Human Capacities
Human Capacities
God has endowed man with many capacities, each of which has its own functions, possibilities, and capabilities. Among them we mention:
The mind, the spirit, the soul, the conscience, the will, and the senses…
Added to all this are the gifts that God grants to each person individually.
Every person differs from another in the degree of all these capacities.
Believe me, we have not yet known the extent of the greatness of all these amazing human capacities…
Who could have imagined that the mind, for example, could reach the capacity to invent spaceships that travel directly to the moon and allow man to walk on it… or to invent satellites that orbit the world, gather news, and send pictures of planets in the sky… And who could have imagined that the human mind could arrive at inventing an artificial mind, inventing the computer, and using the machine to increase the speed of thinking, gathering information, and deducing facts.
These capacities of the mind are in no way against religion. For God is the One who created the mind and gave it its capacities.
Therefore, whatever the mind reaches, the credit for it, first and last, goes back to God, blessed be His name, who placed all these abilities in it when He created it… And we can say that we have not yet reached the discovery of all the capacities of the mind, which may be able to invent other things that currently do not occur to any human mind…!
*The spirit in man also has amazing and astonishing capacities.
People have not known all the capacities of the spirit, because they have not discovered those capacities nor used them, because they have not entered into the exercises that activate the spirit and grant it its natural release… And when we read about the exercises of the spirit practiced by groups of Hindus and practitioners of yoga, and what they have reached in terms of results, we see something astonishing… They are not miracles or supernatural abilities, but rather the natural energy of the spirit, which we do not use because we neglect this or do not realize it…
Likewise, we have not used all the capacities of the senses…
That is because we do not feel the need for them. Their non-use made them dormant, hidden capacities that appear when we lose a particular sense, so we compensate for it by activating other alternative senses…
For example, a person loses his sight and tries to compensate for it through hearing and touch, so his sense of hearing and sense of touch become stronger, and perhaps his sense of smell as well. Because he began to train these senses precisely, so that they would be doors to knowledge for him instead of sight. Here the tremendous capacities existing in these senses appear, which had been dormant and not apparent when they were not being used…
The complete human being, in the perfection of his mind, the perfection of his spirit, and the perfection of all his senses, has not yet existed, except, of course, the humanity of the Lord Christ.
Human nature in its perfection in every respect requires care and attention, so that a person does not lose the strength of his capacities. It also requires exercises to preserve these capacities and so that they may grow as well…
Yes, every person needs to develop his abilities and capacities.
And he also needs to develop the gifts that God grants him.
God gave you a mind, and endowed you with a particular intelligence in your mind, or gave this mind a strong memory… You therefore need not only to preserve all of that, but also to develop your mind, your intelligence, and your memory… Develop your ability for sound thinking, deduction, and solving problems…
Mathematical problems and geometry exercises that we used to study in schools were not merely for knowledge or for the purpose of specialization; rather, they had another benefit in training the mind to think…
Take, for example, two people playing chess. Each of them is silent and thinking:
What move will his opponent make, and how will he respond to it? And what will his opponent’s response be to his response? And how will he act at that time? And how can he obstruct his plans? And how can he make undisclosed plans that will lead him to the desired result, even after several stages…? It is training in intelligence, and not merely entertainment to pass the time.
Puzzles and solving them, and competitions, are all exercises in thinking…
How many exercises there are for intelligence and developing thinking.
You can use them for yourself, and for your children as well, and for your students, so that they may grow up with a strong mind trained in thought. And even if they encounter a problem, their minds will be prepared to face it without disturbance.
In practical life there are exercises in wisdom in conduct, or development of thought through counsel and benefiting from the experiences of others.
Your conscience also needs to be developed.
When Paul the Apostle says: “I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day” (Acts 1:23), he reminds us that there is a good conscience, and other consciences that are not good. There is a broad conscience that swallows camels, and a narrow conscience that strains at a gnat. The scribes and Pharisees fell into both (Matt. 24:23). There is a sick conscience that does not fully distinguish between what is good and what is evil. And there is a weak conscience affected by external factors…
The conscience grows through hearing preaching and spiritual words, and through sound knowledge and being influenced by the good ability.
You need to nourish your conscience with all of that, and become accustomed to examining yourself and reproaching yourself for all your mistakes, no matter how small. At the same time, become accustomed to seriousness and carefulness. Through all these means, your conscience grows in knowledge and in judgment in guiding the soul. On condition that you stay away from scrupulosity that imagines evil where none exists, or judges mistakes as being greater than their nature…
Here I say that your knowledge also needs to be developed.
There is a natural growth in knowledge throughout the stages of life. There is also a development of knowledge that nourishes this natural growth with sound material. Whoever cares about growing in knowledge becomes an educated person and distances himself from ignorance that harms the soul. He can be a useful member of society, in addition to his personal benefit…
Knowledge nourishes his mind and nourishes his conscience. And it drives him toward proper conduct.
He knows not only how to distinguish between good and evil, but also between what is proper and improper, appropriate and inappropriate. Knowledge helps him in wisdom and good conduct, and in succeeding in dealing with people. And if he grows in this, he may reach the ability to guide others.
A person also needs to develop and strengthen his will.
Many people know what is good, but their will is not strong enough to do it. They know evil and its harms, yet their will is weaker than to keep away from it, and their will is unable to resist sin, despite their knowledge of all its consequences. This is because desire or lust controls the will and leads it along its path.
