can walk with them and perhaps bring a flashlight of knowledge, wisdom

and experience to shine in some of the dark corners. We learn with the patient what God is

calling them to do. Ultimately both the impetus and the energy to make such a journey comes

from Gods grace.


10/10


References

Aquinas, T. (2008). Summa Theologica (Fathers of the English Dominican Province Trans.)

(Kevin Knight Ed.). Retrieved 4/30/2009 from http://www.newadvent.org/summa/.

--------------- (1951) Commentary on Aristotles De Anima (Kenelm Foster, O.P. and Sylvester

Humphries, O.P., Trans.) (Joseph Kenny, O.P., Ed.) Retrieved 5/1/2009 from

http://www.diafrica.org/kenny/CDtexts/DeAnima.htm.

Aristotle. (2001a). Physics. In R. McKeon (Ed.) The Basic Works of Aristotle (pp. 213-394).

New York, NY: Random House, Inc.

----------- (2001b). On the Soul. In R. McKeon (Ed.) The Basic Works of Aristotle (pp. 533-603).New York, NY: Random House, Inc.

Ripperger, C. (2003).Introduction to the Science of Mental Health Vol. 2: Sacred and Other

Spiritual Causes. Lincoln, NE: Baronius Press.

Sanford, J. (1992).Healing Body and Soul: The Meaning of Illness in the New Testament and in

Psychotherapy. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press.

Stravinskas, P. & Shaw R. (1998). Entelechy. In Our Sunday Visitor's Catholic Encyclopedia (p.378). Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing.

Ulanov, A.B. (2004). Spiritual Aspects of Clinical Work. Einsiedeln:Daimon Verlag.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/http://www.newadvent.org/summa/

be all you can be

Documents