Prof. Graham Rose, Johannesburg: Christian Anthropology in the teachings of John-Paul II

(29 October 2003)

Precisely in accord with the teaching of the Pope, with its emphasis on the concrete person, we must, at the outset, salute the person, Karol Wojtyla. I pay tribute his family, his faith and his beloved Poland – these have shaped him. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood in 1996, he recalled how he had come to know "so to speak, from within" both Nazism and Communism.(1) This, certainly shaped him. Speaking of the various intellectual influences on the anthropological thinking of the Pope, one commentator describes "his immersion in Thomas Aquinas, his use of the phenomenological method to capture and describe the richness of spiritual experiences, his personalist perspective on human flourishing, and his primary theological focus on the Incarnation as the key to the nature and destiny of man."(2) We acknowledge these sources and the Thinkers who inhabit them. They have borne rich fruit in the philosophy of John-Paul II.

In the opening sentence of his very first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, the Pope directs us to the heart of all his thought namely, "the Redeemer of Mankind, Jesus Christ (who) is the centre of the Universe and of history." Nearly twenty years later, in Fides et Ratio - after describing the first chapter of Gaudium et Spes as a "virtual compendium of biblical anthropology… profoundly significant for philosophy" - he says that it "serves as one of the constant reference points of my teaching." (FR 61) This "stupendous text" as he has described it, states in essence that "only in the mystery of the Incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light." It is Christ who "fully reveals man to himself." (GS 22; RH 9)

Here we have the foundation of an anthropology that is profoundly Christian. The Pope spells it out further in Fides et Ratio: "Revelation has introduced into our history a universal and ultimate truth."(FR14)

II "Man" yes, but each man, each person

In Redemptor Hominis the Pope describes the incarnate Christ as having penetrated "in a unique unrepeatable way, into the mystery of man and his ‘heart’". (RH48) He goes further in stressing that he is not referring to man in the abstract, but rather the ‘real’, ‘concrete’ and ‘historical’ man. We are dealing with each man. In this most emphatic statement we gain an insight into the personalism that informs both his philosophy and his anthropology.

In the past, the Pope has referred to two Jewish thinkers - Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas – who, drawing on the personalist tradition of the Old Testament, have influenced his own thinking.(3) His philosophy has been described as "situated within the broad tradition of Christian personalism that has flourished in our own century, largely under French Catholic sponsorship."(4)

With his focus on the human person, the Pope has welcomed the recourse to subjectivity in philosophy over the last few centuries. He sees it as having enabled many thinkers to achieve to a more adequate vision of man as a person.(5) However, in his understanding of the human person, he draws a very clear line between subjectivity and subjectivism, obviously rejecting the latter.

III The transcendent goal of the human person

In Fides et Ratio the Pope sees the truth in Christian Revelation as enabling us to break out of an "immanentist habit of mind". Rather "men and women are always called to direct their step towards a truth that transcends them." (FR 15, 5) The transcendence of the human person consists then in this that God is our Goal, indeed the goal of all creatures. (RH10) In and through Christ we are invited and enabled to share the divine mystery of life in the Trinity. The Contemporary philosophy is criticized for its failure to take account this transcendent dimension of man.

It is this transcendent nature of the ultimate destination of our human journey that renders all else relative – earthly life is described as "penultimate"in Evangelium Vitae.(EV2) The transcendence of the human person defined in this way invites us to consider the nature of his dignity – to this we now turn.

IV The dignity of the human person

In Redemptor Hominis, the Pope states that "by the very fact that human nature was assumed, not absorbed in (Christ)" it has been raised to a "dignity beyond compare". (RH 5). He builds on Gaudium et Spes which had earlier spoken of the "surpassing dignity of man". (GS 91) In Evangelium Vitae he refers to the "greatness and inestimable value of human life, even in its temporal phase.…it remains a sacred reality." (EV2)

From this great truth, human rights flow. For the Pope this has been, from the beginning, an immediate and obvious step – recall his experience of and response to the suppression of human rights under totalitarian systems. An example of this is to be found in his defense of the right of association of workers in the Solidarity crisis of the early 1980’s in his homeland. The dignity of man and the defense of his human rights, becomes a central criterion of the authenticity of human development as stated in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis.(SRS 33) Different political systems are judged according to the ability they have of reducing the exploitation man.(6)

One of the most important truths that both flows from the dignity of man and further confirms it, is his capacity to reason. This is one of the central tenets of Fides et Ratio. The Pope laments the widespread distrust of the human being’s capacity for knowledge.(FR 5) This capacity is liberated by Revelation (FR 20) and the setback of the sin is remedied in the Incarnation. There is a knowledge that is peculiar to faith. While philosophy and theology have distinct origins and goals their fundamental unity needs to be restored.(FR 45-48)

In summary, he appeals for a philosophy which can "verify the human capacity to know the truth, to come to a knowledge which can reach the objective truth …" (FR 82). His own Christian anthropology is an important example of just such a philosophy.

