The Nature and Destiny of Man: Dawson

[The Insatiability of Man's Appetites Indicate a Vocation and Role Essentially Superior to the Entire Visible World => Freedom & Morality]

...Man's true excellence consists not in following the law of animal nature, but in his resistance to it, and in his recognition of another law. The law of the animal world is the law of instinctive desire and brute force; there is no room in it for freedom or right or moral good. In man alone a new principle comes into play; for he recognizes that beyond the natural good of pleasure and self-fulfillment, there is a higher good which is independent of himself, a good that is unlimited, ideal, spiritual. It is true that man does not necessarily follow this good; it is easy enough for him to disregard it and to lapse into animalism, but even as he does so, he has the sense of choice, of responsibility, of something he has gained or lost... 316-317



[The Natural Divinity of Man: The Power of Reason is Evidence of Spirit's Superior Power over Matter]

...Even in the limited field of experience open to our minds, the power of spirit is out of all proportion to that of all other forces of nature. The force of conscious reason is able to mold and direct in a thousand ways the world of unconscious matter and animal nature. Thanks to the power of reason, man is like the god of this planet. He is able to dominate his environment and to co-ordinate the forces of nature in his own service. Nor is this conscious dominion over nature the only kingdom of man's spirit. The realm of abstract thought is greater than that of action. The riches of the kingdom of the spirit are inexhaustible, and here the greatest minds are often those that feel their own limitations most keenly, as though in all their science and philosophy they are no more than children picking up shells on the shores of an illimitable sea... 318-319

...There is a point at which the world of spirit comes into conscious contact with the world of matter. That point is man... 319

[Man is the bridge between the world of nature and that of the supernatural. Christ Jesus is the Lord of that bridge!]

Both quotes are from an essay of Christopher Dawson "The Nature and Destiny of Man" in Enquiries into Religion and Culture Sheed and Ward, New York 1933