Key personalist notions (D. Julio Penacoba)
Preliminary remarks
This is a course of Theology yet heavily grounded[S1]
on a personalist anthropology, the type that philosopher Wojtyla has brought
into the teachings of John Paul II. It is helpful to begin with some discussion
of personalist notions especially for those who are familiar with the classical
anthropology alone. These notions are presented to see and appreciate the
enrichment John Paul II has brought into the theology and recent Church
teachings.
Beyond a Classical (Greek) Metaphysical Anthropology
Classical anthropology studies man objectively[S2]
and so it very well reaches the main elements of humanity: the human being is a
rational animal, has a spiritual soul, possessing a substantial unity of body
and spirit, and has two sets of faculties; spiritual intellect and will and
sensibility: internal senses and emotions.
Objective[S3]
anthropology is the basis for "virtue ethics[S4] "
which teaches that the integration of the person is the fruit of the exercise
of the four cardinal virtues. That is to say, man fulfills himself to the
extent that his intellect develops the virtue of prudence. Through prudence,
man determines what is due to others in justice (the virtue of the will) and
how to submit the two sets of sensitive tendencies to reason through the
virtues of temperance and fortitude. This is a fine way to identify what
fulfills man in his pursuit of the truth and the good. Certainly, it is better
than the raw human goal: “Know and will all you can and want.” Virtue ethics
perspective can free man of all the degrading ancient and modern hedonisms:
“Enjoy all the pleasure you can.”
However, classical objective anthropology could not study
the subjectivity[S5]
of man and was insufficient to explore the richness of the human person in his
unique personal identity including sexuality and his existential condition in
history, which includes inter-subjectivity in relationships like the family and
society. The entire area of sexual and social ethics in the Western culture has
been inadequately grounded with respect to the richness and dignity of the
human person.
Fortunately, some 20th century philosophers coming from
existentialism and using a phenomenological method have made deep explorations
into the subjectivity of the person. Their insights are now being systematized
under the heading of the person. Their insights are now being systematized
under the heading of "personalism." A still better development
consists in the Magisterium's having incorporated some of these insights in
Gaudium et Spes and in the majority of John Paul II's teachings. We shall now present some of the notions used
by Church documents.
PART ONE: ABOUT “PERSON”
Personhood
We begin with this synthesized description of the human person taken from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 357). “Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. And he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead."
The human individual possesses the dignity of a person who
is not "something" but a "someone." He is capable of
self-knowledge, self-possession, freely giving himself, entering into communion
with other persons, and he is called to offer his creator a response that no
other creature can give in his instead.
Self-knowledge
This expression does not primarily refer to the self-reflection on my behavior in order to identify my temperament and personality traits, assets, and limitations. It rather refers to the existential fact that a person is immediately aware of himself as the “I” that acts in every human act. Every time I know something or decide on something, I am aware that it is “I” who knows and decides. There is a permanent core of identity in me that is the same ‘acting person” throughout. By self-knowledge, we therefore mean the awareness of self that is revealed as we act humanly. This “self’ thus revealed is the core of the person. It is unique, unrepeatable, and in a sense, totally incommunicable.
Self-possession
This expression does not primarily refer to the control our will exerts over the other faculties and behavior. It rather refers to the existential fact that whatever my
me; I make them to happen. My “self” directs my thinking and deciding; it is their origin. This capacity of the person reveals an original and radical freedom. In a sense, I make myself by setting a goal for myself. This is a more radical freedom than simply choosing among several means towards that goal. In a sense, this radical self-possession makes the person a goal in himself and for himself. Unlike the animals, individuals who exist for the sake of their species and of the bio-system, a person is never a means for the whole. We reach the awesome realization that each person is an end in himself and can never be used ad a means for any other: thing, another person, a social group, the species, projects, ideas and ideologies.
Self-giving to form
communion
Like other living beings, man can engage in activities that enrich him. As a person, man has another amazing capacity: "I can engage in relational activities where I can share of my own personal subjectivity to enrich another person. When this self-giving is mutual, we form bonds of communion where all grow more and more as persons. This notion of communion is a key to a personalist anthropology. The term comes from con-munere, the Latin for mutual giving. Personalism discovered that communion is not an option or an accessory to personhood. It is only in self-giving that the person becomes a person; that man can find fulfillment as a person. This cannot be grasped using the metaphysical approach. This idea was missing in the classical anthropology. Certainly, self-giving in love is central to Christianity and for theological anthropology. Unfortunately, Aristotelian anthropology could not reach the centrality of self-giving for personal fulfillment. In the context of a purely philosophical discourse, the entire ethics of sexuality, family, and society could support human dignity only because of the insight of self-giving. In other words, philosophy found its way back to common sense and experience thanks to personalism. As John Paul says: man cannot live without love; his life remains meaningless if he does not experience love, if he is not made part of it and makes it the goal of his life.
