“Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness’” [Genesis 1:26].
Leonardo da Vinci, The Vitruvian Man, c.1487.
Recently we were invited to speak on human trafficking at the Conference of Religious Major Superiors held at the Sibu Pastoral Centre. It gave us an opportunity to reflect on some fundamental moral and theological underpinnings for pastoral work not only in this field but also in general.
Human trafficking covers a wide terrain. It offers consumers a list of ‘products’ – child soldier, domestic servant, exotic dancer, manual labourer and, topping the list at all times, human bodies for sexual exploitation. According to the International Labor Organization, there are over 12 million people in forced labor or sexual servitude at any given time throughout the world. The majority of these victims are women; half are children.[1] They are often ensnared through fraudulent advertisements that promise a better life abroad via a good job or a chance at an education, or kidnapped outright or sold by their own relatives. Throughout the world, ignorance, poverty, unemployment, and regional instability ensure a steady availability of victims to exploit. Traffickers routinely confiscate victims’ passports or identification papers so as to forestall any hope of escape or possible rescue by Christian groups and legal authorities. They also double as pimps, forcing the women they prostitute into an enduring state of debt and dependence. Like the illicit trade in arms or drugs, this is a purely profit-oriented industry. Far worse than illegal arms and drug trades, human-trafficking is commerce in one commodity – human beings. At the start of the 21st century, human trafficking has become a multi-billion dollar industry built on consumer demand for a single “object” – fellow human beings.
Clearly, human trafficking is first and foremost a violence committed against the human person. It is a violence against her personal freedom, her life, her dignity. We propose that to do ministry to alleviate the situation, we would do well to begin with the task of describing and acquainting ourselves with what is meant by the “human person” in Christian understanding.
Coming from Louvain, our thoughts are guided by the writings of the late Professor Louis Janssens[2] on the human person. Of world renown in the field of moral theology, Janssens has made original contributions to the study of the human person through the theme which he coined as the “human person adequately considered” – HPAC.
Take a hard look at the acronym – HPAC. Notice especially the last two letters. We can trace all the evils in the world to the wanton neglect to consider the other person as a human person at all, let alone to adequately consider him or her as one. Doctoral studies and entire books have been published focusing on the HPAC[3]. The strength and attraction in Janssens’ study is its strong links to Scripture and the anthropology of Gaudium et spes (GS) – the major pastoral document that came out from the Second Vatican Council, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. HPAC is a useful synthesis and a convenient starting point for reflection on the human person and on moral decision-making.
What is the HPAC?
The human person, adequately considered, has at least eight continuous dimensions, present not as separate elements but as elements that can be distinguished and are nevertheless simultaneously present:
[1] HPAC stands in relation to God.
While this is a typically Christian understanding, we appreciate that its truth applies to all people. Non-believers may experience this dimension differently from believers. For them, it may be more a relation to the totality of reality. For Christians, our understanding is that created in the image of God, the human person is called to know and worship this Creator. With an openness to God, we live in faith, hope and love.
Scriptures teach that men and women are created in the image of God (GS 12, 15, 16, 17). What is this “image and likeness of God”? This likeness is seen most clearly in the exercise of our intellect and freedom. God resides in the very depth of a human person. That is our conscience, our secret core, our sanctuary. It is only in true freedom that we can turn ourselves towards what is good. Our dignity in the image of God therefore requires us to act out of conscious and free choice, driven purely from that inner conscience, and neither by blind impulse which may be enslaved by passions, nor by mere external constraints. What human trafficking does is to deny that image of God by robbing victims of their freedom through slavery and external coercion.
The passage “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32) is worth repeating over and over. Of course, this truth is freedom, and freedom to live a life to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, as we are instructed throughout the Word of God, is our goal.
Practical importance:
- All human persons are called to know and worship God (GS, 12, 34) and to glorify God in all their attitudes and activities (GS, 34, 36, 48).
- All human persons are fundamentally equal (GS, 29) on account of the common image of God in which we are made.
- All human persons deserve equal respect on account of the common fundamental dignity given by God.
- We are to accord to all, regardless of status and position in life, the same freedom to think, speak, act, and associate.
- In all that we do in the diverse fields of pastoral work, we can find a common ground at the most fundamental level. We are all fired by the conviction that Christianity is all about helping people, whoever they may be, to become the best they possibility can – to live truly as children of God.
[2] HPAC stands in relation to the material world.
