Pochodzenie człowieka a chrześcijański personalizm
The Origin of Man and Christian Personalism

Summary/Abstract: This paper regards the evolutionary vision of human origins in comparison to Christian personalism. The general idea of the paper is that it is very hard or impossible to reconcile Christian tradition and Darwin’s ideas in relation to man. The origins of anti-personalistic ideas in European culture can be found in epoch of the Enlightenment. In that epoch several reductionisms find their origins and Darwinism is one of them. Then the Church’s position on animal origin of the human body is evaluated. Two documents are considered, i.e. the encyclical of Pius XII Humani Generis and the speech of John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences of Oct. 22, 1996. It is shown that neither of the documents positively supports the theory of the evolution of the human body. Both documents make some important reservations against Darwinism. Also, a straightforward reading of the Book of Genesis invokes difficulties against an acceptance of evolutionary human origins. The conclusion of the article is that it is important for contemporary Christians to stand firmly against the acceptance of Enlightenment-period reductionism which destroys Christian personalism in regard to the origin of man.

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