Unique relationship
with the creator
Through the intellect and will, man has a double unique capacity. With his mind, he can transcend creation and recognize the Creator. With his free will, man can work with creation in submission to the creator. This double capacity sets the human person above the rest of creatures as it involves a unique relationship with the Creator.
CCC 357 speaks also of an additional dignity: Man can be
invited by grace to a also form a communion with a personal God. This relation
called “covenant.” and is properly speaking found in the realm of supernatural
anthropology. In this light, we shall not discuss it in this philosophical
introduction.
View of the person
First, at the center of the person we find a given core of unique identity: the self-core. Second, this given core is not static. We see that —like a nuclear reactor— there is human activity that originates and is directed from the self-core. Third, among the activity from the core, we see a capacity of connecting with another self-core and a capacity to form bonds of mutual self-giving. Fourth, we see a unique capacity to relate with the Creator. To all this, we add the awesome content of Christian revelation: a human person can also connect with the Personhood in God in mutual self-giving.
Difference
personalism makes for human fulfillment
I can see myself simply as an individual of the human species. Just like the individuals of other species, I can find fulfillment by developing my capacities or potentialities. Since the specific human capacities are "to think" and "to act freely" (intellect and free will), I can think of my fulfillment as an unlimited pursuit "to know all I can and to do all I want."
A realistic development of the principle of self-fulfillment
leads to the "ethics of the four cardinal virtues." In this ethics,
self-giving in love is not considered essential to personal fulfillment. This
shortsightedness is at the root of the individualism and utilitarianism that is
characteristic of a Western culture that has gradually lost its Christian
roots. Indeed, when charity is discarded as an optional religious principle,
the only limitation to individualism is justice: "Do not do to others what
you would not want them to do to you."
In contrast, through personalism I can explore my
subjectivity and see myself with a capacity for self-giving found at the very
core of my personhood. This capacity makes me most human to the extent that I
develop it by forming communion with other persons. This capacity sets a
radical orientation to my other capacities: intellectual and volitive. I will
find my personal fulfillment when I use these capacities in pursuit of and at
the service of communion.
The human body
For this section, we take CCC n. 365. "The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body, i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature."
The human person is a simultaneously corporeal and spiritual being (362). In man, spirit and matter are not two natures united; rather, their union forms a single nature. (365)
If I were simply an individual of the human species (a rational animal), I would recognize an immaterial “me’ that “has” a material body like other species through my immaterial operations.
Personalism shows that the human person is a unity; hence, the body reveals and expresses the person. It is not only that I “have” a body; more than that, I am a “spiritualized body” or an “incarnate spirit”. In other words, the human body is not an animal body but a personal body. My body shares in my dignity as a person, as a someone and not as a something. This means that my body expresses my personal dignity. We could say that some parts of the body express some aspects of the person more clearly than others. The brain expresses the person in his capacity to know beyond matter. Likewise, human hands express the person in his capacity to dominate and work with the rest of the creatures. In a sense, we could say that the reproductive system expresses the person in his most central capacity —that of giving himself in totality to another person. This seems to be the sense of what Wojtyla calls the “nuptial meaning of the body”. That is why - as we shall see next - sexuality is not something simply bodily but personal.
Human Sexuality (being male/female)
Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person as a unity
of body and soul. It specially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and
to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of
communion with others. (CCC 2332)
If I were simply an individual of the human species, my sexuality would be like in the other species—a merely biological fact with a biological purposes. Just as the digestive system is meant for the preservation of the individual, the sexual system is meant for the preservation of the species. This biological perspective will make my sexuality unnecessary or irrelevant for my human fulfillment.
On the contrary, a personalist view helps me see that my
“being make/female” expresses my personhood and affects my whole person. It
obviously affects my capacity to contribute to the preservation of the human
species (procreation). Most importantly, it affects the central personal
capacity of giving myself and of forming a communion. Unlike animal sexuality,
the meaning of human sexuality is not primarily for reproduction. It is rather
rooted in the deepest personal meaning of love as self-giving. That is why a
person who gives himself totally to another or others is fulfilling the meaning
of his sexuality even when no genital actions are involved or even when there
is “reproductive result" (a child) to speak of as in the case of marriage.
