Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and a pro-choice philosophy and that existence precedes essence. It is the view that humans define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. Essence is the attribute or set of attributes that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity. In more simple terms, a person who is an essentialist is one who believes that man has an objective nature and looks at problems in an objective manner, taking others in society into consideration, while an existentialist is essentially one who looks at life from a subjective manner, that is placing oneself at the centre of the solution to the problem with ethical fallouts which tend to neglect others around oneself.
This teaching harks back to ancient Greek philosophy. There were those philosophers called sophists who believed that the truth surrounding us changed according to the culture which formed us. Therefore truth changed with culture, it was not absolute and was therefore of a subjective nature. These philosophers were essentially challenged by the three philosophers (circa 400BC) who believed that truth was objective and absolute. Truth did not change with culture. These three were of course Socrates, his disciple Plato and Plato’s disciple Aristotle.
Aristotle in particular wrote his Metaphysics, which dealt with the philosophy of essence or being. Man has an essence and an existence. Substance, essence and form are the same concept for the predetermined entity in a human existent or being, the universality of the species. The other entity in the being, is the matter, which determines the particular human being from the other human being (the particular), but the essence determines the species or universal features of man, his nature therefore essence precedes existence. For Aristotle, man is made of form and matter to bring about the composite or particular existent being. That is why before man can consider his existence and its problems, he/she have to consider their form! Man is not either form or either matter alone, that is either essence or matter, but an existence, a being composed of both and both being inseparable for every individual who exists.
When we say that existentialists deny essence, we mean they deny that they have a fundamental nature preceding their actual existence or being. This means that they try to solve the problems of life by ignoring their common nature or form with other human beings and which predetermines their being; they consider only their personal being detached from the very nature of humankind. This is why they quote only their freedom or pro-choice reasons in trying to determine their solutions to the multiple problems occurring in daily life. This is why existentialists underline their freedom, but tend to deny the responsibility brought about by exercising their very freedom, which responsibilities often are attendant to the nature of man or man’s essence. Denying essence means denying their essential nature.
Does it mean that those who hold the essential objective position fail to realize that man faces certain disorders and threats brought about through genetic inheritance or through nurturing or the lack of it, or uncontrollable external circumstances, which pose particular problems to our being or existence, which problems are often difficult to come to terms with! Nothing could be so far from reality, because objective essential positions also accept that subjective existential issues can actually mean that individuals may need to find their own way to come to terms with particular issues which challenge the individual. However, this is done without contravening or refuting the nature of our essence. The truth of our essence is recognized as such through acquired knowledge and revelation, which is the part that God plays in revealing our true essence and which cannot be acquired through our reason alone. To be open to the truth of real things and to live by the truth that one has grasped is the essence of the moral being. This is why Soren Kierkgaard and Dostoyevski are considered to be the first existentialists because although they believed that a man had to solve the problems facing him as an individual with full freedom, they did not break with man’s essence because this has a revealed factor which is given through God’s revelation, which helps one solve his individual existential problems. This is in contrast to the later existentialists such as Nietzche and Sartre who refute our essence completely, including God, and believe that man should solve his problems individually in a subjective manner as suits himself alone.
If one considers the virtue of chastity for example, which virtue falls under the cardinal virtue of temperance, one finds that sex itself is a good thing and that chastity realizes the order of reason in the province of sexuality. It is only the subjective existential belief, which denies our essence both rational and revealed, which makes sex an illicit pursuit because it is based on our selfish lust. The essential nature of sin lies exclusively in a wilful turning away from our essence and the God who has revealed it fully to us. For Aquinas, like Kierkgaard and Dostoyevsky, even a disordered turning of man to a transitory good, as long as it does not include a turning away from God, cannot ever be a mortal sin. He states that in the sin of unchastity, like other vices, the compelling force of sexual desire is most effective; this very fact however, mitigates the gravity of the sin, because the sin is more venial, the more overwhelming the sensual passion that drives one to it.
This is why many of our everyday modern problems are presented to us in a way, that in seeking to solve them without heed to our essence and the truth, we only choose to solve them in a manner which makes them worse or simply creates other problems for us or others. This is why the concept of the common good rests on the concept of truth; without such respect for the truth which also encompasses our essence, there can never be any policies which are in line with the common good of man! Changing the definition of marriage by the state, to simply suit our existential needs rather than those both essential and existential in that order, is one case in point!
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