V The process of becoming ever more human: Freedom, Truth and Love

In his book subtitled "Karol Wojtyla’s Existential Personalism"(7) - the author notes the Pope’s contribution to the development of Thomism. The Pope, he says, "accepts the complete metaphysics of person as developed by Aquinas…(but) gives more emphasis to experience than to ‘beingness’ itself." His perspective is more dynamic, more active - "the subject of man itself is seen as person-act."(8) Following on this the person is understood not as "a ready-made entity (but as) a creature who must fulfill himself."(9)

In this process, on this journey, the way is clear – it is Christocentric. Simply put we must "draw near to Christ."(RH 10) It seems to me that what is envisaged here is thoroughly Pauline, a movement in and towards, evermore into Christ.(10)

For the limited purposes of this paper I will confine myself here to the Pope’s reflections in his encyclical, Veritatis Splendor.(11) He sees the question of the relationship between freedom and truth as fundamental.(SV 84) Again and again he stresses the need for freedom to serve the true good of the person. The ultimate freedom of conscience itself is "never freedom ‘from’ the truth, but always and only freedom ‘in’ the truth."(SV 64) He regrets the fact that the "essential bond between Truth, the Good and Freedom, has been largely lost sight of by present day culture." (SV 84)

Even as Christ affirms the essential bond between freedom and truth - as in John 8:32: "the truth will set you free" - so He directs us to a trinity which requires love. Christ reveals "that freedom is acquired in love, that is, in the gift of self."(SV 82) One detects here a resonance with the thought of Edith Stein: I recall her sense of empathy which matured into the prayer in which she offered her life as a holocaust for her people. What was a matter of words in her study of the Scientia Crucis, became a matter of deed in her death. Indeed, it became a share in the Truth of Christ that freedom is attained in self-sacrificing love.

This is the process: how we become ever more human, how we grow into Christ, the Absolute Good.(SV6) This growth is of course not just that of the individual, it expands in and through others, and expresses itself also in the development of human society. And so we must speak also of the virtue of solidarity.

VI Solidarity

The personal subject in the process of maturing becomes in the words of the Pope, "more responsible, more open to others"(RH 15); his "human perfection consists… in a dynamic relationship of faithful self-giving with others."(FR 32) Human development then recognizes the "positive and moral value of the growing awareness of interdependence amongst individuals and nations."(SRS 38)

Against the rampant individualism of today the Pope calls for a commitment to solidarity and charity beginning in the family.(CA 49) The true and responsible relationship between the genders especially in the family, is a special locus and expression of solidarity.(12) The importance given by the Pope to the role of the family - understood as a "communion of persons" - in innumerable addresses and particularly in Familiaris Consortio is highly significant. It has been described as one of the Pope’s deepest and most important anthropological convictions.(13) Another special locus is recognized in the work for social justice and love, the inclusion of the poor, the neediest and the weakest.(RH 15) Here we have the corpus of social doctrine of the Church to which the Pope has contributed so extensively and richly. To cite just one example, one might recall the priority given to the person in his encyclical on labour, Laborem Exercens. Yet another focus of solidarity is to be found in the papal teaching on the state and culture as articulated in chapter five of Centesimus Annus. There he denounces totalitarianism which has at its root the denial of the transcendence of the human person.(CA44) On the other hand, an authentic democracy - and for that matter an authentic culture – will seek to promote the true advancement of both the individual and the "subjectivity" of society.(CA 45, 50-1)

In Sollicitudo Rei Socialis the Pope defines the virtue of solidarity as "a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good ."(SRS 38) In the exercise of this virtue we come to "see the ‘other’ – whether a person, people or nation – not just as some instrument… but as our ‘neighbour’, a ‘helper’."(SRS 39) Ultimately this virtue works towards the communion that is the Body of Christ – life in the Triune God.

VII From phenomenon to foundation – the recovery of the metaphysical

The Pope’s anthropology has been described as "metaphysically explained and phenomenologically described."(14) It is said that he criticized the phenomenology of Max Scheler, precisely on account of its lack of a metaphysics. The phenomenon does indeed need to be founded.

And this is the summary cry of Fides et Ratio: the investigation of being has been abandoned (FR 5); reason no more has the confidence to plumb the ultimate human questions; we seem to be incapable of going "beyond the particular and concrete", incapable of "demonstrating the universality of faith’s content". (FR 69)

Hence the Pope’s urgent call for a philosophy with a "genuinely metaphysical range". (FR 83) And once again we are returned to the central importance of the Christian person in the Pope’s anthropology.(15) It is the person that "constitutes a privileged locus for the encounter with being and hence with metaphysical enquiry."(FR 83)

VIII The Church

At all stages in this brief survey of the Christian anthropology of John-Paul II, there is a strong and recurring reference to the responsibility of the Church. However described it comes down to the task of affirming precisely that truth about man which takes on light, only in the mystery of the Incarnate Word.(GS 22)

In Centesimus Annus, the Pope entitles his final chapter "Man is the Way of the Church". In so doing he returns to his starting point. Emphasizing that "the Church cannot abandon man" he proceeds to quote from Redemptor Hominis: "man is the primary route that the Church must travel in fulfilling her mission, the way traced out by Christ himself, the way that leads invariably through the mystery of the Incarnation and the Redemption.’" (CA 53 which quotes RH 14).

Having thus described the way of the Church, we have to say: it is the way of John-Paul II - the way of the Good Shepherd is the true way of the Flock. His anthropology is thoroughly Christian: at once mystical and supremely practical. It is entirely at the service of the truth of the human person (totus tuus!) and his society that we may be full and free in Christ, alive in the Triune God.

As the Pope himself has said - and let him have the last word - "Christian anthropology therefore really is a chapter of theology…."(CA 55)

15. Crosby, op.cit., p 82. The author refers to the danger in Aristotle that the latter’s emphasis on cosmology might reduce man to the world… and so fail to do justice to man,