The Oration On The Dignity Of Mani - 1171 Words

According to Pico Della Mirandola, in the Oration on the Dignity of Mani, human beings are free to become anything they want. He explained the level that humans reside in using chains. Using the chains he placed the angels high up on the chain and the animals on the bottom. Humans are not on either ends of the chains. They are not up high in the chain like angels and they are not in the bottom of the chain like animals, but instead they are in the middle. Being in the middle of the chain they are the observer of the world. They watch over the world that god created. God put humans in the middle of the chain and giving them the freedom to choose what form they take and what they can become. They have the freedom to be reborn as the lowest which is animals or as the highest in the chain, angels. They can choose to degrade themselves or upgrade themselves. If they do bad things, greedy, and live selfishly than they will degrade themselves to animals and if they do good deeds than they w ill upgrade themselves to Angels, high up on the chain. Based on their â€Å"unique individual talents†(Western Civilization, brief 3rd edition, 296)ii, human will be reborn as animals or angels. The noblest goal of the freedom that human beings have is that they should aim to upgrade their rank closer to angels. The similarities between Pico Della Mirandola and Martin Luther understanding of human nature is that they can do what they want. Their view of human nature is that there are justice and