We are a part of the material world. Our being is a being-in-the-world. We have a relationship to what is going on in the world in which we live. We have political, cultural, social interests. We belong to the world and the totality of the human family. Because we are corporeal, we need the things of the world. Humanity’s mandate from God to subject to themselves the earth and all that it contains (Gen 1:28-29) carries with it the task of improving the world, to render it better serve the human needs.
What is meant by “the world” here? Scriptures may in many ways refer to the world as sinful, but in GS, “the world” only refers to what is not divine, but not to what is evil. The world here refers to whatever that places the People of God on a lifestyle that prevents them from being the People of God, and draws them away from their original calling. Further, highlighted here is our responsibility for the world and for others.
Vatican II teaches that the human person is situated and relational (GS, 33, 37). The human person is a concrete reality situated in the world and in relation to the world and to other persons through human activities such as work and social engagements. By our works, we are to transform the world from a natural milieu into a cultural one (GS, 33-39, 53-62). We are to make the world continuously more livable for human persons.
Practical importance:
- We must remember that just as we have needs in this material world, so do others.
- Fair wages must not be kept back in breach of James 5:1-6.
- We must remember that work is a gift from God and a demand from God as St Paul said, “Those who do not work shall not eat” (2 Thess 3:10).
- We must remember not only our privilege to receive but also our responsibility to give back, not only to enjoy what the material world has to offer us but to enable others to enjoy the same, not just to benefit from this material world but to morally help preserve the environment for others and for the future generations.
[3] HPAC stands in relation to culture.
Human persons live in society. We stand in relation to other human groups and institutions – family, workmates, football team, lady’s guild, social club, etc. We also relate to the language, politics, economy, etc.
Vatican II teaches that the human person is communitarian and interdependent (GS, 24, 25). Human beings are social by nature. We are artisans of our social institutions and accountable for the structures within which we find ourselves, relate and exist. We are accountable for what we have inherited and we will be responsible for what we leave behind us.
Practical importance:
- We must be aware of and respect the culture other people come from.
- We must respect the laws and other institutions in social living, so long as they serve the common good (GS, 26, 74).
- We must also contribute to the ongoing discourse, in keeping with fundamental human dignity and human potential , to offer our views on the necessary changes, reformation and renewal of culture and institutions.
- We must remember our responsibility towards the culture of peace and civility in society.
[4] HPAC stands in relation to other persons in intimacy.
God did not create the human person to be solitary. From the beginning of it all, God knew that it was not good that the man should be alone (Gen 2:18), so “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27). And so, to be a human person is to be a fellow human person. Only in relation to a “Thou”, can a human person become an “I”.
We become moral persons through what we see in others. For the healthy growth of a person, especially in the first years of a child’s life, contact with persons who provide tenderness, security, safety, in short, genuine love, is crucial. Unless a human person relates to another from the innermost nature, he or she can neither live nor develop his or her potential properly.
Our openness to the other reaches its high point in the I-Thou relationship as in the relations between parents and children, brothers and sisters, friends. Marriage as the most intimate expression of the I-Thou relationship is defined as “an intimate partnership of life and married love” (GS, 48). It is reciprocal marital love, “an intimate union, the mutual self-giving of two persons” in multiple dimensions, involving the whole person, in spirit and in body (GS, 48, 49).
The field of interpersonal relationships includes family, friends, workmates, faith groups, social clubs, etc.
Practical importance:
- We need to stop seeing our individual self as the totality of all there is, and to accept the other as a necessary component to complete our existence.
- As much as we want it for ourselves, we must accord the opportunity to others to freely live in intimate relationship with fellow human persons. It is evil to curtail that freedom.
[5] HPAC is historical.
The human person is a historical being. The life of every human person is a history of stages. Each stage holds special possibilities and it is the task of the person to continually seize these possibilities to eventually progress towards integrity and wisdom.
We all live within a history or within a historical experience, and we are responsible for the history we are living now. We are also future oriented. Each person is also a history in himself or herself.
Practical importance:
- Accord due respect to everyone who comes with his or her background history.
- Beware that as we live in history, we are also responsible as “artisans and authors” of the culture and history of the community in which we live (GS, 55).
- A dynamic ethics demands of us to make the best use of new discoveries in science and other fields of knowledge to actualize what is better or more human.
[6] HPAC is conscious subjectivity.
The human person is a subject, never an object as are the things of the world. The human person as a subject is the fundamental dignity given by God, always and unconditionally worthy of respect. It is the ultimate meaning of human dignity witnessed in Christian revelation on the human person being created in the image and likeness of God.
The human person has a conscious interiority (GS, 15), able to act with conscience (GS, 16), in freedom (GS, 17), and in a responsible manner (GS, 31, 55).