Sexual Shame (or
the fear behind sexual modesty)
Feeling shame for our nakedness in front of others especially before persons of the opposite sex is a universal experience. Animals do not experience this. If animals do not experience this shame, then why should a rational animal? With our mind, we can clearly see the purpose for physical sexual differences and we respect this purpose just as we respect that of the digestive system or of the hands.
Why do only humans experience such shame? What is human
about it? Classical anthropology cannot give an answer to these questions. Not
even personalism can answer them despite its being able to see in the
reproductive system a further “nuptial meaning of the body”. Nonetheless, the
phenomenological method can describe this shame as a fear of being used or of
using other persons as objects, as a means for something else. We also have
evidence that a fracture or an inner rupture exists between our reason and the
experience of desires that are contrary to our reason and human dignity. In the
last analysis, it is only through faith that we get to know the origin of this
inner fracture: it is a consequence of original sin. Personalism certainly sees
that this universal experience of shame and inner rupture reveals in a unique
way the self-awareness found at the core of personhood. Through this, we
possess a direct awareness of what is called the “personalist principle of
ethics”: that is to say, that a person is an end in itself and, therefore, s/he
must never be used as means.
Man and woman (meaning of the duality)
For this section, we take CCC nos. 383 and 372: "God did not create man a solitary being. From the beginning, "male and female he created them" (Gen 1:27). This partnership of man and woman constitutes the first form of communion between persons." (383). "Man and woman were made "for each other" - not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be "helpmate" to the other for they are equal as persons ("bone of my bones.") and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage, God unites them in such a way that, by forming "one flesh", they can transmit human life: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth."246 By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents cooperate in a unique way in the Creator's work." (372)
The human person is not a solitary being. The partnership of man and woman constitutes the first form of communion between persons. Man and woman were made “for each other.” This does not mean that God left them half-made and incomplete. It means that he created them to be a communion of persons in which each can be a “helpmate” to the other on the basis of their equality as persons and on their complementarity as male and female.
Looking at man and
woman as mere individuals of complementary sex belonging to the species is
insufficient to understand their relationship as persons. Each would seek the
other only to find in or use the other in relation to what one does not have. A
partnership of mutual use for a common purpose would not demand a lifetime
commitment. Again, such shortsighted view of man and woman would be open to
comparisons of superiority and competition.
A personalist view
sees each man and woman as whole persons which can freely choose to give
themselves in their respective complementarity. There is no question of who is
superior. Instead, there is a concern for a complementary of personal gifts.
Just as each male/female person can choose to give himself/herself to one
female/male person inclusive of the engagement of the genital dimension of
his/her sexuality, each person can choose to give himself/herself to a group of
persons inclusive of the engagement of the affective dimension of its sexuality
as male or female alone. In fact, the orientation of man - woman “for each
other” is only a primary sigh and incentive to the deepest vocation of man
inscribed in his personhood: to give oneself for the life of the others in
communion.
Heterosexual marriage for a life time
We start by noting that humans, unlike animals, tend to get
married for life. Setting aside particular cases, both cultural anthropology and
psychology record the “irrational” tendency of humans to get married for
“better or for worse till death.”
Classical anthropology explains this universal phenomenon
with difficulty. The idea that partnership ought to be between male and female
just as it is among other animals is certainly admissible. The thorny question
is this: “Why should marriage be for a lifetime if it could be conveniently
arranged to last only for the years needed to raise the children, i.e., not
necessarily arranged to last until death?” Also, if marriage is only viewed as
a way to ensure healthy offspring, why should not a person have more than one
simultaneous partner as long as health is safeguarded?
Personalism — with its central insight of personal
fulfillment through self-giving — can give us an answer to these questions. It
posits that marriage is the natural way to bring to perfection that central and
deepest drive of giving oneself in totality and in the mutuality of communion.
Certainly, totality of self includes the totality of one’s existence or
lifetime. This would mean that mutual totality of self requires that nothing is
left for a third party. Personalism can also explain the not uncommon
experience of people who despite not getting married still find self-fulfillment.
A person who remains single for selfish reasons or out of fear is in a very
different situation from one who, despite remaining single for a variety of
reasons, chooses to spend his/her life for the sake of others — in families,
wider communities, and for a humanitarian cause. The first type of single
person cannot find personal fulfillment whereas the second type can. What is
more, the latter can find an even greater fulfillment outside of marriage.
