scholarly journals Eroticism in Fr. Franciszek Sawicki’s philosophy of love

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-108
Author(s):  
Jarosław Babiński

Father Franciszek Sawicki is considered to be one of the most important philosophers of the interwar period in Poland. The problem of love must be regarded as one of the most significant among many issues he focused on in his research. Sawicki, one of the precursors of personalistic thinking, understands the essence of love as it functions in a personal relationship. Above all, we should distinguish two areas for the realisation of love: love in relation to God and love in relation to another human being. In both instances, Sawicki emphasises the need to take into account the "erotic moment" for the sake of full and proper understanding thereof. The erotic moment elucidates love as a force that engages not only the emotional and volitional spheres, but also the categorical and existential ones. This approach enables us to appreciate the full dimension of human sexuality as it pertains to the human being and ameliorate the tendency to depreciate or idolise it.

Labyrinth ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Susanne Heine

"Language is a great and divine gift" (Martin Luther)Reformation and Language Culture  In this paper Luther's anthropology is shown as being based on the human capability of speaking. As a speaking person, the human being is not outside the world but involved in the world by communication. For Luther being human means – thanks to the capability of speaking – being in a personal relationship. The author argues that this relationship to others is based in the relationship to God. Although speaking is a gift of God, it can be abused whenever someone stirs up people to degrade others, as populists do. Luther had been reproached to be a populist in his closeness to simple people, but this was only due to his intention, that everyone should understand his translation of the bible. Instead of stoking fears, as populists do, Luther helped people to overcome their fears, by telling them in their own language – due to his German translation – that God loves them.  


2007 ◽  
Vol 56 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Laffitte

A partire dalla seconda metà del secolo scorso, la Chiesa si è trovata a dover ripensare i rapporti tra fede, teologia e antropologia in problematiche nuove come, ad esempio, la sessualità umana. Interprete privilegiato di questa rielaborazione è stato, senza dubbio, Giovanni Paolo II che in più occasioni ha avuto modo di riflettere e illustrare la teologia, la antropologia e l’etica che sostengono la visione cristiana della sessualità umana. Di questa vasta produzione, l’articolo prende in esame soprattutto le Catechesi di Giovanni Paolo II con frequenti richiami e illustrazioni del pensiero del filosofo Karol Wojty´la. L’analisi dell’autore prende le mosse dall’esposizione di Giovanni Paolo II dei dati creaturali dei tre primi capitoli del libro della Genesi, esaminando, in particolar modo, i significati fondamentali della solitudine originaria dell’uomo verso la creazione e poi il rapporto maschio-femmina. Vengono illustrati quindi l’esperienza dell’amore e l’ethos del dono: l’esperienza cristiana è presentata dal Pontefice come evento e saggezza e legata all’esperienza di amore che l’uomo sperimenta nel rapporto di filiazione che lo unisce a Dio; l’esperienza dell’amore coniugale ruota attorno alla corporeità umana e ai suoi valori/significati. Il corpo assume dunque un significato sponsale che conserva anche dopo la caduta, testimonianza dell’innocenza originaria e della libertà del dono. In tale contesto l’esperienza dell’amore è vissuta come mediazione di una conoscenza che va al di là della persona dell’amato aprendo l’orizzonte al dono divino anteriore. Nella seconda parte del contributo si prendono in esame i significati dell’amore e l’esperienza etica della sessualità così come sviluppati da Giovanni Paolo II: nella corporeità umana, in cui è impressa la complementarietà biologica, vi è una chiamata alla comunione che non è solo comunione tra i due sessi, ma che rimanda a una divina comunione di Persone. L’autore esamina anche l’esercizio della sessualità in rapporto alla legge naturale intesa come conformità alla ragione umana protesa verso la verità. Tale conformità conduce alla retta comprensione dell’intima struttura dell’atto coniugale, la cui “verità ontologica” si manifesta nell'inscindibilità delle due dimensioni unitiva e procreativa. In questa ampia visione della sessualità è compreso anche il mistero dell’amore nuziale tra Cristo e la Chiesa: la comunione di vita e d’amore tra l’uomo e la donna ha come missione propria di significare e rendere attuale l’unione tra Cristo e la sua Chiesa. L’articolo termina con l’analisi del legame tra corpo e sacramento e della dimensione sacrificale e nuziale del dono eucaristico. ---------- Since the second half of the last century, the Church has found herself having to rethink the relationship between faith, theology, and anthropology within new problems concerning, for example, human sexuality. Without any doubt, a privileged interpreter of this reprocessing was John Paul II, who on more occasions had a way of reflecting upon and illustrating the theology, anthropology, and ethics that support the Christian vision of human sexuality. Out of the vast work produced, the article examines especially the Catecheses of John Paul II with frequent appeals to and illustrations of the thought of Karol Wojty´la. The author’s analysis begins its quest with John Paul II’s exposition of creatural data in the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis, examining in particular the fundamental meanings of the original solitude of man toward creation and then the relationship between male and female. The experience of love and the ethos of gift thus come to be illustrated: Christian experience is presented by the Pontiff as event and wisdom and is connected to the experience of love that man experiences in the relationship of filiation that unites Him to God. The experience of conjugal love revolves around human corporeity and its values/meanings. The body thus assumes a spousal meaning that remains even after the Fall, serving as testimony of original innocence and the freedom of gift. Within such a context, the experience of love is lived out as the mediation of knowledge that goes beyond the person of the loved, opening up the horizon to the earlier divine gift. In the second part of this contribution, the meanings of love and the ethical experience of sexuality as such are examined as developments by John Paul II: In human corporeity, upon which biological complementarity is impressed, there is a call to communion that is not only communion between the two sexes, but which refers back to a divine communion of Persons. The author also examines the exercise of sexuality in relation to a natural law intended as conformity to a human reason reaching toward truth. Such conformity leads to the proper understanding of the intimate structure of the conjugal act, whose “ontological truth” manifests itself through the inseparability of the two dimensions: unitive and the procreative. Within this comprehensive vision of sexuality also resonates the mystery of nuptial love between Christ and the Church: The communion of life and love between man and woman that has as its own mission to signify and render present the union between Christ and His Church. The article ends with an analysis of the connection between body and sacrament and of the sacrificial and nuptial dimension of the Eucharistic gift.


