Ad Rationem

MAN’S AWARENESS OF BEING A PERSON

by Pope John Paul II from his General Audience on 24 October 1979. Read text on EWTN.

MEANING OF MAN’S ORIGINAL SOLITUDE

by Pope John Paul II from his General Audience on 10 October 1979. Read text on EWTN.

BOUNDARY BETWEEN ORIGINAL INNOCENCE AND REDEMPTION

by Pope John Paul II from his General Audience on 26 September 1979. Read text on EWTN.

THE SECOND ACCOUNT OF CREATION: THE SUBJECTIVE DEFINITION OF MAN

by Pope John Paul II from his General Audience on 19 September 1979. Read text on EWTN.

BIBLICAL ACCOUNT OF CREATION ANALYSED

by Pope John Paul II from his General Audience on 12 September 1979. Read text via EWTN.

And that’s how Pope John Paul II ended his 2nd catechesis on the Theology of the Body, Male and Female He Created Them. There are many high points given to us by the Holy Father in this 2nd catechesis. He speaks to us about biblical criticism. This is a very intense study of Sacred Scripture. Those who spend their lives studying the inspired text claim to be able to recognize different hands at work. Not only the Primary Author who is Almighty God but there are said to be the Yahwist, and the Elohist. These two are mentioned specifically by the Holy Father in this catechesis. Yahwist, so called, because whenever God is referred to in those passages God is called Yahweh. The Elohist, because in those passages God is referred to Elohim. These are findings of biblical scholarship. There are said to be other secondary authors involved in the Pentateuch. The Holy Father was neither endorsing nor prohibiting just acknowledging what the scripture scholars say.

He identifies different accounts of creation focusing his attention in this passage on the first account of the creation of man, which he says, thanks to biblical scholarship, is chronologically later. It is not the oldest even though it is presented first in the canon of Sacred Scripture.

The Holy Father reminds us that the Sacred Scripture is theological in character, specifically the creation which we have heard. The theological character of these passages of Sacred Scripture is evident in that it reminds us of the original innocence in which we were made and which John Paul will treat in greater depth in future catechesis. Not only the theological character of original innocence but also the theological character of the original happiness is addressed by the Holy Father.

In the beginning God made us innocent, in the beginning God made us happy and made us for happiness. This is also related to the classical ethics of happiness: eudemonia. And the theological character of this passages of Sacred Scripture regarding the original goodness of creation “God saw all that He had made and it was good.” These points of the theological character of the passages of Sacred Scripture the Holy Father is studying also include Original Sin; the Fall. Likewise, that we are made in the image of God. That is part of the theological character of these passages of Sacred Scripture. Not only God in Himself ,even with anthropomorphic presentations, breathing the life breath into our nostrils but even that we are in the image of God.

That is part of the theological character which our Holy Father highlights as he focuses on these beginning chapters of the Sacred Scripture. He reminds us that these inspired words present to us a vision of man, gives us a definition of man, and here the Holy Father does not site Boethius as he has in other of his writings: man is a rational animal. Here he focuses on man as image of God: imago Dei.

The Holy Father reminds us that these passages of Sacred Scripture present to us essential truths about man and not only about God, but truths about ourselves; how we were “in the beginning” and how our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ refers back to “the beginning” in order to know where we have come from and where we are going. Even as in the last catechesis, where he referred to the primordial law of the Creator, in today’s passage he cites the Law of Moses, which is at least two-fold, the big Ten Commandments, the Decalogue but also it is a reference to the Torah wherein we read these inspired words. The Holy Father reminds us that it is our task in our day, not just when he first gave these talks back in 1979 but even until Christ the Lord should return in glory to judge the living and the dead, that we are to be His interlocutors today. That it is through the Sacred Scripture and through [...]

OF THE UNITY AND INDISSOLUBILITY OF MARRIAGE

Pope John Paul II from his General Audience on 5 September 1979. Read the text on EWTN

Transcription of commentary.

That was the first of the 133 talks in Professor Waldstein’s edition of the Theology of the Body talks “Man and Women he created them”. I would like to go back over some of the key things we heard from John Paul II, or John Paul the Great as some have called him. This year 2010 is the 90th year since John Paul II was born as Karol Wojtyla, and it’s the 5th year since he died in 2005. 

In this first of the Wednesday Audiences on the Theology of the Body, we see things which are constant throughout the working, the writing, the teaching, the preaching of Karol Wojtyla become John Paul II. More than five (5) times in this one talk he refers to “reason.” He gives reasons, he recognizes reasons, he quotes scripture regarding reason, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother.” This is the ability of the human intelligence, our natural understanding, the ability to know. As a younger man John Paul II had studied philosophy, he had sought natural wisdom allied with supernatural wisdom given by grace, faith, and revelation and he deals with both of these in this first talk and in point of fact the rest of talks as well.

In subsequent presentations the Holy Father made reference to his undertaking, a precise analysis. He’s not just shooting off the cuff here, this has been a considered discourse. He meant what he said and he believes Jesus Christ meant what He said and that God the Father Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth of all that is seen and unseen meant what He meant when He created the heavens and the Earth as an expression of His good will towards us as a self revelation. A precise analysis looks at all the details and puts them together and so our Holy Father lays the ground work in this first presentation of what he will do. He will give us a precise analysis of what it means to be human – to be male to be female, to be creatures of the Creator. He gives a reason for his study. While the Holy Father only mentions “casuistry” one time it is important for us to point out what this means. The casuists were those who were doing moral reasoning trying to figure out what was permissible and what was not. The Holy Father is not trying to be a casuist but to know and speak about what is the reality of the situation. And in their better days the casuists were too but there was a decadent casuistry. Sometimes abusing the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, the back flips they would do trying to make sense of things. In this context the Holy Father is reminding us that Jesus was not a casuist but was just trying to remind us of the original intention of the creator. #00:13:29.5#

Not only does the Holy Father try to speak to us about reason and precise analization and casuistry, but also he seeks “normative meaning.” What does it mean to speak about “in the beginning.” Part of John Paul II early formation was in philology which is the science of words, the origin of words, and we see the philology coming out here. We also see ethics, part of his strong philosophical background. The normative meaning is the controlling meaning. What is the truth of the matter? The truth about the beginning, the truth about our very being, our being human from the beginning, the beginning of my personal existence, our beginning as a race, male and female.

Some people have said this Theology of the Body, these Wednesday catechesis, given by our Holy Father John Paul II are a “time bomb”, a theological time bomb waiting to go off because the more and more we understand better who we are and Whose we are, in Whose image we are made, to the extent we act well upon this information, then the reign of God will be among us. Not only by the Incarnation, not only by the death and resurrection of the Lord or His presence in His Body and Blood but even [...]