Mary and the Acting Person
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INTERNATIONAL MARIAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON, OIDO in affiliation with the PONTIFICAL THEOLOGICAL FACULTY MARIANUM ROME, ITALY By: Richard H. Bulzacchelli MARY AND THE ACTING PERSON: AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF PARTICIPATORY REDEMPTION IN THE PERSONALISM OF KAROL WOJTYLAIPOPE JOHN PAUL II A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctorate of Sacred Theology with specialization in Marian Studies Director: Rev. Johann G. Roten, S.M., Ph.D., S.T.D. Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute University ofDayton 300 College Park Dayton OH 45469-1390 2012 Copyright© 2012 by Richard H. Bulzacchelli All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Nihil obstat: Johann G. Roten S.M., PhD, STD Vidimus et approbamus: Johann G. Roten S.M., PhD, STD- Director Bertrand A. Buby S.M., STD - Examinator Thomas A. Thompson S.M., PhD - Examinator Danielle M. Peters, STD - Examinator Daytonesis (USA), ex aedibus International Marian Research Institute, et Romae, ex aedibus Pontiflciae Facultatis Theologicae Marianum, die 2 Februarius 2012. I dedicate this dissertation to my wife, Kay, who has sacrificed as much as I for this project. I dedicate this dissertation, also, to Pope Bl. John Paul II, and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom he was so profoundly devoted throughout his life. 111 Contents 0.0: Introduction ....................................................................... ix 0.1: Status Quaestionis ...................................................................... x 0.2: Methodology............................................................................ xiii 0.3: Limitations of the Present Study.............................................. xvi 1.0: Chapter 1: The Intellectual Background of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul!!.. ....................................................... 1 1.1: Wojtyla/John Paul II's cultural situation in the philosophico-theological dialogue with an Emphasis on the Religious Dimension of his Personal Formation in this Context ................................................................................ 3 1.2: Wojtyla's philosophical posture in the context of the historical situation of Poland in the twentieth century ...................................................................................... 15 1.3: The Problem ofKantian Formalism ......................................... 20 1.4: Wojtyla/John Paul II's Integration of Aquinas ......................... 26 1.5: Wojtyla/John Paul II's Integration of Scheler .......................... 43 1.6: Wojtyla/John Paul II's Critique of Scheler ............................... 82 1.7: Wojtyla/John Paul Il's Critique of Classical Thomism ............ 91 1.8: Summary Assessment ofWojtyla's Synthesis of Aquinas and Scheler and their Influence on The Acting Person ..................................................................................... 126 2.0: Chapter 2: The Specific Contributions of The Acting Person: The Problem of the Person, the Act, and the Experience of Ethics ................................. 131 2.1: The Structure of The Acting Person and Its Central Themes .................................................................................... 132 2.2: The Aristotelian-Thomistic Metaphysical Presuppositions of The Acting Person .................................... 141 v 2.3: Divergences from Classical Thomism in Wojtyla's Account of the Acting Person ................................................. 156 2.4: The Schelerian Elements of The Acting Person ...................... 167 2.5: Wojtyla as a Thomistic/Schelerian Personalist... .................... 183 2.6: Summary Comments on the Place of Our Analysis of the Thought of Karol Wojtyla!John Paul II, Concerning the Acting Person, within the Context of Select Recent Scholarship .................................................................. 198 3.0: Chapter 3: The Implications of Personalism for a Broader Catholic Anthropology ................................... 215 3.1: A Sketch ofthe Development of the Concept of the Person in Magisterial Thought in the Twentieth Century ................................................................................... 216 3.2: Participation as the Central Theme in Wojtyla's Interventions at the Second Vatican Council... ....................... 231 3.3: Reflections of a Personalist Perspective in Gaudium et Spes and Lumen Gentium ....................................................... 238 3.4: Applying Wojtyla's Concept ofParticipation to the Catholic Covenantal Economy ............................................... 256 4.0.0: Chapter 4: The Perfectly Redeemed Acting Person ......................................................................... 