Christian Personalism - Catholic Identity

Christian Personalism – Catholic Identity
cinops be gone Monday, May 12, 2008
The following are significant excerpts from a book by Carl Anderson. Carl is a lay disciple of Pope John Paul II, and also the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus in America. The book’s title is, “A Civilization of Love, What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World” HarperOne, 2008.

“I think, therefore I am,” And with this simple sentence, Descartes changed the history of philosophy and human knowledge. 37

Today, in a similar way, we confront a problem like the one that challenged Descartes. We are challenged by the assertion of moral relativism – that there are no longer any universal principles that can guide the world with so many diverse cultures, religions, and philosophies. And we have moved beyond Descartes’ simple trust in the power of the intellect. Yet, Pope John Paul II has proposed a principle that is both universal and certain in the hope of overcoming this global challenge, a principle that, if we rely on Descartes’ formula, provides us with an even more profound insight: “I love, there for I am.” Or perhaps even more profoundly: “I have first been loved, therefore I am.” 37

As we unfortunately know, however, love does not characterize all human relationships. Its opposite is hatred. In Christian terms, we may think of love’s opposite as sin. Although God has granted us the free will to accept or reject his love, it is part of the nature of the universe that rejection of love will lead to pain. We are free to reject love, but we don’t have the power to reject it and be happy. We see this in ordinary life, when individuals, for whatever reasons, refuse human companionship and grow more hostile and embittered. 37
The same is true in spiritual life. Christianity stresses that it is we who reject God, not God who rejects us. Many have been puzzled by Christ’s statement about the “blasphemy against the {Holy} Spirit” that “will not be forgiven.” John Paul II points out that this “blasphemy” consists precisely in rejecting God’s love… Each of us, as a child of God, does not have absolute significance and worth, The problem, as Solovyov goes on to say, is not that we overvalue ourselves but that we undervalue everyone else… Love carries with it the responsibility to respect the freedom and dignity of each individual. As the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote, “Only a philosophy of freedom and love can account for our existence.”… 38

At the center of Christian personalism is a moral view that human dignity that is inalienable because it has been established by God. While his perspective has many roots, its greatest contemporary foundation in Catholic thought is the Second Vatican Council, especially Gaudium et Spes, with its statement that it is “only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear.” This proclamation anchors the dignity and freedom of the human person squarely within the even of the Incarnation: God has placed his final seal upon our dignity and worth by becoming one of us. 39

Throughout his tenure as pope, John Paul II developed the Christian personalism of the Second Vatican Council II through numerous encyclicals, which are addressed by the pope to all the bishops of the church, beginning with his first, Redemptor Homini. These encyclicals constitute a substantial body of magisterial teaching on the nature and dignity of the person that is indispensable to fostering Catholic identity. 39
George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish or Vietnamese.