In answering and explaining the question how man can become truly human and I will be using the perspective on Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Death, Hebrew Humanism and Religious Humanism. To begin with, my answer to the question is Death; man becomes truly human with death.
As we all know, all beings has its own common limitations and this limitation is what we call death. Everything ends in death, according to Martin Heidegger; human beings are beings which we call “being-towards-death”. Which means that all human beings, whether you like it or not, you will die, thus cutting your stay in this world. But these “being-towards-death” can be classified into two, which is, Inauthentic and Authentic Living. Basing from the article, and my own opinion, to become truly human you must learn to accept the fact that our life is limited and we cannot change that, this is the authentic way of living. It’s like our destiny but it’s up to us how we deal with that destiny, how will we live our life to the fullest, where in you can enjoy it and making the most of it. But even though you are anticipating death, and you think negatively about death, you will never be truly human. You are not anticipating it, but instead, you are making it a problem of your life which you can never get over with. Death itself plays a very big role in our life, which then makes us more responsible with all the things that we will do, we have the freedom. Without death, we might not be able to give meaning in time or every moment in life mainly because we are anticipating death, and we do not know when death will arrive. Not one can really tell when will you die, so the tendency here now is, human beings now learn to treasure every moment in their life. I’ll take myself as an example, not about me experiencing death which is not possible for me to return from the dead but for how I became more responsible about myself and my actions towards life. Before I keep telling myself that I don’t want to die, I know everyone doesn’t want to die but everything has its own end and for us that is death right? So as what I have said, I’m afraid to die, I keep telling myself that I will not die today or I must not yet die because for some reasons. But then I realized that we really don’t have a choice when it comes to death, no one can stop it from happening. Maybe we can make our life live longer but we cannot make ourselves immortal which is free from death. And come to think of it, death is really part of our life and when I have read the article on Heidegger’s Phenomenology of death that’s the time that I have really understand what is the importance of death and what it could make us to be. I thought before death gives only negative results but then I was wrong, it also has positive effects on us, becoming more aware and responsible on our own lives.
Another idea of how will man become truly human is based from the humanism of the Hebrews. According to the Hebrew understanding, human life is conceived to consist of situations where man constantly faces challenges and expectations and is called upon to respond. For me death is one of the challenges and expectations that man will face. With this, man is sensitive to these challenges and responds to them in a respectable manner and in a worthy way because man, dealing challenges in a worthy way, is the victor of a challenge. As what I have mentioned a while ago, death is one of the challenges that man will ever face, relating it to the Hebrew humanism, man must not be afraid to die, instead face it with courage and generosity for it is not possible to stop it. No one can ever stop death from coming that’s why instead of avoiding it we must face it as part of our human life.
In the religious humanism, man also becomes truly human through death. As we all believe, human being is made from an image of God. With this, there is an understanding that man starts with God and ends with God. This will bring man to live his life fully because he knew that there is this One who will accept him in the end, the One who also gave his life. Thus living fully with the relationship to God is the way a man truly became human since he is achieving to have an ideal human life, fulfilling God’s will, and giving importance to prayer and worship in life. He is now aware that death is just another scene in our life and it must be accepted with thanksgiving and by not hatred. As what religious people did before, they offer their lives for their God, they are not afraid to die because of them being with God they are free from sin and they are happy. They were never afraid to die because they know God is there for them, God will never leave us for we are God’s sons and daughters.