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Philosophical Antecedents
''' The series of lectures were given as a reflection of creation in response to modern scientific rationalism and the sexual revolution. The lectures were intended for the Catholic people, as well as all Christians, to understand the importance of reason and biology in light of God’s plan and love for His people. Pope John Paul II addresses how the common mechanization of the human body leads to objectification and loss of intrinsic meaning. Pope John Paul II studied as a philosopher and theologian prior to his papacy; therefore, his writing was influenced by earlier philosophical thought. The Theology of the Body is a defense of the body in response to many common philosophical arguments.

Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon was an early empiricist who focused on problems of knowledge. In his Great Instauration, he argued that the current state of knowledge is immature and not advancing. His purpose was for the human mind to have authority over nature through understanding and knowledge. Bacon argued against Aristotle’s final and formal cause, stating that “the final cause rather corrupts than advances the sciences”. He thought that focusing on formal causality is an impediment to knowledge, because power is gained by focusing on matter that is observable and experienced, not just a figment of the mind. His emphasis on power over nature contributes to the rise of mechanism and an understanding that nature is explained by mechanical laws. By removing final and formal cause from the human body and soul, he removes God’s influence and reduces humans to mathematical formulas. This also influences morality, because the potential for the abuse of power is increased when meaning is removed from creation. Pope John Paul II saw Bacon’s contributions to scientific theory as the beginning of the split between person and body, which is his goal to reconcile.

René Descartes
René Descartes furthered a mathematical approach to philosophy and epistemology through skepticism and rationalism, emphasizing the practical value of power over nature. In his Discourse on Method, Descartes said, “we can find a practical [philosophy], by which knowing the nature and behavior of fire, water, air, stars, the heavens, and all the other bodies which surround us…we can employ these entities for all the purposes for which they are suited, and so make ourselves the masters and possessors of nature”. In addition to the importance of power over nature, Descartes (like Bacon) insisted upon dismissing final cause, stating that “the entire class of causes which people customarily derive from a thing’s ‘end,’ I judge to be utterly useless”. Descartes’ thinking involves no meaning: the human body, as well as all matter, is just an object of power. That way of thinking directly influenced Pope John Paul II’s arguments about the defense of the human body, including the meaning of sex and marriage.

Descartes’ practical philosophy also proposed a dualism between the mind and the physical body, based on the belief that they are two distinct substances. The body is matter that is spatially extended, whereas the mind is the substance that thinks and contains the rational soul. Pope John Paul II responded to this dualism in his Letter to Families in 1994: “It is typical of rationalism to make a radical contrast in man between spirit and body, between body and spirit. But man is a person in the unity of his body and his spirit. The body can never be reduced to mere matter”. Pope John Paul II maintained that Cartesian opposition between body and spirit leads to human sexuality as an area for manipulation and exploitation, rather than wonder and unity as he addresses in the Theology of the Body lectures.

Immanuel Kant
Pope John Paul II admitted that the work of Immanuel Kant was the “starting ground” of many of his reflections. Kant, like Bacon and Descartes, believed that natural science can only progress through the mathematical-materialist determinist study of nature. However, Kant saw danger in those laws of nature if God is excluded because morality and religion are called into question. Kant’s solution to that danger was to insist that theoretical reason is limited in regards to morality and religion. Reason and sense-data should not be used to try to answer the question of God. Kant stated, “I had to do away with knowledge to make room for faith”. That faith led to the development of Kant’s personalism. In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant said, “the conviction [of faith] is not a logical but a moral certainty; and because it rests on subjective bases (of the moral attitude), I must not even say, It is morally certain that there is a God, etc., but I must say, I am morally certain, etc" . That ideology allows each person to choose their own terms for reality and morality, because they cannot be argued against using theoretical reason.

Kant’s personalism extends from faith and applies to moral dignity, autonomy, and freedom. Pope John Paul II agreed with some aspects of personalism but criticized Kant as believing in “anti-trinitarian personalism,” which removes the relational character of the Trinity to focus on an autonomous self. Kant’s views on the autonomous self placed each human’s conscience acting as a personal “lawmaker” for subjective morality, but John Paul II argued that a human’s conscience cannot create moral norms, rather it must discover them in objective truth.

The difference between Kant’s view and Pope John Paul II’s view of personalism is made clear throughout the Theology of the Body in arguments about sex, marriage, and polygamy. Kant had two principles of sexual ethics: that one must not “enjoy” another person solely for pleasure and that sexual union involves giving oneself to another. Pope John Paul II agreed on those principles, yet disagreed on the meaning and reasoning behind the principles. Kant believed that people lose their autonomy and dignity in sexual acts, because they are reduced to things being used for pleasure. Marriage resolves that by giving the spouses “lifelong mutual possession of their sexual characteristics”. However, Kant’s explanation of marriage still does not transform the objectifying nature of sex, it merely permits it as legal. On the other hand, Pope John Paul II explains the sexual act in marriage as fulfillment of the natural law of spousal love. Rather than objectifying and depersonalizing, it is enriching for a person because it is a sincere gift of the self in love. Pope John Paul II highlights conjugal love, whereas Kant does not acknowledge it.