Consider the number of nations that are now legalizing euthanasia around the world. Wojtyla says, “Human beings do not live for the sake of technology, … Any creature or created goal, such as, the protection of the environment, are inferior ends trumped by the superior end, the right to life of every human person which protects human dignity writ-large. From our common sense perspective, the person is viewed as having different aspects, the physical, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual and yet the person manifests a dynamic unity of all these complex aspects in his actions, so that when he acts all these aspects come into play. Recognition of dignity is recognition of value beyond valuation. Actions arise in and from the being and nature 9 of something, and precisely as such are manifestations of the being and its nature. In this power of self-dominion, the human person can do all those things which manifest a truly human life. ( Log Out / The conscious “I” sees the world, knows the world, and acts in the world. In free action the person not only determines some reality external to the self, but also simultaneously determines his own being. Karol Wojtyła speaks of thought as the basis of human creativity and the source of human culture. This “I” could be called the interior pole of our individuality, that by which we are awake and alert to the world, and around which revolves all our unique and unrepeatable experiences of life and activity. Consciousness is the power to be present to and aware of reality – it is receptivity to being through experience. The subjective quali ties of humanity express themselves through an appreciation for interiority and spiritual experience. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. In this way, man can have certitude about the morality of his decisions and of achieving his destiny, closing the knowledge gap through faith and reason, which is true freedom, as Blessed John Henry Newman speaks about with his “illative sense.”. Love revolves around the good. And again, “in creating, we fll the external material world around us with our own thought and being”, and in this there is a likeness with God, since “the whole of creation is [but an] expression of God’s own thought and being” (Thomistic Personalism, 171). As a phenomenologist, Wojtyla was interested in all sources of knowledge that led to the truth, including the very obvious sources of knowledge, that our actions as persons, our normal, everyday interactions all verify the dignity we afford each other in family and civic life. Mary and the Search for the Meaning of Womanhood, Rekindle a New Light: Tolkien and Historical Change, Holloway on "Holiness in the Twenty-First Century". I will try to note … And so, it is necessary to recognise their dignity. Karol Wojtyla-the future pope John Paul II-chose the human being, especially in its personalistic dimension, as the main point of his philosophical research. This is a transition from the cosmological perspective to the personalistic perspective, from the objective metaphysical structuring to the subjective phenomenological experiencing. Love, for Wojtyła, is about being other-focused. Virtues are positive determinations of character, and so, virtue is personal formation; while vice, being negative, is personal deformation. Boëthius, Aquinas, and John Paul II, have progressively led us to a fuller appreciation of the proper, Robert McNamara lectures at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Who’s Got the Best Life? He clarifies this by saying, ” The human being holds a position superior to the whole of nature and stands above everything else in the visible world…Our distinctiveness and superiority as human beings in relation to other creatures is constantly verified by each one of us, regardless of how inferior we might feel because of our physical or spiritual deficiencies.” (p.178) The human dignity of every person is inherent in his very essence in spite of his human failings, which is why capital punishment and war are against the interest of human dignity as well. With this came a focus on the subject – a move from a focused analysis of the objective constitution of reality, to the thinking and knowing being. In this compelling new work, Jaroslaw Kupczak, O.P., presents a complete introduction to John Paul II's theory of the human person. In this, consciousness can be considered a derivative power of the human person, an active power arising from the rational an object, a what but also a subject, a who, and primarily so 6 principle of the human soul. 1955. p.56,57), These are very powerful words from Gregory of Nyssa. It is an inner movement of the will for the true good of the other, and ultimately culminates in some form of self-giving. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Sr Claire Waddelove OSB explores a concept not always popular today. In the book Person and Community: Selected Essays of Karol Wojtyla (Trans. The good is the centre of gravity of love – love recognises, afrms, desires and delights in the good. Theresa Sandok OSM; Peter Lang: NY, 2008), the essay by Wojtyla “On the Dignity of the Human Person” is particularly striking because he speaks about that sum total of the dignity of the human person as often overlooked by many people. Karol Wojtyla appeals to the ancient concept of 'person' to emphasize the particular value of each human being. Karol Wojtyła speaks of thought as the basis of human creativity and the source of human culture. Why? And this has consequences for contemporary human rights issues, including abortion, euthanasia, human trafcking, war, etc. In other words, with his intellect and his freedom, God has created man to be sovereign over his own thought and life through the aid of virtue and faith. Unlike other creatures, he was created in the image of God. The person is unique because of their subjectivity by which they possesses an unrepeatable interior world in the history of humanity. For Woytyla, the answer is simple and profound: “To acknowledge the dignity of the human being means to place people higher than anything derived from the visible world…There is no way to acknowledge the dignity of the human being without taking this purpose and its thoroughly spiritual character into account.”