Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger — Benedict XVI — was one of the most important theologians and ecclesial thinkers of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As a professor in Bonn, Münster, Tübingen, and Regensburg, later as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1981–2005), and finally as pope (2005–2013), he produced an extensive body of theological and philosophical work that supports, on central points, the Personalistic Norm and the substance-ontological anthropology unfolded in this book.
Key Contribution to Personal Ontology
Benedict’s contribution lies not in a theory of the person of his own in the academic-philosophical sense, but in the magisterial and pastoral concretization of the personal-ontological tradition. Three lines are especially relevant for the book:
1. The Precautionary Principle in the Determination of Death
In his address to the International Congress on Organ Donation (Rome, 7 November 2008, sponsored by the Pontifical Academy for Life), Benedict formulates the precautionary principle:
“Where certainty has not been attained, the principle of precaution must prevail.”
This formulation is anchored in the present ontology as a normative principle. It operates wherever the definition of death exhibits ontological tensions: in irreversible loss of brain function, in donation after circulatory death (DCD), in normothermic regional perfusion, and — by an analogous logic — in grief counseling.
The historical root of this principle reaches back to Pius XII (address to anesthesiologists, 1957), who left the definition of the moment of death to medicine — but within the bounds of natural morality. Benedict sharpens this line under the conditions of modern transplantation medicine.
2. The Personal Ontology of the Trinity as the Origin of the Person
In Introduction to Christianity (1968) and in the Christology of Jesus of Nazareth (2007–2012), Benedict develops a relational–substance-ontological understanding of the person: the person is not the solitary self, but the being constituted toward relation. The trinitarian concept of person (each of the three divine persons is person as relation) becomes the model for an anthropology in which personhood and interpersonality are thought together.
This position stands in the line of Karol Wojtyła and Robert Spaemann and supports the substance-ontological-relational concept of person that the book advocates.
3. The Defense of Reason
In the Regensburg Lecture (12 September 2006) Benedict defends the rational nature of the human being against its reduction to instrumental rationality. According to the tradition of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, this rational nature is what constitutes the human being as human — and thus a central foundation of the substance-ontological concept of person. Whoever shortens reason to the empirically measurable loses what constitutes personhood: self-transcendence toward truth.
Application in the Ontology
Benedict’s precautionary principle is modeled in the ontology as a norm class. It operates at the class level on DCD practice, normothermic regional perfusion, irreversible loss of brain function, and the Kübler-Ross model: where scientific certainty is lacking, the stricter condition applies. On this reading, the precautionary principle leads to the rejection of permanence-based determination of death, because permanence is, in substance-ontological terms, not sufficient for certain death.
Significance for the Book
The book takes up Benedict not primarily as a theologian, but as the thinker’s voice that has practically concretized, in the field of contemporary bioethics, the personal-ontological tradition of realist phenomenology (Stein, Hildebrand, Seifert) and of Thomistic personalism (Wojtyła, Spaemann). His precautionary principle is the normative consequence of the position that the dignity of the person springs from personhood and does not lapse as long as the person exists as person.
Sources
Primary Sources
- Benedict XVI (2008): Address to the Participants at the International Congress “A Gift for Life. Considerations on Organ Donation” (sponsored by the Pontifical Academy for Life), Rome, 7 November 2008. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2008/november/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20081107_acdlife.html
- Benedict XVI (2006): Faith, Reason and the University. Memories and Reflections — lecture at the University of Regensburg, 12 September 2006. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg.html
- Ratzinger, Joseph (1968): Introduction to Christianity, trans. J. R. Foster. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Ignatius Press 2004 — German original: Einführung in das Christentum. Munich: Kösel Verlag (numerous editions).
- Ratzinger, Joseph / Benedict XVI (2007–2012): Jesus of Nazareth. Three volumes, New York: Doubleday 2007 / San Francisco: Ignatius Press 2011 / New York: Image 2012 — German original: Jesus von Nazareth. Three volumes, Freiburg: Herder.
- Ratzinger, Joseph (1973): “Concerning the Notion of Person in Theology”, trans. Michael Waldstein. In: Communio 17 (1990), pp. 439–454 — German original: Zum Personverständnis in der Theologie. In: Dogma und Verkündigung, Munich: Erich Wewel Verlag. — Trinitarian and anthropological understanding of person.
Magisterial Writings (Selection)
- Benedict XVI (2005): Deus caritas est — encyclical.
- Benedict XVI (2007): Spe salvi — encyclical.
- Benedict XVI (2009): Caritas in veritate — encyclical.
- Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (2008): Dignitas Personae — instruction on bioethical questions, prepared under Ratzinger (previously Prefect of the Congregation).
Secondary Literature on Personal Ontology
- Rowland, Tracey (2008): Ratzinger’s Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Twomey, D. Vincent (2007): Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age (A Theological Portrait). San Francisco: Ignatius Press.