God created man in His image, after His likeness. The likeness was lost in the Fall, but the image- though shattered- remained with man. Sure, our intellects were darkened, our wills weakened, and our sensitive appetites no longer have a clue what's good or bad, only what feels good or bad. We are in an internal state of disorder, disarray, disharmony. I agree with Chesterton's thoughts that the Fall and Original Sin is about as empirical as Catholic dogma gets. The evidence is all around us for the decay of reason, freedom and love. Hence the Incarnation, the need for a Savior who is Himself the "image of the invisible God", to restore to us the likeness that we all had lost in Adam.
Now we need to get a little metaphysical. According to Thomist doctrine, God could not create Being Itself, for that is the very essence of God: pure existence, "He Who Is." God's creative work would at the outset have to involve limiting existence into defined categories, for to define something is to give it limits, boundaries, and ends. God Himself is un-defined: in-fin-ite. He is without limits, but to create something else, there necessarily is inherent limitation, for one needs to be created by Another in order to exist. God - Being Itself- has no such need.
As we continue along our metaphysical path from God to creation, we realize that in creating, God was giving a share of His Being, His existence, to creatures. They would now have that high dignity of all existing things, whether spirit or inanimate objects, of participation in existence. God is existence, we have existence. To be is the first grace.
As God created, He limited, defined, His creation. He alone is Being Itself, so His creatures would always be less than the infinite. Instead of creating pure Being, God created angelic being, human being, plant being. The limitation allows for definition, for understanding. The essence of the creature was its defining characteristics. And it would be from whatever this limited expression of existence that all action would proceed. The Medievals had a phrase for just this concept: actio sequitur esse, action follows being.
In the form that God willed for humanity, our being would take shape in two seemingly opposed arenas, that of the spiritual realm and that of the purely natural. It would be in humanity that God would take animal and make it rational, free, spiritual. And this is the particular point that I would like to stress: no matter how you slice and dice human action or thought, you must always take into account both this spiritual and this corporeal dimensions within each human being.
When we turn to this image of God we see how the spiritual dimension of humanity is further reflective of the divine. Man is not meant to be alone, for God is a Trinity of Persons, perfect unity and community. This Divine Communion of Persons, as Pope John Paul II expressed so eloquently in his Theology of the Body homilies, is imprinted upon our being, causing us to desire the same level of unity and community in our own lives and in our world.
God is Lover, Beloved and the Love that unites them.
The human being, then, is a personal creature. Personhood falls upon such creatures that are capable of having an interior dimension, a spiritual life, that is essentially relational. Angels, men, women, and even God Himself are all caught in interpersonal relationships. Far from being a "mere individual", the human being is a person that seeks to be one with other persons, to have a real communion with others like him/her self.
If God is a Trinity, a Communion of Divine Persons, and we are made in the image and likeness of Him, then it is of no wonder why "it is not good that man should be alone." The crafting of our DNA, the form of our material bodies, the desires rooted in our souls and acted upon by our wills- all of this is taken up in the imago Dei.
So it is not just that human persons want to be free. We want to be united.
