Page 46 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 5

Church Traditions for a Christian Psychology

ring to Gaudium et Spes (24:3), indicated that Catholic psychology is an incarnational psycho-
substance and relation (person and gift) are lin- logy. The human person is both a body and a
ked: „Man is the creature (i.e., a being) that God soul. “Then the Lord God formed man of dust
willed ‚for its own sake,‘ and at the same time from the ground, and breathed into his nos-
this being finds itself fully ‚through a sincere gift trils the breath of life; and man became a living
of self‘“ (p. 283). Ratzinger (1990) recognized being” (Genesis 2:7, RSV). The person is both
the inadequacy of philosophical interpretations “earthy” from the clay and “heavenly” from
which emphasized substance over relationship: the breath of God. Clay breathes. Adam from
Boethius’s concept of person, which prevailed the ground (המדא, , adamah) becomes a living
in Western philosophy, must be criticized as being (שפנ, nephesh). Eve becomes the mother
entirely insufficient. Remaining on the level of of all the living. Clay sees and hears, tastes and
the Greek mind, Boethius defined ‘person’ as smells, touches and walks. Clay senses and ex-
naturae rationalis individuae substantia, as the periences pleasure and pain.
individual substance of a rational nature. One Catholic psychology is a psychology of male
sees that the concept of person stands entirely and female. Human bodies and souls are mar-
on the level of substance. (p. 448) velously created as distinctly masculine or femi-
Wojtyła (1974/2013), referring to Gaudium et nine (John Paul II, 1984/2006, 8:1; Vitz, 2009,
Spes (24:3), indicated that substance and rela- p. 45). Each is a person called to communion
tion (person and gift) are linked: “Man is the (John Paul II, 1984/2006, 9:5, 15:1). Each is en-
creature (i.e., a being) that God willed “for its dowed with and possesses his or her own genius
own sake,” and at the same time this being finds (John Paul II, 1988, n. 31). Each has inscribed
itself fully “through a sincere gift of self” (p. within the body the capacity and call to be gift
283). He continued: “In order to explain the for the other as husband or wife, and the capaci-
reality of the human person, both senses, the ty and call to fatherhood or motherhood (John
ontic and the moral…must be unified” (p. 283). Paul II, 1984/2006, 21:2). Breathing clay embra-
Vitz (2009; citing Connor, 1992) summarized ces breathing clay, fashioning and forming other
the thought of Wojtyła as follows: “A person is breathing clay, each unique and unrepeatable.
constructed on the ‘metaphysical site’ of sub-
stance, but the process of construction involves Rational and Emotional
the dynamics of relationships” (p. 49). Catholic psychology is a dynamic faculty psy-
chology. This involves “psycho-emotive dy-
Body and Soul namisms,” apparently akin to the Aristoteli-
Catholic psychology is an integral psychology, an-Thomistic understanding of sensitive soul
a psychology of body and soul. The response (Wojtyła, 1969/1979, pp. 88-90; Schmitz, pp.
to the mind-body question is one of profound 78-79). It may involve both conscious and un-
unity and integration: “The unity of soul and conscious aspects (Wojtyła, 1969/1979, pp. 92-
body is so profound that one has to consider 95; Schmitz, pp. 79-81). There is a remarkable
the soul to be the ‘form’ of the body: i.e., it is convergence of the cognitive faculties identified
because of its spiritual soul that the body made by Aquinas and the functions of the brain iden-
of matter becomes a living human body; spirit tified by neuroscience: perception, imagination,
and matter, in man, are not two natures united, memory, planning, abstraction, and under-
but rather their union forms a single nature.” standing. These faculties of the mind are not
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 365) The static, but dynamic, exercised within the lived
living human being is simultaneously and in- thoughts and actions of the person.
extricably an embodied soul and an ensouled As an extension of the profound unity between
body. Primarily at the level of the body, this body and soul, the human person possesses
involves “somato-vegetative dynamisms,” akin both a brain and a mind. For human beings,
to the Aristotelian-Thomistic understanding of even the brain is personal.
vegetative soul (Wojtyła, 1969/1979, pp. 88-90; Autobiographical memory and the capacity for
Brennan, 1941, p. 248). narrative, the link between memory and iden-

046