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Abstract
In answering the question 'What is human sexuality all about?' the article presents the secular ideas of Sigmund Freud and the religious ideal of John Paul II as published in his book, The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan. It discusses the origins of their thought and the social consequences of their different views.
Introduction
In the present day we are faced with a crisis in the meaning of human sexuality. Traditional moral values have been challenged resulting in a breakdown in traditional family life to the detriment of society and the happiness of individuals.1 What has caused this crisis and what is the answer to it? These are the questions I intend to cover in this thesis, presenting evidence from the work of two great thinkers from the last two centuries, Karol Wojtyla and Sigmund Freud. Every person is to some extent the product of the times in which he or she lives and is affected by its ideas. Great thinkers challenge or build on these ideas. Accordingly I will try to trace the background to their thoughts. Since ideas change the world, in comparing them, I will try to demonstrate the power and consequences of the ideas of Karol Wojtyla and Sigmund Freud.
Karol Wojtyla: the Background to his Thought
Karol Wojtyla was born on May 18, 1920, in Wadowice, Poland. In 1942 he asked to be accepted as a candidate for the priesthood and was ordained on November 1, 1946. Subsequently he began doctoral studies in theology at the Dominican 'Angelicum' university in Rome, a centre in which Thomist philosophy held sway.2 His doctoral thesis was on the subject 'The Doctrine of Faith According to Saint John of the Cross'. In this work his approach was at variance with that of his director, Garrigou-Lagrange, whose Thomism allowed him only an 'objective' understanding of God, that is, according to intellectual categories; but Wojtyla had progressed to the idea that God cannot be known only rationally as we know objects. Through faith we must encounter God personally, and our mystical communion with Him is an utterly transcendent 'being-with'. His thesis led him also to conclusions about the dignity and freedom of the human person whose mystery, analogously, cannot...