2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-105
Author(s):  
Joanne Boucher

AbstractIn this article I engage with recent scholarly commentary concerning the realm of human sexuality in the work of Thomas Hobbes. This has, perhaps unsurprisingly, been a neglected area of enquiry given the paucity of Hobbes's analysis of this aspect of the human passions. I argue that this new field of enquiry is to be welcomed as it allows us to explore and understand Hobbes as a fully erotic philosopher. Moreover, his erotic philosophy is best understood through the prism of his thorough-going materialism.


2020 ◽  
pp. 002436392093311
Author(s):  
Julio Tudela ◽  
Enrique Burguete ◽  
Justo Aznar

This article is a reasoned response to the article by Timothy F. Murphy, recently published in the prestigious journal Bioethics, on the supposed opposition between the views of the Catholic Church and what he calls “contemporary science” in relation to certain anthropological issues linked to the gender perspective. To point to “the Vatican” as anchored in an unscientific and anachronistic position, using the term contemporary science to which he attributes a unanimous representation of current scientific thinking on the subject is, in our view, unfounded and completely unacceptable. In his reflection, he does not adequately distinguish between intersex and transgenderism, two clearly different realities with different needs. The author defends the obsolescence of the binary sex/gender model that, in his view, “betrays human sexuality.” Furthermore, he does so without providing a plausible justification or a definition of human nature that is able to support the plurality and indeterminacy of sexual conditions, without falling back on untenable dualisms or relativism devoid of scientific objectivity. In our response, we highlight how the dialogue between Faith and Reason, as developed in the recent Magisterium of the Catholic Church, is essential to explain nature, the human being and, in general, all creations. Finally, contemporary science does not provide a monolithic and unquestionable view of the nature of human beings and their sexual identity, as the author claims, with many scientists confirming evidence of a binary human sexuality genetically and phenotypically determined. Summary This paper is a reasoned response to the supposed opposition between the views of the Catholic Church and “contemporary science” in relation to certain anthropological issues linked to the gender perspective.The dialogue between Faith and Reason, as developed in the recent Magisterium of the Catholic Church, is essential to explain nature, the human being and, in general, all creation, against the opinion of those who defend the obsolescence of the binary sex/gender model that, in their view, “betrays human sexuality”.


Author(s):  
Ada Agada

The notion of love is one of the fascinating concepts available to humans. Love is perhaps the most powerful emotion a human being can  experience. Love is immediately recognized as a feeling. It is only after observing human conduct that it dawns on us that there is a rational dimension of love. In this paper I will discuss the Idoma-African concept of ihotu, or love. Since the very idea of an Idoma philosophy of love is an entirely novel idea, with no prior identifiable research in this field, I will rely heavily on my knowledge of Idoma culture and conversations with Ihonde Ameh of Ochobo community who has an in-depth knowledge of Idoma value-system. I will proceed to show how the consolationist theory of love is a systematization of the basic ethnophilosophical data supplied by Idoma traditional thought. With consolation philosophy transcending the basic intuition of the African collective, in this particular case the Idoma of Central Nigeria, I will argue for the rationality of love by pointing out its indispensability in the formation and expression of what we consider right or moral behaviour. I will argue that a greater part of the conduct we approve of as ethical is founded on our emotional experience and that this emotional experience is to a large extent determined by the urgings of pity or empathy. I will attempt to exhibit the philosophical grounds of empathy from the African perspective of consolationism and, in the process, delve into philosophical psychology from the African place. In achieving these objectives, I will have recourse to the metaphysics and epistemology of love from the consolationist perspective. The methodology adopted here is the analytical, conversational, and evaluative methodology. Key words: Love, Ihotu, reason, consolationism, emotion, empathy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 27-51
Author(s):  
Andrzej Maryniarczyk