(p.178-179) Well, persons who deny the right to life of innocent unborn persons or of the rights of the person undergoing euthanasia, not only deny that particular person their most fundamental human right, to life, but also deny the very core of their personhood, their immaterial spiritual nature. 1) It is not the activity of the person that is of decisive importance, but the being and nature of the person. He says, “Intellect and freedom are essential and irrevocable properties of the person. When the Movement was founded in 1972, the Church was wrestling with the confusion of the immediate post-Vatican II era. Part II Reason and Faith in the Philosophy of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II Adrian J. Reimers. Theresa Sandok OSM; Peter Lang: NY, 2008), the essay by Wojtyla “On the Dignity of the Human Person” is particularly striking because he speaks about that sum total of the dignity of the human person as often overlooked by many people. 5 The Challenge of Nihilism 84. The nature of consciousness is twofold: consciousness is both consciousness and self-consciousness. Wojtyla continues, “The dignity of the human person finds its full confirmation in the very fact of revelation, for this fact signifies the establishment of contact between God and the human being…God becomes a human being; God enters into the drama of human existence through the redemption and permeates the human being with divine grace.” God did not have to “contact” man, or reveal Himself, but because He desired all persons to know the source of their spirituality, the truth, the good and the genuine value of their own person, He revealed Himself for man to know his-self. All externalizations–activity and creativity, works and products–have here their origin and their cause.”‘ (p. 178) In other words, the origin of all of our action, all of our creativity, all of our work in the material external world is spiritual in origin. The problem of the subjectivity of the human being seems today to be the focal point of a variety of concerns. Ultimately, the human person is defned by love. A human being’s worth does not depend on anything beyond the simple fact that he stands in existence. Finally, Wojtyla points out that the dignity of the person is a priori to his contribution to society or any anthropological conception of his origin or value. The good is the centre of gravity of love – … Karol Wojtyła speaks of thought as the basis of human creativity and the source of human culture. Well, it might behoove such persons of naive intellection to consider the thought of a man who passionately loved the world by expending his entire life in defense of the dignity of every human person through his faith and reason, Karol Wojtyla, the late pope, Blessed John Paul II. . Wojtyla was satisfied that St. Thomas correctly situated the human person in terms of the general categories of being, as an individual subsisting in an intellectual nature. Karol Wojtyla-John Paul II's Idea of Ultimate Reality and Meaning Alice Ramos, Dept. The concept of the person was developed and refned in the crucible of Christian philosopher – theologians trying to grapple with understanding (and misunderstanding) the two fundamental theological mysteries of the Christian faith. History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages. The gradual and sometimes painful evolution of the term through the Trinitarian and Christological controversies of the Patristic period, as well as the robust investigative work of Christian philosopher–theologians, Sts. the person and love. Wojtyla asks “Can the dignity of the human person be fully preserved? Wojtyla was impressed with John’s deeply mystical sense of humanity, a sense that analogously attributed to the human person the incomprehensibility normally predicated of God himself. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Boëthius, Aquinas, and John Paul II, have progressively led to a fuller appreciation of the proper meaning of the human person. He exhibits a thoroughly contemporary understanding, rooted in a knowledge of the traditions of classical, medieval, and modern thought. Karol Wojtyla, in common with all seminarians of his day was formed firmly within the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition. To realise its being and life, and to experience the fullness of human experiencing, the human person must be the subject and object of love, for it is precisely in love that the human person most fully actualizes itself, and thus reaches the fullest realization of its being and life (66). Consequently, it is that for which we must take responsibility – I am responsible for my “I,” and for all that comes forth from this centre of conscious life. But Karol Wojtyla had lived under the dehumanizing effects of that misbegotten view of the human person; he knew its crushing consequences. Change ). The starting point of the analysis of the person is the experience of existing and acting together with others. First, to secure a connection between both approaches, let us explore consciousness in Aquinas’ metaphysical doctrine. He is in the image of God, because he is a king as God is a king. To be connected with the good, that is the purpose of the human person. We have to actively work out the preservation of human dignity in the world and in our own mind and heart. Wojtyla viewed the person as a suppositum and compositum who due to his free will is responsible for his action and thereby determines his transcendence. And it must be preserved!” (p.180) With this, we return to the beginning of the life course of all human beings, in the womb. Wojtyła says that it is precisely in love that the human person reaches the fullest realisation of its potential, and thereby fully develops its being (66). Preliminary we can ask about Karol Wojtyła’s sources of metaphysical formation. Well, one might ask, “Isn’t technology, or civilization or culture true and good?” Again, Wojtyla points out that these things are exactly that, things; things are means not ends, persons are not things, persons are not means. With this in mind, we can think of his further encouraging words, “It follows that the matter of the dignity of the human person is always more of a call and a demand than an already accomplished fact, or rather it is a fact worked out by human beings, both in the collective and in the individual sense” (p.179) In other words, each and every person has a critical role here and now, in the present moment, in the life of the world of actively substantiating and fortifying the dignity of the human person through our actions and our ideas. It is the interior centre of our person, the nexus from which all life originates and all living concentrates. