Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), brilliant explorer and great scientist, creator of the heliocentric system, was a deeply religious person. He dealt mainly with astronomy. He was a man of science and a faithful son of the Catholic Church. He was not a theologian and did not leave behind theological or ascetical writings. Nevertheless, important theological ideas can be found in his legacy, above all in his life’s work De revolutionibus: theism and creationism. These should be read in the context of the scientist’s astronomical and cosmological research. Observing the beauty, harmony and order of the universe, Copernicus points to its perfect Creator ( Opifex omnium). The cosmos and all created works are an epiphany of God. Copernicus’ God is the Best and Greatest Being ( Optimus Maximus), who manages the ‘divine factory’ of the universe ( Regularissimus). Man is at the centre of creation. Exploring and contemplating the cosmos gives him joy, detaches him from evil, ennobles him and leads him to God. Copernicus’ theological views bear the mark of Renaissance humanism.

Today, there is a growing sense of the need to abandon philosophy or theology in favour of science and the convictions of specialists. The analyses presented by Aristotle and St Thomas in terms of the hierarchy of intellectual virtues allow us to draw attention to the conditions and consequences of these demands. In their view, knowledge grows out of certain principles and presuppositions, the evaluation of which belongs to the virtue of wisdom. The virtue of wisdom has as its object the highest principles, the reaching of which requires special methodological and metaphysical attention. In the case of Christian theology, this wisdom is enriched by faith in what God reveals to man. Faith understood in this way goes beyond natural cognition while at the same time having a strong rational basis of a historical and doctrinal nature. Scientific knowledge devoid of metaphysical reflection, as well as methodically dissociating itself from religious faith, can lead to a lack of awareness of one’s own act of faith in relation to one’s own presuppositions. This can entail unconscious transformations of one’s own scientific assumptions into principles of a universal philosophical nature. This can consequently lead to a misjudgement of all that is beyond the competence and methodology of the sciences.

Walter Charleton, a physician and a Christian believer, was on the first advocates of physico-theology that started on a large scale at the end of the 17 ^th century and flourished in the 18th century. In his battle with the English deism and atheism, he used the arguments of the orderliness of nature to prove the existence of God. He was one of few authors trying to reconcile atomism with Christian theology. He also grappled with the problem of the immortality of the soul supporting at one point Gassendi’s idea that humans have two souls, sensitive and rational.

Research in molecular genetics has made great advances in recent years that have wide practical applications. At the same time, it has been confirmed that not everything provided by modern genetic research is good and beneficial for humans. In particular, the discovery of the CRISPR/CAS9 method has made it possible to interfere very effectively with an individual’s hereditary characteristics, which has forced doctors, lawyers, ethicists, sociologists, theologians and representatives of churches to take a clear stance on the issue. The need for further scientific development requires the limits of research to be defined in order to avoid irreparable damage to the gene pool of humanity. The aim of this article is to examine the Magisterium of the Catholic Church in dealing with current bioethical issues arising from new scientific discoveries and to present Christian principles in the context of the possibilities offered by molecular editing using CRISPR/CAS9. The position of the Catholic Church on current developments in the field of biomedicine, even at a time of significant biomedical discoveries, is based on a holistic view on human life, its value and mission. In the deepest sense of the word, gene therapy should be a therapy for a specific disease of a given organism that respects the integral good of the human person. Clinical interventions aimed at improving the genome of an individual, and therefore of society, are unacceptable. Human life must not become the object of a eugenic positivist-materialist mentality. The teaching office of the Church promotes scientific development for the common good of humanity and, at the same time, strives to preserve the dignity and integrity of every human being.

Neuroscience deals with the issue of moral judgment. That term already has a long history in philosophical reflection. Both fields, the neurosciences and the philosophy, use different methodologies when applying it. The approach of neuroscientists tends to be reductionist. This article seeks to overcome this reductionism. The main question is: How the term “moral judgment” is understood in neurosciences? Is its understanding very different from that which is present in moral philosophy? To answer, in the first part of the article, the author investigates the meaning of the term “moral judgment” in four scientifical models: in the moral intuitionism of experimental psychology, in Social Intuitionist Model by Jonathana Haidt, in Dual-Process Theory by Joshua Green, and finaly, in Somatic Marker Hypothesis by Antonio Damasio. These reflections introduce the second part of which the subject is an examination of Christian moral philosophy and its confrontation with the findings of neuroscientists.

This contribution points out the most important aspects to consider in the ethical (in) acceptability of aesthetic operations. Starting from the value of the human body seen from a biblical perspective, it introduces the reader to the essential magisterial statements concerning aesthetic surgery, among which the speech of Pope Pius XII occupies a particular position. It also refers to ethical principles, especially the principle of double effect and totality, and outlines the basic argumentative positions of selected bioethics committees. There is also a brief introduction to the positions of several contemporary bioethicists. In conclusion, the author presents his point of view and briefly explains what the patient should take into account and what the aesthetic surgeon should look for to avoid ethically wrong actions

Pedagogy is not an autonomous science, independent in terms of cognitive theory and methodology from other sciences. Both the subject – man, the method – a specific way of explaining and justifying key statements, and the goal – the fullness of a person’s personal life, are not formulated without a philosophical, especially anthropological reference. Each of the existing pedagogical concepts naturally assumes a specific vision of the world and man, which remains beyond the competence of pedagogy. Pedagogy only assumes it, makes it a starting point for further discourse in the area of its research. It follows that pedagogy is not an autonomous science in relation to philosophy. Therefore, the educator must be aware of what kind of philosophy it is and whether it meets the criteria of rationality and reasonableness of scientific discourse. In the face of the contemporary confusion of thinking about man, referred to as the “anthropological error,” especially when confronted with the dynamically spreading ideology of the so-called multiculturalism proclaiming the equality of different anthropologies and different theories of education, there is an urgent need to recall and critically rebuild the tradition of personalistic pedagogy. Upbringing should be anchored in ethics as a theory of morality and understood as the actualization of human potential in the perspective of “being-for-others.”

