Personalism as Interpersonalism

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-148
Author(s):  
Michael Darcy ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Strict Sense ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
Intellectual Tradition ◽  
Human Subjectivity ◽  
Rene Girard ◽  
Cultural Anthropologist ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
René Girard

This essay will examine an illuminating convergence in the thoughts of Pope John Paul II and the cultural anthropologist René Girard. It will be seen that this convergence is a consequence of the shared concern of both to understand the human person in terms of its relation to other persons. So while not a personalist philosopher in the strict sense, René Girard’s concern for the interpersonal brings him close to the personalism of John Paul II, who likewise understands human subjectivity in terms of the relations by which it is constituted. Both practice what might be called an “interpersonalist” personalism, which this essay will argue ought to characterize the practice of personalism in a Christian context. The essay will make this observation the basis for further reflections on the nature of personalism and its relation to the Christian intellectual tradition.

John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Shadle
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
Human Creativity ◽  
God's Grace ◽  
Centesimus Annus

Pope John Paul II wrote his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus to offer a Catholic vision of political and economic life after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the democratization of many countries in Latin America and Asia. The encyclical provided a stronger defense of the free-market economy than had previous Catholic social teaching, and neoconservative Catholics saw it as a vindication of their views. Centesimus Annus also harshly condemns consumerism, however, and proposes that the state has a greater role in ensuring that the economy serves the common good than do the neoconservatives. John Paul II recognizes the essential role of human creativity and ingenuity in the economy, but balances this by emphasizing that the human person is the recipient of God’s grace.

scholarly journals Gandhi’s Militant Nonviolence in the Light of Girard’s Mimetic Anthropology

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 988
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Palaver
Keyword(s):  
Fear Of Death ◽  
Mimetic Theory ◽  
Rene Girard ◽  
Cultural Anthropologist ◽  
René Girard ◽  
Contagious Nature ◽  
Nonviolent Action ◽  
God's Grace

Nuclear rivalry, as well as terrorism and the war against terror, exemplify the dangerous escalation of violence that is threatening our world. Gandhi’s militant nonviolence offers a possible alternative that avoids a complacent indifference toward injustice as well as the imitation of violence that leads to its escalation. The French-American cultural anthropologist René Girard discovered mimetic rivalries as one of the main roots of human conflicts, and also highlighted the contagious nature of violence. This article shows that Gandhi shares these basic insights of Girard’s anthropology, which increases the plausibility of his plea for nonviolence. Reading Gandhi with Girard also complements Girard’s mimetic theory by offering an active practice of nonviolence as a response to violent threats, and by broadening the scope of its religious outreach. Gandhi’s reading of the Sermon on Mount not only renounces violence and retaliation like Girard but also underlines the need to actively break with evil. Both Gandhi and Girard also address the religious preconditions of nonviolent action by underlining the need to prefer godly over worldly pursuits, and to overcome the fear of death by God’s grace. This congruence shows that Girard’s anthropology is valid beyond its usual affinity with Judaism and Christianity.

scholarly journals “The genealogy of the person is inscribed in the very biology of generation”. Towards the heart of the dispute on Humanae vitae

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2(24)) ◽  
pp. 29-43
Author(s):  
Paweł Bortkiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Human Action ◽  
The Body ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
Conjugal Love ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
Humanae Vitae ◽  
Parents And Children ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Theological Vision

Since the publication of the encyclical "Humanae vitae" by Paul VI in 1968, a heated discussion has been taking place around this document. It comes alive in a particularly intense way on the occasion of the subsequent anniversaries of the publication of the document. Subsequent decades showed a number of problems related not only to the ethics of marital life and sexual ethics, but also to the concept of conscience or recognition or rejection of the seriousness of the Church's Magisterium. Recent months have brought further opinions of antagonists and protagonists of this document.Among opponents or critics of the encyclical, there are views questioning the teaching that contraception is intrinsically evil. This, in consequence, means accepting the thesis that there are no intrinsically evil acts at all. What is more, it should be noted that every human action is determined in its moral nature only by the proportion between its good and bad effects.In confrontation with these views, the article presents an outline of the anthropological and theological truth underlying "Humanae vitae" which was analysed with insight by St. John Paul II. This allows for the extraction of several basic theses relating to the theological vision of marriage and parenthood: 1) to read the truth about marriage and parenthood, it is necessary to fully recognize the truth about the dignity of the human person, 2) the person realizes fully in the reality of the gift that creates interpersonal communion with the participation of the human body, 3) communion and endowment made with the help of the "sign" of the body are realized in interpersonal conjugal love, 4) the special (though not the only) act of conjugal love is a sexual act, 5) marital logic of being a mutual gift is specific and this is inseparability of the bond between the inter-marital gift (between spouses) and the non-marital gift (between parents and children). Ultimately, this leads to the thought of St. Pope John Paul II, ordering to combine the order of the marriage act with the creative act "the genealogy of the person is inscribed in the very biology of generation".

The Statute of the Man in the Modern Catholic Anthropology

1998 ◽  
pp. 106-109
Author(s):  
Ivan Kaltchev
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
Catholic Anthropology

In what follows, I examine the renaissance of the idea of freedom as a fundamental measure of humanity in the work of Karol Voitila (Pope John Paul II). I examine as well Karol Voitila's concept of the human person as found in his work "Love and Responsibility" as well as the encyclical Evangelium vitae, which affirms the incomparable value of the human person. I also consider the celestial predestination of the human person as discussed in the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

L'identité du social et du religieux selon René Girard

1980 ◽  
Vol 78 (37) ◽  
pp. 71-90
Author(s):  
Claude Troisfontaines
Keyword(s):  
Rene Girard ◽  
René Girard

Polarized Readings of René Girard: Utilizing Girardian Thought to Break a Theological and Philosophical Impasse

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-42
Author(s):  
Colby Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
Religious Values ◽  
Rene Girard ◽  
René Girard

René Girard’s work often seems suspect to liberals, because it appears as a totalizing narrative. Such hesitancy with respect to either dismissing or endorsing it follows from the demise of “grand narratives” that brought with them imperialistic and hegemonic tendencies. Yet if a liberal viewpoint does not embrace Girard, it is for different reasons that conservatives are either fully supportive of his thought as promising a return to religious values or hesitant about accepting his theories because they critique a form of violence inherent to any community. Girardian thought, it can be argued, has focused on deconstructing mythological justifications for violent activity at the expense of establishing a fruitful position regarding positive communal formations. The tensions between these juxtaposed liberal and conservative viewpoints, as taken up in this article, illustrate an impasse between deconstructivist-genealogists (representing trends within liberal discourse) and communitarians (representing conservative or orthodox viewpoints)—one that shows up in a variety of contexts today. Highlighting this particular standoff in interpretations of Girard can, nevertheless, yield important insights regarding the ultimate significance of his work.

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