PART TWO: ABOUT “LOVE”
Human love
Let us begin by noting that the word “love” has many
meanings in ordinary usage. We shall limit our discussion of the word to
genuine human love understood as that which accounts for loving relationships:
spousal, parental, fraternal and friendship.
Aristotelian anthropology – with its lack of recognition for
the core of selfhood —considers love as an emotion that is basically identical
to animal desire. What is specific of the rational animal is that it
experiences a desire for being with another one: that is to say, it desires to
be pleased by and to please the other. The most Aristotle discovered was a view
of friendship as something that existed among virtuous people, i.e., friendship
as the highest kind of desire. Personalist anthropology is in better condition
than Aristotelianism to understand human love in general and married love in
particular because of its insight of self-giving as the highest fulfillment of
the person. We shall now explore human love and married love using a
phenomenological approach.
What is common to all forms of loving relationships?
Externally, we observe a mutual communication and a giving. If we look at the
element of communication, we observe that its content not only includes the
discussion of events or ideas but also how the discussant feels about them
within his inner self. We call it self-disclosure because it reveals how
a person is affected intimately, i.e., at the self-core. If we look at the
element of giving, we observe that the recipient of the other’s self-disclosure
can understand how the other feels (also called emphathic listening) and
is capable of rejoicing or suffering with the other. The recipient in turn acts
on the other’s self-disclosure by going out of himself and attending to a
perceived need that will increase the joy or lessen the sorrow of the other. We
call this self-giving. When this entire process is repeated in
the other direction, we have a full mutual loving communication and giving.
This mutual exchange is what builds the bond of a loving relationship; it is
also built by increasing the experience of communion.
Married love
Among all the kinds of relationship of genuine love,
marriage is uniquely distinct. Its main unique trait lies in the fact that it involves sexual intercourse, something
that is missing in parent-children, fraternity or friend relationships. Except
in cases of individual abuse and other sexual deviances, we may ask the
following question: “Why do all cultures consider sexual intercourse as
exclusive to and appropriate for marriage alone?”
As mentioned earlier, Aristotelian anthropology views
married love as a special emotion, an instinctual desire that is intended by
nature for the reproduction of the species. This could explain why sexual
intercourse belongs to marriage alone. Sexual promiscuity and casual sexual
would be viewed in contrast as something detrimental to the offspring and
eventually to the human species.
Personalist anthropology provides a richer answer. As we
shall soon see, it holds that the human body expresses the person and so it
recognizes in human sexual intercourse a language of total giving of the whole
person. It is common knowledge that the reproductive cells or gametes contain a
unique, unrepeatable DNA which constitutes a person’s genetic “ID.” It is a
fact that in sexual intercourse, the bodies give and accept their “ID” in a
loving embrace, and in so doing, they also open the possibility to form a new
“ID.” Personalism recognizes these facts not simply as something purely
physiological but rather as personal. We come to the conclusion that fits well
with what we observe in any civilization: “Through human sexual intercourse two
persons mutually accept and give themselves in openness to accept a new person
to whom they will give themselves in parental self-giving love.”
In this light, we understand married love – in its
uniqueness – as the primary albeit not the only one way to carry out the mutual
self-giving that fulfills persons. Married love is not an emotion but a
decision to give one’s self and to accept the other in the totality of
un-conditionality – “for better or for worse”— and in the totality of their
existence – “till death do part us.”
Falling in love
Another very interesting theme is the personalist analysis
of “falling in love.” This again is another universal experience. Sometime or
another in a person’s life, s/he may experience a quite powerful drive to share
his/her life totally with another person. This drive is based on a
“non-rational certainty” of the idea that the person becomes happy with life
sharing. The equation implied here is this: A person thinks that all that is
needed for him or her to be happy is that male and female share their lives
totally. Aristotelian anthropology sees
this equation to be a trick of the species to simply ensure its preservation
but it cannot per se be taken seriously or permanently. This is so because our
rational selves do not easily decide to take on all the responsibilities and
risks of unconditional commitment.
Personalist anthropology can see deeper and farther. It
easily recognizes the deepest drive to find fulfillment in the mutual and total
self-giving of married love. It also recognizes the “difference” and “distance”
between falling in love and married love. The former is a drive loaded with emotion
characterized by its turbulent ups and downs and can even wane through a
lifetime. On the contrary, married love is a conscious decision that only
begins at the wedding but lasts – and it should - for a lifetime. This
radically differentiates married life from falling in love. The distance
between these two realities lies in the fact that the drive to find fulfillment
may happen between two persons who actually cannot make the decision that
married love requires. They either cannot decide at the moment (for reasons of
age, physical distance, and psychological or financial incapacity to take on
responsibilities) or cannot decide at all (for reasons of a decision made by
one or both persons favoring a third person, belonging to the same sex, so on
and so forth).
