THEOLOGY (First Shifting)
Dignity
HUMAN DIGNITY
Human dignity is measured by:
1. Appeal to rights of autonomy
2. Social Construct: In-group, class, race,
possession, rank, title, status
3. How we perceive a person via their projection
or performance
Christianity
- dignity is a gift, innate gift that has to be
sustained.
Human dignity does not come from the work they do,
but from the persons they are. (The Hundredth Year
RN #11)
We forget that: Human Person is a subject, yet often
treated and valued like an object.
VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN DIGNITY:
1. Humiliation
• How humiliation happens:
Ø Sense of superiority / ego
Ø Manipulation; use of power
Ø Improper treatment or attitude
• What does one sense when humiliated?
Ø Loss of self-respect, honor
Ø Sense of powerlessness,
helplessness
Ø Sense of shame; self-respect is
injured
2. Objectification
- person is treated like a thing or mode to feel
to be a thing for one’s end
3. Animalization
- depiction in the form of an animal
For the victims – violated life becomes insignificant.
Ø Fragmented – life becomes insignificant.
Ø Emptiness
Kalayaan
- essential to human living; it gives sense of
purpose to go on.
- Starting point for a moral vision for the
society.
Patriarchy
- most potent when oppression doesn’t feel like
oppression, or when packaged in terms of
biology, religion, or basic social needs.
Degradation
- Treating the other poorly, who count as
nothing.
- To live in subhuman conditions that is
unbearable and unacceptable.
- Trampled and infringes the person’s agency.
Dehumanization
- Loss of identity
- Denial of the humanity of a person or group of
persons.
- Silence of the community
Ø “What hurts the victim the most is not the
cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of
the bystander.” (Ella Wind)
Why do people violate the other? What is lacking of
have lost in the human person?
- Empathy
- Inter-connectivity
Sacredness lies on betzelem (resemblance of God).
FREEDOM
- Resemblance the God has shared/imparted
with us.
- An attitude
- Absence of subjectification to foreign
domination
- State of not being imprisoned or enslaved
- Power or right to act, speak, or think as one
wants without hindrance or restraint
- Power of self-determination attributed to will
- We can discover our purpose
- We are capable to respond, create and do
what we OUGHT to do/be
- Reciprocal or joint performance of an action
Ø “Ka” – with people
- To cause something to become
Ø “an” - sense of freedom
- Freedom of all
- “The function of freedom is to free someone
else.”(Toni Morrison)
Pain (What does it teach us?)
- Vulnerable to other people in order to
understand them.
Ø Vulnerable- struggle to achieve
Freedom
- Not freedom in the expense of another
person.
- Not personal but social.
OBSTACLES OF FREEDOM
1. Genetic Inheritance
- Unalterable; no amount of willing
can change it
- Alter the manner of development
- Stress over uniqueness and
potentials
2. Environmental Conditions
- Family, media, peers, drug,
addiction
Ø Can shape our worldview
(perspective)
3. Passions/Unconscious Influences
- Blind habits, fears, ignorance, body
memory
- Cannot blame other for the
consequence of their actions
- “I really should have…”
- “I had better…”
Danger
- Sell out
- Not to take responsibility
- It is given (don’t blame)
-
The power of self-determination contributed to the
will: In saying no, we can discover our purpose
SALUDES, K. 2EPH
TYPES OF FREEDOM Katarungan
1. Freedom of Choice - Root word: Tarung - ayos, tama, upright, fight
- Smorgasbord kind of freedom Kapwa
- Choice from different options - shared inner self or self in other
- Does NOT demand a DEEP involvement - Root word: Pwa - space (welcome you inside
2. Basic Freedom my space
- Decide for oneself; make this for yourself - inner principle of shared goodness/Godness,
- Entails for self-commitment, to a kind of not just shared identity
person you want to be - awareness of the rootedness of each one of us
3. Real Freedom in the One Divine Essence within
- Learning to live well within one’s limits - respect and consideration for the Other is
(capacity) extended to all beings
4. True Freedom
Filipino Humanism (Kapwa)
- Choosing what you ought to be
- Filipino psyche and way of life that carries the
- Choose what is GOOD:
ethos of sharing, recognizing and caring for
Ø Humanizing
the Other as oneself
Ø Life-giving
- Accepting a deeper sense of responsibility for
- Demands/involvement that will alter our
the Other = justice is acknowledging the
core
responsibility to the Kapwa.
5. Choice of Self
- “Everything can be taken from a man but Dignity
one thing: the last of human freedoms - - Not attribute peculiar to persons and their
to choose one’s attitude in any given set singularity.
of circumstances, to choose one’s way” - Relationship
(Viktor Frankl) Ø We consider them human, just as human
as we are, even if their appearance
Luke 10.25-37 (Who is my neighbor?) suggests non-humanity
• Jesus Christ
Ø Open-Commensality
Ø Table-Fellowship
- True freedom does not label anyone
- Stress on reverence for the human person
- Everyone must consider one’s neighbor
without exception as another self
• The Samaritan showed dignity:
- The me’s wounds had awaken the
Samaritan’s respect for a disfigured
humanity
- Molarity and Solidarity
Ø Basic respect for dignity in our
common lack for dignity
Justice
- Latin: righteous; equality
Ø jūstus- just
Ø jūs- right

SALUDES, K. 2EPH