Similar Views of Human Nature (Essay Sample)

Pico and Luther have basically similar views of human nature, human abilities and the purpose of life on earth
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I do agree with the similar views of human nature, human abilities and the purpose of life on earth. According to Luther, the nature human was created moral by God, however, it has been completely corrupted by evil. It is not simply that we do lack the determination power to always do what is known to be right, even though that is definitely true. But our sanities and our reasoning are also despoiled, and therefore our judgment of the right and the wrong is also untrustworthy.
Luther claims that human nature was made good by God, but it has been corrupted by sin. He says that humans do not have the will, influence to do what they know is right. Their senses and reasoning is also corrupted and so judgement of moral and immoral is also unreliable. This view of tainted, wicked human nature every day, for Luther, not only to the cursed, but also to the salvaged (Wright, 2010). Those selected by God for clemency are no superior than those for damnation-they stay sinners, but forgiven ones. Any quantity of independence for deliverance takes away from the supremacy and glory of God, and our reliance on God. He did not believe that it was likely for humans to be sinless or prevail over the original or explicit sin.
Pico claims that humans were created last by God, and that His drive, in their creation, was to satisfy his wish for them to appreciate the beauty of his world. Pico also believed that after Humans were created and given both divine and earthly qualities, they could turn into whatever they chose. Pico concludes that human classification among the heavenly directive of things was that though some people were holy, others were worse than animals, and this difference of personality among the humans only aided to raise their prominence and distinctiveness from all other creatures (Praag,1982).
Pico considers human to have the capacity of freedom, meaning that nature and spiritual things had no freedom since they could never change themselves. Things change in nature due to being forced to change by force from something else. However, humans are the only part of creation that is granted the freedom to change themselves at their own free will. The greatest human ability is to be able to express or apprehend the human experience. In this view, the freedom principle granted by God to humanity is freedom of inquiry. According to Pico, christian view of eternal punishment or even reward was unacceptable. With humans characteristic to change themselves, it will be impossible to lose the capability in the afterlife (Praag,1982). Therefore, eternal damnation is illogical, since it argues that the human soul does not have the ability to reform after death.
According to Luther, Christians have the ability to liberate themselves from slavery to sin and the law. He asserts that freedom and righteousness have a relationship with the inward soul and the outward body, and therefore outward works can not bring inward freedom and righteousness (Wright, 2010). This means that Christians do not need the law and are therefore free from it since they are completely justified by their faith and freedom. According to him, humans have the ability to do the good that lies within them, and therefore they cannot be saved without cooperating with the righteousness given by God. He contends on the complete failure of humans to live up to God’s commandment. Works of the law cannot advance one’s standing, but the grace of God can do with salvation.
Pico argues that humans were able to learn from the other existing creatures and imitating them also. He ascertains that when a human being meditates, he climbs the series of being near the angels, and closeness with God. According to him, when humans fail to exercise their intellect, they vegetate (Praag,1982). This system implies that philosophers like himself are among the dignified human creatures. This indication that men could go up the chain of being through the use of their rational capacities was a philosophical endorsement of the self-esteem of human existence in this worldly life. The basis of this dignity lay in his affirmation that only human beings can change themselves via their own will freely. He saw from history that beliefs and institutes were continuously in change, making human's ability of self-transformation the only unceasing. United with his conviction that all of creation institutes a figurative reflection of the mysticism of God, Pico's beliefs had a deep influence on the arts, assisting to uplift writers and painters from their primitive role as simple artisans to the Resurgence ideal of the artist as an intellect (Praag,1982).
Luther claims that righteousness only comes from God and not from the humans. He argues that faith alone makes somebody just and fulfills the law. According to him, humans were degenerate to the last fiber of being. He also ascertained that desire and reasoning could not be trusted to lead human beings to the moral safety, for both had been corrupted in the fall by humans. Luther goes ahead and argues that adhering to the God’s laws strictly is not enough to ensure salvation to anyone (Wright, 2010). This means that there is nothing humans can do to ensure salvation. To him, salvation is not a state to be achieved by anyone, it is a state to be received through the grace of God. God’s commandments only consents human beings to endure through limiting moral turmoil and the penalties of sinfulness. According to Luther, it is not intellectual speculation to play with philosophies. It remains a feeling, an experience and a very thoughtful tussle of the heart. For Luther, Christian virtue is, truly, deliverance, and that is why we have salvation now sinc...