The Genius of John Paul II: The Great Pope's Moral Wisdom (ISBN 1580512062)

Why John Paul II was such a great Pope:
I am still fairly new to the world of both philosophy and moral theology and this book goes deep into both subjects. The Genius of John Paul II is not written as a scholarly tome that requires advanced degrees to decipher it, but as a book that is easily digestible to those such as me with just a passing knowledge of the vocabulary of philosophy. I had been aware that John Paul II as a philosopher owed much to St. Thomas Aquinas and phenomenology and that he was considered a personalist. Though I had been only vaguely aware of what the last term meant. I also think those with more familiarity of this subject will also find it useful. Avery Cardinal Dulles S.J. also reviews the book favorably. The beauty of this book is that each chapter builds on the previous ones to really spell out John Paul II's coherent philosophy and lets you see how important this is to understand both John Paul II and his writings. The book draws from the corpus of John Paul II from his first book through the documents he produced as Pope. Mainly though the book draws from the encyclicals Veritatis Splendor, Fides et Ratio, and Evangelium Vitae. While speaking about the late Popes view on faith, reason, and morals he brings up the comments of prominent dissenters and their specific criticism of the Pope's philosophy. These criticism of the Pope's writing are handily refuted, but in a fashion where you come to understand better what is being critiqued. It is rather interesting how much Manichaeism has crept into modern theology/philosophy and how their negative view of the integrity of the body/soul and equating of personhood in rationality has greatly affected so much. This error has multiplied and lead to so many other understandings that have been greatly harmful. It is a root cause to the Culture of Death and if a greater understanding of human personhood came about it would go far in eliminating much that has gone wrong in our culture. Unfortunately the integrity of personhood will not fit into a sound bite. The beauty and the truth of John Paul II writing's rely much on his understanding of human personhood. Pope John Paul II takes the Kantian second imperative "Act so that you treat humanity, whether in you own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only" and fulfills it, unlike Kant, by knowing what personhood is. That I can use "Kantian second imperative" in a sentence now shows you how much I learned from this book Using the writings of Pope John Paul II the book goes to refute so many common moral theories that have unfortunately crept into Catholic academia. Topics such as proportionalism, consequentialism, and fundamental option theory are covered showing their weaknesses. So many modern theories try to refute the idea of intrinsic evils and invent or suggest that their are circumstances where they can be acceptable, where a moral calculus is made to weigh factors as if you can put good and evil on a scale and if one side is a smidgen heavier than the other you have your answer. The encyclical Veritatis Splendor addresses these topics and the late Pope certainly had no sympathy for these ideas. "The Genius of John Paul II" truly gave me a greater understanding of the writings of Pope John Paul II and I am glad to say I came away both more knowledgeable and with a even greater appreciation of a Pope I so dearly loved. The domain name of my site splendor of truth is in honor of his encyclical Veritatis Splendor and after reading this book I think I will learn much more upon re-reading this encyclical which isn't exactly an easy read. This book is highly recommended.