The human person has a personality, and an ego which affect our subjective culture: how we appropriate the goods available to us, what language we use, what life choices we make. We have a being, an existence, which is private but can never be detached. It is here that human freedom is located. The basic freedom of the person specifies us: this is the meaning of “fundamental option”.
Practical importance:
- We must respect others as we would want others to respect us. Do not use and discard people as we do with things at our disposal. We use things as we use objects and may discard them after use, but we respect human persons as subjects.
- Vatican II teaches that all human persons deserve equal respect (GS, 27-31). A free human subject is entitled to freedom of conscience and religion, to freedom of association, to privacy and human rights (GS, 31, 26).
- We can speak of morality because human beings are moral subjects.
- We can accept the validity of laws and punishment because we can freely make choices and act responsibly.
- So Pope John Paul II warned about the hedonistic culture: sins of this age have to do with loving oneself too much; seeking one’s happy life regardless; instant gratification before everyone and everything else. “The opposite of love is not hatred,” he said, “but using the body of the other person as an object of lust instead of love.” And Elie Wiezel would say: “The opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference.”
[7] HPAC is conscious subjectivity in corporeality.
We are not a soul in a body. We are a conscious subject incarnate in a body. This subjectivity is expressed largely through our body.
Vatican II teaches that the human person is a unity of body and soul. We are corporeal and spiritual, but nonetheless a singular being (GS, 14). This understanding overcomes dualism. Our worldly and spiritual existence are one. Our body forms a part of the integrated subject that we are. Whatever happens to the body affects the person as a whole.
Practical importance:
- At the very least, it helps to discard the idea, which easily deteriorates into excuses, that it is alright that the victims of human trafficking suffer physically in this life, because their souls will enjoy eternal recompense in the next life.
- There is a moral demand to take care of one’s own body, as well as that of others (GS, 27)
- Do not overwork the labourers (GS, 27).
- Human sexuality and human faculty of reproduction “wondrously surpass the endowments of lower forms of life” (GS, 51).
- Esteem and respect male and female sexuality.
[8] HPAC is an originality.
We are fundamentally equal. We encounter each other on the same human level, with the same basic needs, desires and aspirations.
But within this framework of fundamental equality, each person is simultaneously an originality, a unique subject. It is here that we are considered in our uniqueness. We all have our own talents, our own foibles, weaknesses, mannerisms, temperament (ways of acting and reacting). We each have our own drives, and we grow into different personalities with individual character. Some aspects of originality will be recognized and praised more than others. Every person is an originality whilst at the same time all persons are equal and equally deserving of respect.
Practical importance:
- Because we are all equal and unique, we must submit to the universal rules of morality.
- Education is very important from young.
- We are responsible to let individual talents develop and emerge, and to promote within reasonable boundaries the expressions of individual ideas and feelings.
- The society as community-sharing (co-participation) of the fruits of working together must be attuned to the needs of the original gifts of each individual.
These eight continuous dimensions, always all present, without any arbitrary order, help us to appreciate what we mean by “good” and what we mean when we attribute “value”. What is “good” and of “value” must be seen in terms of the HPAC. Something is good and of value when it promotes the HPAC. The converse is equally true.
Every human person has a role to play in society. We are each to contribute to a society that makes it possible for everyone to fulfill himself or herself and to participate and contribute meaningfully in society.
God in creation provided us with the conditions of possibility to enjoy His creation and to do good. Working for the “common good” is our participation in God’s creative work. We must work from the bottom up, starting with those who do not yet receive the benefits of the human world – [a] the poor [in line with Christ’s spirit, our work and inspiration ought to be preferential option for the poor], and [b] those who suffer [in this case, the victims of human trafficking]. Janssens’ principles in the HPAC convincingly argue that the morally good dispositions and actions are those that are in service of the human person (self and others) adequately considered in himself or herself as subject in corporeality and in their openness to the world, to others, and ultimately to God.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, April 2011. All rights reserved.
You are most welcome to respond to this post. Email your comments to us at jeffangiegoh@gmail.com. You can also be dialogue partners in this Ephphatha Coffee-Corner Ministry by sending us questions for discussion.
[1] Trafficking in Persons Report, June 12, 2007, The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, U.S. Department of State, www.state.gov.
[2] Louis Janssens is Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the Catholic University of Leuven, Louvain (Belgium). He is known for the development of the personalistic approach to moral judgment, which permeated the documents of Vatican Council II.
[3] See Dolores L. Christie, Adequately Considered: An American Perspective on Louis Janssens’ Personalist Morals, Louvain Theological & Pastoral Monographs, 4 (1990).