265 4.1.0: Part I: John Paul II's Presentation of Mary as the Preeminent "Acting Person" ..................... 269 4.1.1: A Survey of Select Literature Relating to John Paul II's Mariology .................................................. 270 4.1.2: Some Initial Considerations for Expounding a Fully Catholic Mario logy .......................................................... 284 4.1.3: Understanding Mary's Fiat as a Human Act ................... 288 4.1.4: Framing the Problem of the Universal Influence of Mary's Fiat .................................................................. 292 vi 4.1.5: Toward a Solution, through a Point ofDeparture between Personalism and Scholasticism .......................... 294 4.1.6: Approaching Mariology through an Integration of the Concepts of Receptivity and Participation ................. 303 4.1.7: Proredemption .................................................................. 311 4.1.8: Mary as the Acting Person in Wojtyla's Marian Catechesis ........................................................................ 316 4.2.0: Part II: Joseph Ratzinger's Theological Perspective and the Situation ofMariology in that Context ..................................................... 333 4.2.1: Ratzinger's "Organic" Theology ...................................... 334 4.2.2: Ratzinger's Christocentric Orientation ............................. 336 4.2.3: Revealed Religion vs. Natural Religion ........................... 349 4.2.4: Ratzinger's Mariological Perspective .............................. 353 4.2.5: Ratzinger's Reding of Redemptoris Mater ....................... 370 5.0: Summary Remarks and Concluding Reflections ........... 385 5.1 Summary of the Dissertation ................................................... 385 5.2 The Importance of the Present Study in My Own Theological Development ....................................................... 389 5.3 Indications for Future Study .................................................... 393 Bibliography ......................................................................... 395 vii Introduction In the present dissertation, we will show that John Paul II's Marian thought in his encyclical Redemptoris Mater is thoroughly informed by his personalist anthropology as developed in his prepapal work, The Acting Person, and in a series of articles in which he developed his thesis further. Central to this consideration will be Wojtyla's understanding of the ideas of self-determination and participation, where he offers new insights intended to transcend the limitations of the naturalistic-cosmological conception of the human person through a turn to personal subjectivity characteristic of contemporary thought, but without losing the so-called "objective" or "transcendental" dimension. Wojtyla thus seeks to avoid Kantian formalism, characterized as it is by the option to structure the moral universe entirely upon the categories of rational thought, wherein the most fundamental truth about morality-namely, the love of a person for other persons-is to be bracketed for moral analysis, and pure, passionless "duty" left as the sole measure of moral virtue. He also seeks, however, to avoid the turn to sentimentalism as found first in Hume, and later, according to Wojtyla's reading, in the thought of Max Scheler. Thus, Wojtyla attempts to ground ethical choice and action in a neo-realism that takes adequate account of the subjectivity of the person, such that the person is understood and analyzed, not as a mere thing or object, but as a thou, who cannot be reduced to any mere function of biology, psychology, sociology, or cosmology. This perspective, according to which the person emerges as truly self-determining, and also as thoroughly oriented toward the whole through a nature designed by God for the dynamic of self donation, forms the foundation of his work in Redemptoris Mater. There, the figure of Mary comes to stand as the perfect image of the acting person, who comes to her fulfillment through a radically free act of self-donation, thus implicating herself in the common good of all humanity. In the end, this understanding of Mary will serve as the philosophico-anthropological underpinning of the Catholic and Orthodox view of Mary in her cosmic, soteriological, and eschatological significance. ix 0.1: Status Quaestionis: This thesis has never been thoroughly developed to date. It would be an overstatement, of course, to suggest that the scholarly record is entirely void on this point; but it would be accurate to say that where discussions of Wojtyla's concept of the Acting Person have touched upon his Mariology, they have not done so in such a way as to provide the philosophico-anthropological basis for a full reading of Redemptoris Mater on the question of