David L. Schindler’s Metaphysics of the Theology of the Body as a Response to Modern Ontology
Łukasz Duda
The Catholic Academy in Warsaw - Collegium Joanneum , Polandhttps://orcid.org/0009-0001-3087-349X
Abstract
The article examines the metaphysical foundations of John Paul II’s theology of the body in David L. Schindler’s interpretation as a response to modern ontology, which separates God from creation and reduces moral law to an external command. The study employs a comparative and hermeneutical analysis of Schindler’s and Michael Waldstein’s interpretations of John Paul II’s theology of the body in order to reconstruct the ontological assumptions underlying their accounts of gift, body, and relationality. The starting point is the claim that the negative reception of Humanae vitae arose not only from moral disagreements, but from the adoption of a modern conception of the human subject as autonomous and self-sufficient. Schindler proposes to read the theology of the body through a “hermeneutics of gift,” in which creatio ex nihilo is understood as the primordial act of giving that constitutes being as receptive, participatory, and relational. The article contrasts this interpretation with Waldstein’s, who considers the “language of the body” to be the key to the theology of the body, grounding his approach in a classical metaphysics of substance. In contrast, Schindler emphasizes the ontological priority of “being-given” over “self-gift,” which implies the filial character of human existence and the constitutive role of relations. The conclusion shows that Schindler’s metaphysics of gift provides a coherent critique of modern notions of freedom and law and offers an ontological justification for the doctrine of the two meanings of the marital act in Humanae vitae
Keywords:
theology of the body, John Paul II, David L. Schindler, ontology, giftReferences
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The Catholic Academy in Warsaw - Collegium Joanneum
Rev. Łukasz Duda, PhD, Assistant Professor at the Catholic Academy in Warsaw; graduate of the University of Navarra and the John Paul II Institute in Washington, D.C.; research interests: bioethics, theology of the body, the sacrament of marriage, and the theory of human action.
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