In this article, the author notes that Thomas Aquinas, in his brief work entitled De Ente et Essentia, proved that at the base of understanding the world, the human being, and God in particular, there is our understanding of being and its essence. When we make a small mistake at the beginning (parvus error in principio) in our understanding of being and its essence, it will turn to be a big one in the end (magnus in fine). And what is “at the end” of our knowledge is the discovery of the First and Ultimate Cause of all things, known as: Ipsum Esse, God, the Absolute, The Most Perfect Substance, on whom everything depends, and who depends not on anything else. These present inquiries about the proper understanding of being and its essence are aimed at formulating proof of the necessity of existence of a Being that is the First Cause, and which, existing as Ipsum Esse, is the source and reason of existence of all beings. Without these inquiries, the proof itself would be incomprehensible, and more importantly it would be a purely a priori one (i.e., ontological). Furthermore, without the existential conception of being, which Thomas first formulated, one could not discover the First Cause which, as Ipsum Esse, is the source of the existence of every being. This issue seems to have escaped the attention of the author of the book Aquinas’s Way to God. The Proof in “De Ente et Essentia.”


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gautami Kapila ◽  
Dr Arun Kumar

The term “Homosexuality” has always been the topic of great discussion. The purpose of choosing this topic is predominantly the unacceptance and widespread discrimination of homosexuals, in all aspects of the life. Earlier, homosexuality was considered “unnatural” or “dysfunctional”, but research in this field has shown that homosexuality is an example of a normal and natural variation in human sexuality and is not in and of itself a source of negative psychological effects. This paper looks at the various issues concerning Homosexuality, it’s origin and the possible explanation for such orientation. It will also look at the political approach and the various factors hampering their development as a human being.


Vox Patrum ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 443-456
Author(s):  
Józef Pochwat

Sulpicius Severus (c. 360-420) was aware of the enormity of evil that people commit. He kept reminding, that the source of this situation is the sin of the first couple, Adam and Eve. A human being took side of Satan rather than God, and consequently developed all kinds of sins of disorder in a delicate field of human sexuality, various vices, murders and wars. Everyone commits sins, no matter who he is and what he does in life. Sulpicius Severus emphasized the truth that sin means disaster, loss of the most important values of freedom and happiness in God. An important feature in the teaching of Sulpicius Severus is his approach to the pagans and heretics. Both of them are treated by him as those who are under the influence of Satan; pagans – because by worshiping idols they venerate de­mons, and heretics – because by preaching false doctrines they submit to the spirit of lies, that is the spirit of Satan.


Author(s):  
Jan-Olav Henriksen

Luther’s understanding of God saturates his oeuvre, and in turn, this understanding is saturated by his doctrine of the justification of the sinner. God is the sovereign source and origin of all that is, and Luther develops his understanding of God in a manner that tries to safeguard this position in such a way that the personal relationship to God becomes the focus point for all he says. The doctrine of God as creator and as savior is modeled in a parallel way in Luther, as he sees God as the source of everything positively in both contexts. God is the sole giver of the gifts that human life requires. As creator, God is omnipresent, omniscient, and sovereign. Nothing can determine God. God is accordingly also the only instance in reality that has free will. Everything else is dependent on God, God’s foreknowledge, and God’s predestination. It is possible to see Luther’s position as an attempt to offer the human being a reliable and trustworthy notion of God, someone he or she can cling to in times of despair and desolation. The only God who deserves to be God, who is trustworthy with regard to being able to provide a safe and reliable basis for human life, is the God who justifies the sinner because of God’s own righteousness. In contrast, a human who puts her trust in herself and her own works or merits makes herself a god and will not be able to stand justified coram deo in the last judgment. Luther develops the idea about God’s hiddenness in different ways, most notably in his ideas about the hidden God in De servo arbitrio. But also in his notion of the theology of the Cross in the Heidelberg Disputation, and in other places where he writes about the masks of God, behind which God hides in order to do God’s work, we can see related or similar ideas. Thus, Luther develops an ambiguous element in his understanding of God.


1985 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 565-581
Author(s):  
Frank G. Kirkpatrick

At the heart of both feminist and Christian-Marxist liberation theology is a concern for community or personal relationship. ‘In the beginning is the relation’, claims Isabel Carter Heyward in her book The Redemption of God: A Theology of Mutual Relation. God and humanity, she argues, need to be understood in radically new categories, many of which arise out of women's experience of relation, as ‘relational and co-operative, rather than as monistic (synonymous) or dualistic (antithetical) … The experience of relation is fundamental and constitutive of human being.’


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