Personalizm Martina Lutra Kinga Juniora

Abstract

Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, begun on Jan. 15th 1929 in Atlanta, is a story of an ever deeper involvement in struggle against discrimination, violence and social injustice. Starting from the first protest actions in Montgomery till the speech in Memphis that was interrupted by the killer’s bullet it was always a struggle carried on in the name of human person’s dignity and value. King’s activity has its fundamental sources in his socialreligious as well as intellectual formation. The former one consists of three factors: the radical religiousness of the Church of the Black joined with his own experiencing of the personal God; W. Rauschenbusch’s theological-social views, made more profound by R. Niebuhr’s thought and finally corrected in the spirit of personalism; and the views presented by the leaders of the „non-violence” movement - first of all by M. Gandhi. His studies at Boston University had a decisive significance for M. L. King’s intellectual formation. The scientific orientation of that university made him accept personalism as his „fundamental philsophical position” On this foundation his idea of a personal God is based, which he defends in his doctoral dissertation criticizing P. Tillich and H. Wieman’s conception opposing the personalist view of God. Recognizing the person as the key to reality also played a part in his acceptance of the „non-violence” way as the basic rule of his social ethics. The person constitutes the greatest value in the world. Discrimination aimed against the person’s sanctity, reducing it to the level of a thing, is the greatest evil that must be fought against. Struggle for the person’s dignity must be characterized by practising love and by utmost respect - also for the enemy.