Greetings. This is a new experience for me, so it will take a while to organize everything. I don't want to talk about myself for now, but I do want to talk about some issues relevant to my interests.
Man, as you already are aware, is distinct from all the rest of the animal kingdom. But why is this so, is it due to his ability of speech? Perhaps, but it is not like animals cannot communicate to each other, even if their mode of communication be more "crude" than ours. Isn't it conceivable to imagine an unconscious "man" who still retains the ability of speech. How can we imagine such a man?
Picture him standing in the flat plain of Mesopotamia, next to the Euphrates River. He is still a social animal; he has his wives and children. Well, we say "wives", since it would be impossible for him to develop any sort of moral obligation toward monogamy, except if he be disposed to it by some force, whether divine or darwinian. We can therefore say that he has no morality at all, he is a being acting on mere instinct.
But is that really the case? How can we define that elusive world, the one we call by this name, "instinct"? For example, say a hungry lion waits on his prey, or a sheep runs away from a wolf, what sort of instinct can we point behind these two "operations"?
Can we therefore agree, and point out that all these animals are operating on mere biology, that they are mere machines? Thus, when we say that the wolf runs, it is the same, metaphysically at least, as saying that a computer turns on. For both receive their respective inputs, the one of seeing a sheep, an attractive hunt and a delicious dinner, and the other of the list of instructions which tell "it" to power on. What we do in this way is not to relegate the computer's activity to an even lower level, but that of animal to the level of our computer friend.
We should consider, however, that Man is not always conscious. Take any simple habit, like someone biting his fingers: he usually does this unconsiously. We can extend this to a multitiude of actions perfomed by anyone. Let's suppose two persons: person A is any powerful ruler who has access to as many females he may desire, and he cannot take no for an answer. Person b is a modern "underman" suffering from a pornography addiction. Suppose we have to judge these two people for their actions. Person A has also murdered someone, while person B has had many life fantasies where he does so on his enemies, but never actually hurts someone in real life.
Do you see the problem our hypothetical jury has to face? Both commited the same act, the one in "real" life, the other in the realm of his imagination. If the roles were switched, person A would have commited the same act as person B did, and vice versa. This is why the oracle commands us to know ourselves , since if you think you wouldn't have been a Kublai or a Stalin if you were given the chance, then you don't. This is why Christ said: "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." Imagination is powerful, but it is also deadly.
Is Man, therefore, a mere behaviorist's animal also? Is he a machine that simply takes a set of inputs (whether external or internal in origin) and has a set of outputs (actions or behaviors)?
Well, I don't believe so. Because we have in us the divine spark of God, and despite all the evil we commit and the tribulations we endure, our strongest weapon is the prayer that draws us, or at least keeps us near, to him.