This leads us to a better understanding of an interesting
ethical consequence: no matter how much persons are in love, fornication or
premarital sex is always degrading of persons. As we have seen, sexual
intercourse expresses the total self-giving that is already exists since this
is what married love is all about. In contrast, falling in love is not an
existing fact of total self-giving but a drive towards it. To engage in what
expresses the fact when it is the fact is non-existent yet is an anthropological
deception that degrades the greatest capacity of the person. To yield to this
deception damages the person intrinsically; what is more, we observe that not
uncommonly, the female person suffers a more permanent damage than the male and
the possible offspring certainly is damaged for life. No matter how much a
person claims to be in love, no person – in the name of being in love - has the
right to degrade himself and to risk causing permanent damage to another
person.
Conclusion: Making ready for a personalist theology
It is possible to do theology using personalism as shown by
John Paul II himself. He did this in the series of speeches made to Wednesday
general audiences he held and which are now compiled in the book “Theology of
the Body.” In each of the book’s four parts, the Pope begins with Scriptural
texts – the beginning of theological method — and then proceeds with a unique
exegetical way. This way consists in analyzing the scriptural texts in circles
of deeper comprehension and in constantly going back to two dimensions of human
experience: intellectual cognition and the inner experience in consciousness.
This typical method of phenomenology yields amazing insights about and in the
subjectivity and inter-subjectivity of the human person. John Paul II does not
simply engage in exegesis but does good theology in so far as he relates
revealed truths about God and Christ with anthropology. He does this in
reference to the rich tradition of the Church and to Vatican II documents. A
summary of this “personalist theologizing” is gleaned in no. 7 of Mulieris
Dignitatem, a recommended obligatory reading for the course. This
specific magisterial text connects the Man-Woman course with the present
overview of some personalist notions.
The insightful summary Weigel makes of the Pope’s Theology
of the Body is recommended as a very useful reading reference. The summary is
amazing not only because it reduces the Pope’s rich insights in ten pages; most
meritoriously, it “translates” the Popes teaching into a language that is
accessible to an average college graduate. Weigel likens the Pope’s teachings
summarily presented with a time bomb and even prophesizes with good bases that
it will explode sometime within the third millennium as it eventually reaches
the majority of the population in the Western culture.
[S1]Theology
isn’t grounded on personalist anthropology.
It must be grounded on the Revelation of the Person of Jesus Christ.
Personalist anthropology is developed within theology.
[S2]More
accurately, classical anthropology is objectivist as “reductive” and abstract.
It is less realist that the anthropology of the subject.
[S3]I
would use the world “objectivized.” The real problem with a reductive
metaphysics is the primacy that is awarded to “substance.” “Substance” is not
the way things are, but the way we conceptualize them. Substance is most
literally a category of the mind with which we award reality to an experience.
[S4]I
like the avoidance of “virtue ethics” because it presupposes a substantialist
anthropology. Virtues as “accidents” of substance. In reality, it is the
ontological “I” that increases its ontological density as the gift of self
takes place. Humility is the key virtue because it is not a virtue at all, but
the very being of the “I” as gift. That’s why it is so amusing to be “proud” of
achieving humility. We laugh because it is such an inadequate anthropology and
account of authenticity.
[S5]I
have to stop here, but the key to the whole realist undertaking is to
understand that there are two levels of experience: that of the external
senses, and that of the “I” in the exercise of self-transcendence. The first is
abstracted and abstractive; the second is the direct experience of the self.
There is no mediation of sensible perception, nor concept. It is a direct
existential experience of “being” as “I” – gift. As Wojtyla develops in “Subjectivity and the
Irreducible in the Human Person,” both levels of experience must be deployed
for a holistic understanding of the human person.
But this is
primarily the work of faith. Faith is the anthropological act of self-gift as
reception of the Revealing Person of Christ. Only when the self is activated as
self-transcending do the “lights go on” as personal transfiguration. The
reasoning “I” “sees” this and perceives
the self as absolute being. Without it, reason is reductive and
positivist. Thus, without faith, reason cannot be reason. Therefore,
“subjectivity” must be ontologically reclaimed.
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