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[av_heading heading=’VIEWPOINTS | Environment’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY OSCAR CRUZ
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Monday, July 3, 2017
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“THE RELATIONSHIP of man with the world is a constitutive part of his human dignity. This relationship is in turn the result of another still deeper relationship between man and God.” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, Chap. 10, IV, p. 263 ss)
The above quotation is but one composite truth that is both in the natural order as well as in the supernal sphere. It consists of some kind of both a simple yet also profound triangle of objective truths – in the following descending order: God-World-Man.
The following questions thus come to mind:
What is the world for without man and how would man be without the world?
Is man for the world or is the world for man?
Does the world come from man or does man come from the world?
If man does not come from the world and the world does not come from man, where do the world and man come from?
More than a mere academic or simple speculative exercise, the above questions raised are worth answering in all sincerity and truth.
All the above queries have the following answers – not only according to the reach of the mind in line with the understanding as well as with the feeling of someone who is realistic and rational, objective and logical: Man who cannot even make but himself, could not have made the world.
The world being devoid of intelligence and feeling could not have brought man about considering that the latter has a rational faculty, spirit, emotion, and other superior qualitative attributes the world is altogether devoid of.
So is it that if man could not have come from the world, and the world could not have come from man, there is but one objective truth and sound conclusion in the light of human reason and in the sphere of faith: Both the world and man come from God – or from a Divinity.
And considering that the world is for man, man may not but care for the world, viz., caring for the world as required by what nature reveals and dictated by reason and ethics. In the same way, considering that man comes from God, he may not but recognize His omnipotence and goodness. His providence and benevolence.
And considering furthermore that the world likewise comes from God, it is incumbent upon man to protect and preserve its natural integrity and connatural features. The above premises and conclusions are neither that profound or that complex in their respective meaning and implication such that only those who have superior intelligence and supernatural faith could understand and affirm. Honesty and sincerity are also effective means to know the truths not only about the world but also about man and about God.
So is it that just as the world has man to care for, man cannot but also care for the world – simply for their mutual advantage and benefit. And as man attends to and protects the world from being abused and wasted, so does the world in turn attend and protect man from being victimized by a killer world.
And GOD? He made the world for man!/PN
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