Benedict XVI, as the Supreme Shepherd of the Church and the head of the Vatican state (Vatican City), maintained contacts with representatives of the authorities of Muslim countries or those dominated by Islamic culture. He supported and built good relations between representatives of different religions, including Islam, through openness and honesty in the interreligious dialogue and bearing witness to the essential values of Christianity and Islam – justice and peace. In the article, we indicated the essence, purpose and challenges of interreligious dialogue, especially dialogue with Islam. People and environments involved in its conduct should be guided by the idea of searching for the true good of man and society. At the same time, it is important to remain faithful to one’s own religious identity, especially on the doctrinal level. Dialogue, in fact, should aim, first of all, at seeking the truth and bearing witness to it. This will only be possible if you respect your own faith and show respect for the identity of the followers of Islam. In the dialogue with Islam, the most important is Almighty God, who must be given his rightful place. For faith in one God obliges His believers to be responsible for peace. Benedict XVI’s theory of dialogue found confirmation in the papal meetings, either with the “world of Islam” or with various bodies (ecclesiastical, political, people involved in the so-called dialogue of specialists). For Benedict XVI, the most important criterion for dialogue was fidelity to Christian identity.

The article is an attempt to present the main reasons why the anthropological hylomorphism of St. Thomas Aquinas goes beyond the monism-dualism dichotomy in metaphysical anthropology. It cannot, as is most often done, be classified as a substance dualism of the Cartesian type. It is also not a position that can be included in the group of materialistic monisms, even of the non-reductionist type. Aquinas‘s anthropological hylomorphism seems to be a position that contains both the intuitions of materialistic and dualistic positions in metaphysical anthropology, although not reducible to either of them. On closer examination of positions such as Aquinas‘s anthropological hylomorphism, the question must arise whether the dichotomous and disjunctive division of positions in metaphysical anthropology into materialistic and dualistic is justified and operational.

The question of the human person is very important for moral theology because of the possibility of responsible human action. Nevertheless, the old utilitarianism that already comes from the empiricist position of Hume reduces the calculation of costs and benefits to an evaluation of the pleasant/unpleasant of the individual subject. The new utilitarianism takes its inspiration from Bentham and Mill and can be summarized in a threefold injunction: maximizing pleasure, minimizing pain, and expanding the sphere of personal freedom for the greatest number of persons. One of the popular promoters of preference utilitarianism in modern times is the Australian ethicist Peter Singer, whose controversial views attracted much attention not only from the scientific community in the late 1970s. In this paper we will try to show a critique of this position in several figures of philosophical and theological ethics as well as a defence of the importance of the notion of the human person and human dignity for the integral protection of human life from conception to natural death and of anthropocentrism as such in respect for all creation and all of nature.

The aim of the study is to show the essential elements of theological anthropology contained in the scientific work of Fr prof. Marian Rusecki. The problem is presented and resolved in five points. The following issues were presented in turn: man created by God (1); the Christ dimension of the human person (2); Homo Paschalis (3); the anthropogenic dimension of Christianity (4) and showing the meaning of life as a task for fundamental theology (5). Rusecki’s constitutive belief, which is the core of the above anthropological themes, is that understanding the mystery of man is possible only through divine Revelation. The definitive truth about man has its source and explanation in the Logos, Jesus Christ, true God and true Man. Therefore, the professor’s anthropology can be described as theological, Christocentric and ecclesiological. Particularly interesting are the elements of paschal anthropology, in which the issue of homo Paschalis was highlighted. Rusecki’s postulate that fundamental theology even more clearly undertakes to study the issue of the meaning of life, which is crucial for man, is also reasonable.

The subject of the research of this article is the vision of the identity of the person in the light of postmodernism in confrontation with the Christian personalist vision of the person. The person in the perspective of postmodernism is deprived of nature and transcendent sense of existence. The identity of the person is understood as relative, fluid. It is not conceived as something permanent, stable, immanent and universal. The identity of a person in the personalist perspective is the resultant of unquestionable certainty regarding his subjectivity. It is an objective, permanent, universal characteristic, constitutive of the person, existing regardless of circumstances. The personalistic, Christian perspective allows one to see the fullness of a person’s existence, the richness of his spiritual dimensions, which is not guaranteed by identity understood postmodernistically. Only in the ontological perspective can the foundation of the uniqueness, distinctiveness and ultimate constitution of the person be found.

The paper assumes that the modern period differs from earlier epochs in terms of thinking about universals: in the ancient and medieval dispute about universals, the general took precedence, and the subject of debates was the identity of what was individual. Ockham’s revolution of thinking in this area is one of the significant points of the beginning modernity. In this context, it is reasonable to ask to what extent classical soteriological concepts, created in the ancient climate marked by the primacy of universals, can be understood today, in an atmosphere of nominalism. After presenting the specificity of this issue, the article discusses three works of three authors, who are significant for the history of soteriology (Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm). The conclusions do not confirm the simple thesis about the indisputable primacy of thinking about “man as human nature” in the case of Athanasius and Augustine. But Anselm’s much later theory is consistently based on such thinking. Hence, the reflections of the first two authors, insofar as they emphasize the interpersonal salvific bond between God and man, seem to be still understandable today. On the other hand, Anselm’s conception, based on the perception of the work of salvation as an impact on human nature, easily exposes itself to narrow interpretations, which are inconsistent with the original intention of its author. Heil der Person oder der menschlichen Natur? Über ein Problem der heutigen Rezeption der traditionellen soteriologischen Motive.