“Unfortunate fertility”. The genesis of the problem and the personalist response

Abstract

In contemporary culture, dominated by individualistic and naturalistic thinking, the problem of human corporeality and fertility is given a specific understanding. We seem to be dealing with a kind of celebration of the culture of the body; many social phenomena would confirm this observation. However, the thesis that is put forward here, is that we are in fact dealing not with a cult of naturalness and corporeality, but with a distancing from what is natural and a forgetting of the corporeal sphere: its symbolism, its deeper meaning and its proper functions. The problem is not the appreciation or overestimation of the value of the body and the valorization of human vitality and fertility, but their degradation and instrumentalization. This is fundamentally due to a philosophically erroneous understanding of the human being, caused essentially by the limitation of the cognitive perspective, typical for such positions as materialism (naturalism) and idealism. The personalist response to this situation consists first and foremost in changing the view of the human person, of his or her corporeality and innate tendencies. An integral view of the human person makes it possible to discover that what is natural in him or her is a part of personal life. The person, as a corporeal-spiritual being, is also his or her own body, and the fertility dynamism belonging to him or her does not have the character of a troublesome disposition, but is a great gift in personal relationships and in the noble task of transmitting human life.