GENERAL AUDIENCE OF WEDNESDAY, 24 OCTOBERIn the course of the
General Audience on Wednesday, 24 October, John Paul II delivered the
following address.
1. In the preceding talk we began to analyze the meaning of man's
original solitude. The Yahwist text gave us the starting point, in
particular by the following words: "It is not good that the man should be
alone; I will make him a helper fit for him" (Gn 2:18). The analysis of
the relative passages in the second chapter of Genesis has already brought
us to surprising conclusions which concern the anthropology, that is, the
fundamental science about man, contained in this book. In relatively few
sentences, the ancient text portrays man as a person with the
subjectivity that characterizes him.
God-Yahweh gave this first man, so formed, the order that concerned all
the trees that grew in the garden of Eden, especially the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. This adds to the features of the man,
described above, the moment of choice and self-determination, that is, of
free will. In this way, the image of man, as a person endowed with a
subjectivity of his own, appears before us, completed in his first
outline.
The concept of original solitude includes both self-consciousness and
self-determination. The fact that man is "alone" conceals within it this
ontological structure and at the same time indicates true comprehension.
Without that, we cannot understand correctly the subsequent words, which
constitute the prelude to the creation of the first woman: "I will make a
helper." But above all, without that deep significance of man's original
solitude, it is not possible to understand and interpret correctly the
whole situation of man, created in the image of God, which is the
situation of the first, or rather original, covenant with God.
Partner of the Absolute
2. The narrative in the first chapter says that this man was created in
the image of God. In the second narrative he is manifested as a subject
of the covenant, that is, a subject constituted as a person,
constituted in the dimension of "partner of the Absolute." He must
consciously discern and choose between good and evil, between life and
death. The words of the first order of God-Yahweh (Gn 2:16-17) speak
directly of the submission and dependence of man the creature on his
Creator. They indirectly reveal precisely this level of humanity as
subject of the covenant and "partner of the Absolute." Man is "alone."
That means that he, through his own humanity, through what he is, is
constituted at the same time in a unique, exclusive and unrepeatable
relationship with God himself. On its part, the anthropological
definition contained in the Yahwist text approaches what is expressed in
the theological definition of man, which we find in the first narrative of
creation: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Gn 1:26).
Conscious of being "alone"
3. Man, thus formed, belongs to the visible world; he is a body among
bodies. Taking up again and, in a way, reconstructing the meaning of
original solitude, we apply it to man in his totality. His body, through
which he participates in the visible created world, makes him at the same
time conscious of being "alone." Otherwise, he would not have been able to
arrive at that conviction which he reached (cf. Gn 2:20), if his body had
not helped him to understand it, making the matter evident. Consciousness
of solitude might have been shattered precisely because of his body
itself. The man, 'adam, might have reached the conclusion, on the
basis of the experience of his own body, that he was substantially similar
to other living beings (animalia). On the contrary, as we read, he
did not arrive at this conclusion; he reached the conviction that he was
"alone." The Yahwist text never speaks directly of the body. Even when it
says that "The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground," it speaks of
man and not of his body. Nevertheless, the narrative taken as a whole
offers us a sufficient basis to perceive this man, created in the visible
world, precisely as a body among bodies.
The analysis of the Yahwist text also enables us to link man's
original solitude with consciousness of the body. Through it, man is
distinguished from all the animalia and is separated from them, and
also through it he is a person. It can be affirmed with certainty
that man, thus formed, has at the same time consciousness and awareness of
the meaning of his own body, on the basis of the experience of original
solitude.
Meaning of his corporality
4. All this can be considered as an implication of the second narrative
of the creation of man, and the analysis of the text enables us to develop
it amply.
At the beginning of the Yahwist text, even before it speaks of the
creation of man from the "dust of the ground," we read that "there was no
one to till the land or to make channels of water spring out of the earth
to irrigate the whole land" (Gn 2:5-6). We rightly associate this passage
with the one in the first narrative, in which God's command is expressed:
"Fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion..." (Gn 1:28). The second
narrative alludes specifically to the work that man carries out to
till the earth. The first fundamental means to dominate the earth lies in
man himself. Man can dominate the earth because he alone—and
no other of the living beings—is
capable of "tilling it" and transforming it according to his own needs.
("He made channels of water spring out of the earth to irrigate the whole
land.") This first outline of a specifically human activity seems to
belong to the definition of man, as it emerges from the analysis of the
Yahwist text. Consequently, it can be affirmed that this outline is
intrinsic to the meaning of the original solitude and belongs to that
dimension of solitude through which man, from the beginning, is in the
visible world as a body among bodies and discovers the meaning of his own
corporality.
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