Reference no: EM13183167

Compare and contrast the hero and the saint by providing examples of each view of life. Are these metaphors "ideal types" that serve as fundamentally distinct ways of living personally and in society; that is, must we choose between them?

• The genetic approach, the way of the hero, in which explanatory factors act within historical space and time, and

• The metaphysical approach, the way of the saint, which emerges from a point beyond and apart from history.
For the hero, reality appears as fundamentally shaped by the human struggle, the struggle with forces that are essentially impersonal; the forces of necessity and fate that are, in the end, indifferent to human hopes and fears; it is a world in which ultimately human beings are alone and on their own. 
For the saint, reality is appears quite differently. For the saint, reality is ultimately configured by the bonds of a covenant relationship among persons, human and divine, based on an exchange of promises, offered in the mutual hope of lasting and unconditional trust.)

So, put briefly, for the hero, the meaning of life is honor or self-esteem; for the saint, the meaning of life is love.