Antropologia encykliki „Humanae Vitae”

Abstract

The Encyclical “Humanae Vitae”, published ten years ago by Pope Paul VI, is a document of the supreme Magisterium concerning the principles of conjugal morality in connection with responsible parenthood, a problem of especial interest today. Ethical problems are always organically connected with anthropological ones: with a definite vision of man, with a certain conception of his being, and of the value of the human person. This is also the case in “Humanae Vitae” From the beginning (HV 7) it stresses the necessity of being guided by the „integral vision of man” in deciding upon concrete questions of conjugal morality which are its chief subject. While indicating the necessity of such an integral approach, Paul VI states the insufficiency of partial approaches which envisage this problem under one or even a few aspects supplied by science, such as biology, psychology, demography or sociology. On the strength of this position, explicitly formulated in the Encyclical “Humanae Vitae”, the author of the study endeavours by way of exegesis of the document to reconstruct the conception of man, both contained in .it and. to a certain extent constituting its basis. First of all he considers the context, the complex circumstances which caused the appearance of “Humanae Vitae”, and above all the tendencies prevailing in our times and favouring rather “homo oeconomicus” or „homo technicus” than „homo humanus”. The author proceeds then to study the most essential formulations of the Encyclical, and while referring to the Constitution “Gaudium et Spes” (as authorized by the text of HV 7) he seeks to demonstrate in what way the document of Paul VI contains the truth about main as person, as a true subject of his own acts. This subjectivity is revealed in the fact that being the originator of his acts man is at the same time the conscious author of the sense (meaning) that his action possesses and expresses. The central point of that personal subjectivity of man is an upright conscience as the expression of the interior truth of human acts. The author proceeds further to demonstrate that the “principle of integrality”, formulated by Pius XII and referred to by “Humanae Vitae” (understood there in the context of the „integral vision of man”, HV 7) also points to the reality of the personal subjects, or rather personal subjects, since the whole document treats of the relation of man and woman as persons in their conjugal union. The antropology of the Encyclical “Humanae Vitae”, a document of the Magisterium that is supreme in the Church, is developed in a perspective of faith, but also reverts to the eternal ancient and modern problems that continually return in philosophical reflection and in the whole systematic effort of human self-knowledge.