The Human Person: Reason and Faith in the Service of Human Being (II): The Human Community

Abstract

Human nature is “communional”. Man’s likeness to God, to the Trinity, lies not only in his spirituality, but in his sociability. The root of this interpersonal unity is the link of man with Christ; and its bases are the spiritual substance of the person and its capacity for self-transcendence. The person reaches its own fulfillment only in communication with the other persons, to which it naturally tends, it being the final and end cause of the history of humanity. The formal cause of this communicatio in humanitate, which reaches its maximum expression in self-giving, is the reciprocal affirmation of personal dignity. Also, the communional nature of the person is fulfilled in the union of man and woman —in the first instance—, in the political community —with certain limitations— and, finally, in the heavenly Jerusalem.