"The limit, the heart and the grandeur of the human person"
An open thread on Magnifica Humanitas
I have not yet finished reading Magnifica Humanitas, the pope’s new encyclical on AI.
I was (checks notes) too busy hosting Rosary Moms and making a caramelized garlic tart for dinner with friends to read more than two chapters on the necessity of human connections in an age of machines on the day of publication. ;)
But so far, there’s one theme that stands out to me. As Pope Leo said a few days before the encyclical: “It is imperative to recover an understanding of the true meaning and grandeur of humanity as intended by God. It is in this sense that the challenge we currently face is not technological, but anthropological.”
The encyclical (so far) is much more about what humans are, and what that implies about how we should live together (and what we may and may not excise from ourselves) than it is about machines.
This is, as you might imagine, very satisfying to me, especially as my The Dignity of Dependence is also making the argument that we can’t build a just society if we start with a false idea of the human person.
As I’ve been reading, the passage below in the encyclical struck me as especially Other Feminisms-relevant:
The limit, the heart and the grandeur of the human person
118. Our relationship with life seems to be in crisis today. Everything that appears as a “limit” — incapacity, illness, old age, suffering, vulnerability — tends to be seen primarily as a defect to be corrected, rather than as a reality through which our humanity matures and opens itself to relationship. And yet we must remember that humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but often through them. The light of faith offers a perspective on reality that helps us recognize what we call the “contingency” of the things of this world. While it is right to strive to alleviate the suffering that marks human life, it is also wise to acknowledge our fundamental finitude, knowing that “religious experience, and in particular Christian faith, propose that we live, without oversimplification, this ambivalence between human greatness and limitation, interpreting it in the light of our original and fundamental relationship with God.” [131]
119. It is precisely within our limitations that the following find a place: compassion, as well as a sincere concern for the needs of others; a generosity that can emerge even in the midst of darkness and failure; spiritual experience and the worship of God. We see this at many moments when our limits become tangible: when we face rejection, when we suffer the illness or loss of a loved one, when we encounter our own weakness or failure. Mysteriously, it is precisely in such moments that we can discover a new wisdom, tangibly experience the closeness of others and encounter the presence of the Lord.
120. Even when limitations are experienced as inner suffering, human wisdom teaches us not to deny or suppress it, but to integrate it. To eliminate suffering entirely would mean, in the end, extinguishing love and desire as well. Those who love and desire cannot avoid passing through trial and suffering; and over the years, we carry within us lessons that leave their mark like scars, the memories of a journey shaped by freedom and failure, dreams and disappointments. It is only thanks to the interplay of these elements that the wonders of the soul occur within us, allowing us to sense the richness of our humanity. [132] To renounce this adventure, both tragic and splendid, in the name of a presumed transcendence of all limits, could mean many things, but it would no longer be human.
The last paragraph in the selection above dovetails well with how I closed The Dignity of Dependence.
I grew up prepared to use my strength to advocate for my sisters, but the more I grow, the more I have found I must offer the testimony of my weakness as well. I want my daughters and my son to see me as more than just myself — composed of my ties to them and the ties to husband, families, and friends that allow me to give of myself without always being sure my own body can cover the cost.
When I told my oldest that I needed more gentleness in the last month of pregnancy, that I was fragile, she was skeptical — How could I be weaker when I was so much bigger? It is the largeness of our love that exposes us to risk. I count my treasure in my exposure to catastrophe. I measure my humanity in how little my life and my loves can be sustained by my own strength.
I’d love to hear what stands out to you if you’re reading Magnifica Humanitas.
This is the section I keep coming back to, over and over again. The entire argument about AI actually hinges on this understanding of who is human, and how and why, and what it means to be human, and what is and is not part of the human experience. I've read these few paragraphs a half dozen times already. Most of what makes us MOST human can never be optimized.
This is so beautifully articulated:
"Even when limitations are experienced as inner suffering, human wisdom teaches us not to deny or suppress it, but to integrate it. To eliminate suffering entirely would mean, in the end, extinguishing love and desire as well. Those who love and desire cannot avoid passing through trial and suffering; and over the years, we carry within us lessons that leave their mark like scars, the memories of a journey shaped by freedom and failure, dreams and disappointments. It is only thanks to the interplay of these elements that the wonders of the soul occur within us, allowing us to sense the richness of our humanity. [132] To renounce this adventure, both tragic and splendid, in the name of a presumed transcendence of all limits, could mean many things, but it would no longer be human."
Coming from my self-imposed world of Protestant/evangelical ethics of the body and fertility, this seems absolutely spot on. I've been wrestling with what feels off when we approach the (even potential) hardships associated with all things childbearing in a way that comes eerily close to a secular view of it. This is a hard needle to thread, without sounding callous or glorifying of suffering. But when we resort to, say, sterilization at every potential risk of anything (or in another sense, IVF), we are losing something profound about not just human existence--but a *Christian* one--in many ways. And it's a loss.