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General A Look At Excellence

2010.02.14 13:19

이한중*65 Views:3484


A Look At Excellence  /  Thomas Dubay


    ....There are two kinds of human excellence.
    The first is that of talents, skills and accomplishments --
    for example, in scholarship, sports, music, medicine, law.
    It is immediately obvious that there are all sorts of degrees
    of gifts and achievements in these areas.

    The second type of human excellence  we may call
    personal excellence: nobility, greatness, perfection.
    Personal excellence is charcterized by one's goodness,
    truth and beauty as a person -- for example, in honesty,
    generosity, humility, chastity, selflessness, prudence and
    genuine love.  -- most of the individuals with personal
    excellence are ordinary and unremarkable in their natural
    gifts and accomplishments.

    At the same time, people who manifest the first type
    of excellence -- that of talents, skills and accomplishments --can be far from outstanding in moral goodness.
    --British historian Paul Johnson's book "Intellectuals"
    (Harper 1989), a detailed study of men and women
    who contributed in the first type of excellence were
    morally wretched in more ways than one.
    Current accounts in the media of prominent sports figures,
    actors, entertainers, scholars, business and political leaders
    and so on who fall into serious moral aberrations are
    periodic reminders of this sorry reality.

    The second type of human excellence include those
    who have achieved it to a heroic degree.
    They are called saints, and they are the pinnacles of
    human splendor.

    The splendor of the saints surpasses all the excellences 
    of the first type because it may well be the successful
    supernatural work of the divine art by our Creator, God.
    (somewhat paraphrased)
    (in paraphrasing) In other words, of all the created
    human beings by HIM, the saints are the type of humans
    HE may have intended when He created a man and a woman.


from the book "SAINTS; A Closer Look" by Thomas Dubay

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