The End of Man (Part One)

What is man’s end? What is mankind’s purpose? When discussing end I have in mind the Greek term “Telos” for which there is no exact English equivalent. Telos involves a process of becoming or ‘unfolding into perfect completion.’ Telos means end in the sense of ‘perfect completion reached through the attainment of one’s ultimate and absolute purpose.’ This is a term of art and at first glance seems complicated, but it is not. Hopefully a couple of analogies will clarify what I mean.

For example the end (or telos) of an acorn is a mature oak tree. After it is planted in the ground an acorn constantly strives towards its end. It only reaches its end, its completion, when it is a fully grown oak. The purpose of an acorn is to become an oak tree. When an acorn is fully grown (perfectly complete, not lacking anything) it is an oak tree. By fulfilling its purpose in becoming an oak tree, an acorn reaches perfect completion.

Physically, a man’s end (his telos, his perfect completion) is adulthood. A person begins as a separate egg and sperm, these combine and their cells multiple creating a baby, the baby grows into toddler, the toddler into a child, and the child into an adult. This process of growth and progression, of becoming an adult, ends around one’s eighteenth year. At that point a man has reached his biological end. He is complete and perfect in the sense that he no longer lacks anything to reach full adulthood.

Man’s biological end is easily observed (just as physical maturation is seen by all in the growth of an acorn into an oak). What is far more difficult to decipher is man’s spiritual end. What end must man attain to reach perfect completion? Men strive towards all sorts of different ends, but what end was man made for? What ultimate purpose must he fulfill to reach his end?

Many men have theorized about this. Bentham said man’s end is happiness, Marx thought it was money, Freud taught that it was indulging one’s libido, Nietzsche believed it was power, Hobbes wrote that it was life itself, Aristotle stated that it was contemplation, the Romans understood it to be honor. Others have said it is freedom, truth, or popularity, while countless others have said that man has no transcendent end.

In this (approximately) ten part series I will survey the great schools of thought that claim to have an answer regarding the end of man. I will show the critical errors that every one of these philosophies contains and why they ultimately fail. I will then critique both the nihilists who say man can have no end and the existentialists who say man has no transcendent end, but may create finite ends of his own. I will conclude the series by showing that man does have an end, and only one end. This end contains man’s absolute purpose, and in it man reaches the perfect completion he was intended to reach. This perfect completion contains the total and complete happiness and satisfaction that man searches for in vain when he pursues other ends.