Philosophy of Aspiration

Omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience – these are the three attributes to God regarding His ‘Almighty-ness’. He is all-powerful, He is ever-present and He is all-knowing. Therefore, God is perfect. He has nothing to achieve for. He has reached His totality. We can say that God aspires on our behalf. He aspires to make our lives better, He aspires us with a future ‘full of hope’; plans ‘for our welfare’ not ‘for our woe’ (Jeremiah 29:11).

The world was created in six days, (Gen 1:1-31), upon seeing His creation to be done on the seventh day, He is satisfied with His work (Gen. 1:31). Therefore, the world is perfect. But, according to our thinking, there is something more for the world.

Yet, upon observing the world, particularly in its natural course of life, we come to realize that even the world’s imperfection, helps itself to survive, which makes it perfect in the eyes of God that indeed benefits the human race, whether we like it or not.

As the world was created, man is also included. Man also shares the world imperfection. However, man realizes his imperfection unlike other God’s creatures, which makes us more think about aspiration – to transcend ourselves into a higher form of being.

In the course of man’s aspiration to become more of him, he had developed innovations – whether in mind, heart, body, or soul. But, through these innovations and development, he has also sacrificed natural causes. It gave us more choices, to arrive in different conflicts. The natural course has altered; the solution of one’s imperfection is the creation of the imperfection of another’s perfection. In fact, from the first stories of creation, the first’s man aspiration led him to his downfall.

In spite of all these, God still approves our aspirations. He, too, may aspire, for us to be with Him, even we had a downfall because of our excessive aspiration. It is good to aspire against our imperfections but sometimes, the perfection of us is about leaving the natural causality of our imperfections for the perfect God has its own reason and we, on our part, should not dare to aspire to grasp the Lord’s knowledge on these things. Our greatest aspiration in life is to follow God’s will and to be with Him, without understanding His ways.

And this is the essence of my philosophy in life, my philosophy of aspiration.

This essay was originally presented as a term paper in Philosophy of the Human Person course in St. Paul Seminary during my seminary years (circa 2015-2017) as a Adult Vocation aspirant taking up Certificate in Philosophical Studies.