The will is a two-edged weapon, used for good and for evil.
Every person needs to sanctify the will and to strengthen the will. In this way, it becomes a useful capacity for him in his life. There are many exercises for strengthening the will, including exercises in self-control. Fasting is also among them. So are controlling the tongue, controlling the senses, controlling thought, controlling the nerves, and exercises for getting rid of wrong habits…
By developing the will, we distinguish between freedom and lack of restraint…
We all love freedom. But we train ourselves to walk in freedom with a good will, with a sound conscience, in a spiritual life and connection with God… Otherwise, freedom becomes a form of lack of restraint, and a person loses control over his will and over directing his life properly…
Your life, with all its capacities, is a talent that God has entrusted to you so that you may care for it.
Therefore, you need to develop your personality in general, so that you become a strong, sound personality, whether in the mind, conscience, will, knowledge, wisdom and conduct, judgment of matters, or sound psychological state.
In all of this, you need special attention, and you need to benefit from time and use it well:
Many waste their time on trivialities, or merely on entertainment and amusement, or they search for ways to kill time… without considering using time to form their personalities properly… These people need to care about building themselves, by giving special attention to developing their knowledge and culture, strengthening their will, reaching with their minds and spirits the highest possible state, and using all their capacities for their own good and the good of people, while developing, purifying, and strengthening these capacities…
Do not leave your personality like this without discipline, without attention, and without growth…
And do not make all your concern for yourself focused on the outside, and not on the inside… A girl, for example, may make all her concern for herself, and all her development of her personality, the external mirror, without having an internal mirror through which she can see the state of the spirit, mind, soul, and conscience…
Or a person whose only measures of his personality are position, title, and money, without considering the inner self…
*The body also is a capacity that God has given to man.
It is the executive apparatus for all the decisions that come from the spirit, the mind, the will, and the conscience… The strong body is able to carry them out, while the weak body is unable to do so…
And how easily the diseases of the body affect the soul.
They bring it various forms of pain, sadness, distress, or grumbling. Many people may reach degrees of psychological breakdown because of the condition of their bodies, or reach depression, confusion, and anxiety… Or their minds become occupied with how to deal with the condition of the body.
Some diseases of the body affect many of its capacities. A concussion, for example, or bleeding in the brain may affect some centers of the brain, such as memory, movement, or speech… Hardening of the arteries may lead to memory loss. And when the nerves of the body become inflamed, they affect a person’s psychology and behavior. Heart diseases affect his capacities…
Likewise, the desires of the body affect the mind and the conscience.
And they try to use the mind to achieve their desires, just as they silence the conscience, or try to find excuses and justifications for these desires!!
And the desire of the body may completely occupy the thought, so that it revolves only in its orbit, just as it weakens the spirit and breaks its connection with God.
For all of this, we need to care for our bodies. We should not weaken them so that our capacities become disabled. Nor should we arouse our instincts so that our spirits become weakened.
The important point that we want to mention after all that we have said is:
Maintaining balance among the capacities of man, and cooperation and integration.
There is no contradiction or conflict among his capacities, and we avoid having division in his personality or internal conflict. As one of the writers said about a conflict between his feelings and his conscience:
“I was struggling with myself and striving, as though I were two in one. This pushes me, and that prevents me.”
How easy it is for the capacities to conflict: “The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh” (Gal. 5:17). Or the soul against the conscience. Or the mind against the will.
And a person finds himself not as one person, but as though he were two who are fighting! A struggle between branching paths pulling him in different directions, or between his love for good and his desire for sin, or between thoughts in which he does not know where the good lies. And how famous are the words of the poet Elia Abu Madi in his poem:
“I do not know:
I see within myself a conflict and a struggle, and I see myself a devil, and sometimes an angel.
Am I two persons, each refusing to join with the other, or am I merely mistaken in what I see:
I do not know.
The sound and healthy person does not have this conflict within him.
It is possible for there to be a struggle between him and external factors or external wars. But within himself he is completely settled, not divided against himself, neither in his thought nor in his feelings nor in his will. He is one person, fighting with all his capacities a war that is outside him.
As for the internal war, it occurs for reasons including that one of the capacities of man desires to control his other capacities, or some of them.
For example, a person governs his affairs with his mind, and his matters proceed properly. Then his soul comes and desires a desire, or reacts emotionally, causing the mind to leave its natural course so that it submits to it. And I have often said:
How easy it is for the mind to become an obedient servant to the desires of the soul!
A wrong desire of the soul, which it insists upon and follows, causes the mind to submit to it, so that it provides proofs and evidence for it, and perhaps uses verses from the Holy Bible with a particular interpretation that suits it, or stories from the lives of the fathers… If the soul desires the opposite, the mind goes along with it with evidence and proofs.
A mother’s son may make a mistake, and her mind comes forward to defend him, responding to the feelings of her heart. The neighbor’s son makes the same mistake, and her mind criticizes him severely, because the soul did not drive it to defend him.
Thus we see the mind sometimes weighing with two scales.
And here is the contradiction, because it was free in one of the two situations and a follower of the soul in the other situation. But the just person, the possessor of a free mind, says of the truth that it is truth, even if it comes from his enemy. And he says of falsehood that it is falsehood, even if it comes from his father or his brother.
The mind falls under many other influences.
We hope to speak about them in the next issue, God willing.
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