Veritatis Splendor in focus: 6
Truth and freedom in the thought of Pope John Paul
MaciejZieba
This week a Dominican priest from Poland brings an Eastern European perspective to bear on the discussion of the papal encyclical. Fr Zieba lectures at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Krakow and at the University of Poznan.
I recently overheard a discussion between two professors of theology about the Pope's latest encyclical, Veritatis Splendor. The first, an American, admitted that it was the section on what he termed the theology of martyrdom (89-94) which seemed particularly fresh and capable of I filling a gap in twentieth-century theology. But the second, a Pole, replied that this part seemed the most obvious. He himself had known and understood as a seven-year-old what the Pope was writing about now. This did not mean, he added, that Poland was a country of theological prodigies, already absorbing the Pope's teaching while still in the cradle - in reality, even among adults, Poland has trouble absorbing his teaching at all.
The Polish theologian's remark merely shows how different is the environment in which the Churches of Western Europe and Eastern Europe were brought up. Truth, loyalty to the truth, and paying the price for this loyalty — these represent the realities with which all believers, seven- year-olds included, struggled in Eastern Europe. In this sense, the conversation I overheard has merely confirmed my view that Veritatis Splendor can, to some extent, be seen as a theological assessment of the experience of the Churches of Central and Eastern Europe — but an assessment particularly addressed to the Western Churches.
This hypothesis gains added legitimacy, furthermore, from the fact that the theories of the fundamental option, proportionalism and consequentialism, all of which the encyclical evaluates critically, have far fewer supporters in the theology departments of Prague, Krakow or Vilnius than in those of Tübingen, Oxford or Boston. By contrast claims regarding the existence of an objective moral order are heard much more commonly in Eastern Europe than in the continent's Western half.
At the same time, it should be stressed that Veritatis Splendor is a Christian, and therefore universal, exposition of the Church's experience, rather than any transplantation of philosophical or theological thought. It manifestly and decidedly distances itself from any association with specific theological systems, let alone with any philosophical system. Indeed, the aim of avoiding reliance on some particular school was plainly one of the reasons why work on the text took seven years.
Noticing that the document most frequently cited by the Pope is Vatican II's
pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world, Gaudium et Spes, we can
conclude that the encyclical's perspectiveis that of Vatican II — meaning Personalism, but with a fairly heavy metaphysical emphasis. This emerges particularly clearly from the encyclical's crucial second chapter, in which the Pope defends the unity of the person as a combination of spirit and body, and expounds his understanding of human nature.
Veritatis Splendor, then, in speaking of the universal foundations of moral theology, touches in a particular way on the situation of the Church in Western Europe and the United States. By contrast, the Pope's previous 1991 encyclical, Centesimus Annus, published to mark the anniversary of Leo XIII's social encyclical Rerum Novarum, expressed to a large extent the experience of the Churches living in Western democracies and was explicitly directed mainly at countries which have liberated themselves from Communism.
This probably explains why Centesimus Annus was received relatively sympathetically in the United States and Western Europe, whereas, as a uniquely innovatory and difficult document, it has not been properly studied in Eastern Europe or introduced into the corpus of church social teaching there. Centesimus Annus gives, for the first time in history, a positive account of the free market economy, showing the good features of democracy and making suggestions as to how the Christian vocation can be fulfilled through engagement in the economic sphere.
For us in Eastern Europe, with several years' painful experience of creeping capitalism and democracy, this text is so difficult that it has simply been ignored in practice. The freedom we now experience in the political and economic sphere appears more difficult and comparatively less attractive than the abstract freedom about which we previously dreamt for years. At the same time, we in Eastern Europe share the feeling that together with freedom comes a threat to recognition of the existence of that absolute truth in which moral values are rooted. The temptation of fundamentalism is therefore increasingly attractive. In the West, on the other hand, it is not freedom but truth which brings fear. The mere recognition that absolute truth exists provokes anxieties about an explosion of intolerance and authoritarianism, and apprehension that the life of the individual will be made to conform to rigid schemes of doctrine.
The contrasting poles of freedom and truth are at the root of the problems of the contemporary world. We are afraid that absolute truth will destroy and suppress human freedom, eroding our uniqueness and trying to force our highly complex world into an anachronistic fixed pattern. But if absolute truth does not exist, or is unrecognisable, then even though the human being attains full autonomy, all values and every distinction between good and evil lose their universal meaning. They become mere products of culture, a question of preference, of individual taste and choice.
Having sketched out the contemporary scene, let us return to our encyclicals. Centesimus Annus is about freedom — but freedom, as the Pope has frequently stressed, directed towards truth — and its Christian application in social life, in politics and economic affairs. Veritatis Splendor, however, is first and foremost about objective truth, and about objective good and evil. Though this objectivity surpasses human involvements, and circumstances, it takes account, at the same time, of human fortunes in all their complexity and, most important, is an objectivity which is open to human freedom. In John Paul II's conception, then, the polarity between freedom and truth is replaced by a dialectic between them. For Christian life to be possible in a free world, neither truth nor freedom can demand full autonomy. Such an autonomy on the part of either could easily turn itself into tyranny. And it would then be a matter only for intellectual connoisseurs whether this was "tyranny through truth" (in the name of an ideology claiming absolute rights for itself), or "tyranny through freedom" (a threat of total anarchy resulting from the collapse of inter-personal bonds, in the name of freedom, requiring a curb to be imposed). In John Paul's approach, truth and freedom are both anti-totalitarian in character.
