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Reply to Richard Bayer's “The Social Nature of the Human Person in Economic Personalism” Richard Bayer makes two major claims regarding the social nature of the human person. First, sociality belongs to the very nature of the human person; second, the full realization of the human person is most closely bound up with communion (as distinct from mere social coexistence)–properly ordered families, neighborhoods, churches, professional organizations, town communities, civic organizations, and other associations that fulfill our social nature. Bayer sketches some of the difficulties hindering the realization of our social nature in contemporary society. Rather than focus on this aspect of his paper, I will build on his claim that sociality is essential to the human person. My aim is to probe more deeply into the theological foundation of the human person's social nature, at least as this comes to expression in the Second Vatican Council and in the writings of John Paul II. In Centesimus Annus, John Paul II argues that the self-fulfillment of the human person demands self-giving in which a bond of true communion between human beings is formed. 1 The Second Vatican Council teaching on the human person in Gaudium et Spes (no. 24) is the starting point for John Paul II's reflections on the relationship between person and community. The Council proclaims that “man, who is the only creature on earth that God willed for itself [for its own sake], [nevertheless] can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself.” Self-fulfillment demands self-giving–this teaching distinguishes Catholic anthropology from individualism and collectivism, and it is the basic reason why we can speak of a “third way” in the social doctrine of the Church. Let me explain briefly. The human person is, quite precisely, a fundamental polarity of self-possession and self-donation. 2 This makeup of the human person is expressive of the image of God, says the Council in the same paragraph: “Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, ‘that all may be one … as we are one' (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason. For He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons and the union of God's sons in truth and charity.” This is the truth concerning man's likeness to God. It expresses the truth that God himself as Trinity, as a communion of persons who totally share one single being, life, knowledge, and love is the model for this interpretation of the human person. On the one hand, the human person is an end in himself, existing as a being of his own, for his own sake, unique and unrepeatable, a whole of his own and never a mere part of any totality. Little wonder that John Paul identifies the fundamental error of socialism to be anthropological in nature: socialism depersonalizes human beings. Man is capable of self-determination and self-possession, of existing and choosing for himself. In this way he is the image of God's supreme self-possession. As John Crosby puts it, God “possesses himself by existing through himself and on his own; and we, who do not exist through ourselves, show forth something of God's being insofar as each of us is one's own end, a kind of whole of one's own, an unrepeatable being.” 3 On the other hand, the passage from Gaudium et Spes cited above also emphasizes that persons are made for communion with other persons and that in this way man's likeness to God is based on the truth that persons are united by reason of a relation, that is, by reason of their capacity for community with other persons. This is why man can only find himself by making a sincere gift of himself. This striving for self-fulfillment in communion with others is evidence of the transcendence that is proper to man as a person. “Each of us is capable of such a gift because each of us is a person, and the structure proper to a person is the structure of self-possession and self-governance.” “Hence,” adds John Paul, “we are capable of giving ourselves because we possess ourselves and also because we are our own masters in the dimension of ourselves as subjects.” 4 Self-possession, belonging to oneself, quite clearly, has nothing in common with the isolated unity of the Leibnizian monad, as if the human person is completely closed in upon himself. 5 But God did not create man a solitary being. He created us in his image, and since God is a community of three divine persons, it stands to reason that he would create persons who flourish living in the communion of truth and charity with one another. To quote Crosby again, “A world in which there could be only one person would make no sense. Such a solitary person would suffer a devastating deprivation by being unable either to utter a word to another person or hear the word uttered by the other. This is why we were created as man and woman. This is why God exists as a community of persons and not as a solitary person … We resemble the Trinitarian God through our interpersonal communion.” 6 At its most profound level, then, the truth and inviolable good of man is grounded in his being created in God's image and likeness (Gen. 1:27, 5:1-2). In one sense, this divine image consists in our participation in the intelligence and freedom of a God who is three divine persons. In another sense, however, the divine image in man is reflected not just in the rational and free nature of the human person. Another aspect stressed by John Paul II brings us back to Gaudium et Spes that, as I said above, also emphasizes man's likeness to God “ by reason of a relation that unites persons.“ The Council ”speaks of a ‘certain likeness between the union of the divine persons and the union of God's sons in truth and charity.'“ ”Human beings are like unto God not only by reason of their spiritual nature [being rational and free],“ adds the Pope, ”which accounts for their existence as persons, but also by reason of their capacity for community with other persons.“ 7 Most important in this connection is that the interpersonal and social relation that occurs between persons and in which they fulfill themselves “is realized through the mutual gift of self, a gift that has a disinterested character.” This gift is not given out of self-interest, for then it would no longer be a gift. “The whole tradition of Christian thought defends the transutilitarian dimension of human activity and existence”–this dimension of the divine image in man means that man is called to exist “for” others, to become a gift, as John Paul puts it. 8 In this way we resemble the trinitarian God who is an interpersonal community of love and in himself lives a mystery of love as total self-giving to another. The mutual gift of self– communio–is the fruit of a personal encounter with the triune God. No less important, however, is solidarity. In Ecclesia in America, John Paul II affirms that “solidarity is the fruit of the communion that is grounded in the mystery of the triune God, and in the Son of God who took flesh and died for all. It is expressed in Christian love that seeks the good of others, especially of those most in need.” “Conversion,” adds the Pope, “urges solidarity, because it makes us aware that whatever we do for others, especially for the poorest, we do for Christ Himself.” 9 I began this reply with John Paul's thesis that man is alienated in a society where its forms of social organization, production, and consumption inhibit him from offering the gift of himself to others, and ultimately to God, and, as a result, from establishing solidarity between people. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that there is no solution to this question of communion and solidarity apart from the Gospel. “Where sin has perverted the social climate, it is necessary to call for the conversion of hearts and appeal to the grace of God. Charity urges just reforms … This is the path of charity, that is, of the love of God and of neighbor. Charity is the greatest social commandment. It respects others and their rights. It requires the practice of justice, and alone makes us capable of it. Charity inspires a life of self-giving: ‘Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it' [Luke 17:33].“ 10 Observe that all the meanings of charity in this citation are ordered to charity as a life of self-giving, which brings us back to the concept of communio, namely, that it is through the free gift of self that man truly finds himself, and, in turn, to the trinitarian God who is an interpersonal community of love. The path to conversion, communion, and solidarity lies in encountering the living Christ, since he is the only true response to human alienation. Alienation includes man's refusal to transcend himself and to live the experience of self-giving and of the formation of an authentic human community oriented toward their final destiny, which is God. Indeed, Jesus Christ not only reconciles man with the Father, transforming, enabling, and healing human nature so that man can enjoy trinitarian communion, but he also reconciles man with himself and thus reveals his true nature as well as the way that man can realize fully his true vocation. For John Paul II, the key to transforming man's alienation is stated by the Second Vatican Council in Gaudium et Spes (no. 22):
And then without missing a beat, the Catechism concludes with the central motif in the Holy Father's trinitarian view of the person, a view that should very much inform the social nature of the human person in economic personalism: “The divine image is present in every man. It shines forth in the communion of persons, in the likeness of the unity of the divine persons among themselves.” 11 Notes
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