W kręgu zagadnień społeczno-wychowawczych: godność osoby ludzkiej

Abstract

This paper is a popular presentation of the issue of the dignity of the human person. It is an extended version of the lecture which was delivered on October 24lh, 1997, during the symposium on Dignity ‒ Human Rights ‒ Social Work, organised in Kraków (Os. Stalowe 17) on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the Adam Chmielowski ‒ Brother Albert’ School of Social Work in Kraków, and the start of its work. Reflection of this sort, being by necessity an interdisciplinary approach to the issue, demands constant effort, if we want to preserve its role of service to other human beings. Particularly the reflection can, and ought to, take into consideration young people who are searching for answer to questions about the sense of human existence. The dignity of a human person is a primary notion. When we try to describe this, by necessity we must confine ourselves to describing its specific character, which expresses itself in the statement that a human person is a rational, free being, able to reason, endowed with conscience. The person is able to recognise itself and recognise surrounding it world, to set aims and to achieve them, to decide his own fate, to determine his own actions and to be responsible for them. The specific character of human dignity is rightly expressed in the statement: the human person is an autonomic, reasonable, free, spiritual and transcendent subject. The paper containing the reflection on this subject consists of five points, whose titles are: I. The option in favour of human dignity. 2. The person as a subject of drama. 3. On the question of the definition of the person. 4. The notion of personal dignity. 5. On the subject of the theology of the dignity of man. The last point contains a comprehensive fragment from the Vatican Council’s constitution Gaudium et spes, which in chapters 15, 16 and 17 speaks about the dignity of intellect, the dignity of conscience, and about the great significance of freedom. These elements determine personal dignity. They derive not only from biblical sources but we can read them in the very nature of man, as well. For that reason it is possible for the Christian view of man to be acceptable to everyone, provided he endeavours to be open-minded to the recognition of the truth about himself and about the reality surrounding him. Pondering on the issue of the human person and on his dignity, man must be aware that these questions are among the most fundamental ones for the socialeducational thought of the Catholic Church. There is no room for doubt in the option mentioned above, since man can find absolute confirmation of this in the Catholic doctrine of faith and morality. Recently a separate line of Christian thought has appeared, namely Personalism, which is especially engaged in reflection on the human being as a person.