Another Council document which the Pope often cites in Veritatis Splendor is the declaration on religious freedom, which bases its argument on the principle that freedom has its foundation in human nature. The emphasis on individual freedom in Veritatis Splendor is complemented by the strong acceptance of political and economic freedom in social life contained in Centesimus Annus. John Paul also writes about the threat of religious fundamentalism, which turns religious truth into ideology and a system of social solutions. But there were occasions in history when Christianity was itself reduced to an ideology.
It is really only in this context that we can understand the Pope's teaching on freedom. If freedom is not directed towards the truth, it amounts to nothing more than self-will, the possibility of doing whatever anyone happens to desire. If absolute truth is denied, then the supreme criterion in the life of any person becomes his own mind and conscience, which have the power to decide for themselves about the content of moral norms. The criteria of good and evil, or normal and abnormal, accepted by society become merely statistical. This accounts for the important stress in Veritatis Splendor on the fact that intrinsically evil acts exist. The Pope argues vigorously that only truth gives sense and meaning to human freedom; and because of this, human beings have an inner duty to search for truth and shape their lives according to its demands through development of the intellect and formation of the conscience.Preparing and taking responsibility for one's decisions is the real task in human life.
In this way, John Paul II strongly emphasises the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. Despite appearances, this approach is not rigorism. -For what is hidden behind it is, rather, a kind of optimism about human potential, faith in the capacity of men and women to recognise absolute truth and its moral possibilities, and to live according to these criteria.
The Pope's vision thereby becomes a defence of freedom. Man, a composite entity of body and spirit submerged in politics and culture, is not the slave of any power or structure, whether biological or psychological, economic, political or cultural. Yet this is sometimes a very difficult freedom. The Greek word martyreinmeans both testimony - which can be given only by those who are free-and martydom at the same time.
This is why Veritatis Splendor contains a section dedicated to the "theology of martydom". And it is why the Church, conscious that loyalty to the truth often
Despite appearances, this
approach is not rigorism.
For what is hidden behind it
is, rather, a kind of optimism
about human potential.
demands heroism, does not impose truth but rather proposes it to human beings. The Pope writes in his 1990 encyclical on mission, Redemptoris Missio, that "the Church imposes nothing, she only proposes". In his 1981 apostolic exhortation, Familiaris Consortio, to which he refers in Veritatis Splendor 95, he had noted that "the Church interprets the moral norm and proposes it to all people of good will, without concealing its demands of radical perfection". And all people of good win give an answer within the totality of their freedom.
Reading the two encyclicals together, we see how they mutually complement each other. In Veritatis Splendor, the individual perspective predominates: the perspective of the human person, who is the subject of moral decisions. But Centesimus Annus discusses social life and the people who together create the economy, political life and culture.
One might say that in Centesimus Annas the horizontal dimension predominates. The Pope writes in a modern way about economics and politics, and about current threats to the natural and human environment. There are proportionately few references to Scripture, or to strict theological arguments. Indeed, the basic, almost sole, sources quoted are previous encyclicals of popes from Leo XIII to John Paul II himself.
By contrast, Veritatis Splendor moves in the vertical dimension, and the text deals with the contemporary scene only when speaking about evident threats to the truth. The encyclical is a great compendium of tradition, whose entire construction is founded on reflections on texts from Scripture. In no other encyclical does John Paul II make so many references to church: writers and fathers, as well as the great medieval theologians. There are references to the councils of Vienna and Trent, and to the First and Second Vatican Councils. And there are quotations from Cardinal Newman, and from Popes Leo XIII, Pius XII and Paul VI.
But besides this rich variety of sources, the Pope also draws on the Church's early tradition and the Second Vatican Council. Among 184 footnotes, 58 refer to Christian antiquity and the Middle Ages (especially to St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas) and 58 to the Second Vatican Council, where the encyclical gives absolute primacy to the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modem world, Gaudium et Spes. John Paul also refers to the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Code of Canon Law, the Missal, and documents of the Congregation for Catholic Education and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. We can boldly affirm that this latest encyclical attempts to sum up the Church's tradition as a whole in the light of Vatican II.
I have shown, then, how the "horizontal" Centesimus Annus and "vertical" Veritatis Splendor have pointed us towards a synthesis of John Paul II`s 15 years of teaching. These two very different documents are connected not only by the dialectic of truth and freedom, but also by John Paul's deep conviction that the splendour of God's truth can inspire societies and nations, and can illuminate the life of every person in our complex and tragic century.
THE TABLET 20 November 1993