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Love 7 For Wojtyła the moral character of the human person reaches its fullness in love. And it too became the defning character of his own life, as self-gift for the sake of the kingdom. This can be gathered from the shape of his body, but still more from his soul, to which man owes his truly royal dignity. In Gregory’s doctrine on man, De hominis opificio, Gregory says that, “Man has been created after all the rest because all the rest has been created for him. These three potencies of the human person, which are all ordered towards and culminate in self-giving, became the focus of so much of John Paul’s writings, in his encyclicals and his catechesis on the Theology of the Body. Given this rich and robust understanding, we see why the human person amongst all of visible created reality has pre-eminent dignity. The latter half of the 2nd millenium saw a transition from a philosophy of being towards a philosophy of consciousness. Karol Wojtyla holds two things as phenomenologically given. 1 Wojtyla's Philosophical Development 13. One might be reminded of the dignity of man that Gregory of Nyssa attributes to the person from the Fourth century (long before Pico de Mirandola or the French Philosophes). The human person has dignity because of what he is, his nature, and that he is, his existence. through the lens of Karol Wojtyla (john Paul II) . Rather, it is simply the recognition that the human person is not just something, but each and every person is also someone, a subject. Part I Karol Wojtyla, Philosopher Miguel Acosta. In the book Person and Community: Selected Essays of Karol Wojtyla (Trans. culture.5 In Wojtyla, the whole person is imagined as embodied gift, giving form to the differentiated substance of human nature. Love 7 For Wojtyła the moral character of the human person reaches its fullness in love. No doubt it owes its emergence to numerous causes, not all of which should be sought in the realm of philosophy or science. This purpose is intimately connected with truth, because the human being is a rational being, and also with the good, because the good is the proper object of free will.”(p.179) To be connected with the truth is the purpose of the human person. So Karol Wojtyla considers the relations between persons, especially from the heart, as the most important feature in developing full humanity. And though free thought is certainly a precondition for doing the good, and is thus presupposed of morality, it is only in the very doing of the good in freedom that the human person most fully manifests itself. “Acting person” implies acting consciously, which is not the approach that Wojtyla takes. 2 Wojtyla's Method 32. Each human person is an “I”. Karol Wojtyła appeals to the ancient concept of 'person' to emphasize the particular value of each human being. This chapter is rich in content and also somewhat difficult. Wojtyla counters this notion saying, “Who the human being essentially is derives primarily from within that being. It says, “I think… I choose… I feel… I act.” Each individual “I” is the source of his own living and activity. The Acting Person has 30 ratings and 4 reviews. In such a taking-hold the person assumes radical responsibility for himself and further determines his own native individuality. The Person and Community Karol Wojtyla’s analysis of the person begins with the starting point of knowledge - experience. This is an antichristic doctrine if ever there was one. This is the ultimate paradox of human nature, that to fulfl oneself means to give of oneself—to be truly oneself one must exist for others. : action reveals the nature of thehumanpersonandparticipationexplains the essence of the humanpersonThe Social Dimensionof the SelfIntersubjectivity as OntologyKarol Wojtyla The human person is orientedtoward relation and sharing in thecommunal life for the common good. Random House: NY. The person is unique because of their subjectivity by which they possesses an unrepeatable interior world in the history of humanity. staunch defender of the human person and human dignity was John Paul II, who, before becoming the Supreme Pontiff and writing as Karol Wojtyla developed his own understanding of the human person and defended in his writings the dignity of the human person. With his mind, man can choose how to react to his-self’s experience of life and others experience of him with his own mind and with his own freedom, provided he is constantly seeking dominion over himself through all the virtues (human and theological) while assenting to the knowledge that faith bequeaths to him as a creature. There, we see that, in order to fully preserve the dignity of the human person globally, as Wojtyla goads us to do, then the very first, most important step is to end the most barbaric degradation of the most innocent of human persons by ending all abortion. Therefore, because of what the human person is, his nature, it follows as strictly necessary that he be treated with absolute respect according to his incommensurable value, his dignity. For Wojtyla, the primary experience of the human is to be understood as one’s approaching oneself experientially, and thus establish a cognitive contact with oneself. 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