Wojtyla, Karol. The Lublin Lectures and Works on Max Scheler. The English Critical Edition of the Works of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. (Book Review)

Surprisingly, the reader will find that Tyler did not begin with Husserl's Logical Investigations but with his last work the Crisis.It is interesting to find out how Tyler weaves his arguments to fit into his overall aim.The issue of granting to Edith Stein an ecclesiastical doctorate is gaining ground, which the CBCP this year approves unanimously.One of the questions often raised is the necessity of granting the title Doctor of the Universal Church, to her which, to date, only 37 saints in the Catholic Church have.Is this just one of the titles with no impact at all to the Universal Church and to the local church of Asia, particularly the Philippines?Tyler's work lets us think more broadly.The reader senses that the philosophy and spirituality of St. Edith Stein, as Tyler presents it, strikes to the reader's soul.It evokes a tone which echoes an important text in Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes no. 14 and which can be considered an important argument why Edith Stein should be granted the title Doctor of the Church: "Now, man is not wrong when he regards himself as superior to bodily concerns, and as more than a speck of nature or a nameless constituent of the city of man.For by his interior qualities, he outstrips the whole sum of mere things.He plunges into the depths of reality whenever he enters into his own heart; God, who probes the heart, awaits him there; there he discerns his proper destiny beneath the eyes of God.Thus, when he recognizes in himself a spiritual and immortal soul, he is not being mocked by a fantasy born only of physical or social influences, but is rather laying hold of the proper truth of the matter." Tyler proves that human beings are not mere bodily extensions occupying spaces but someone who possesses an irreducible component, i.e. the spiritual soul.In a world where humans are treated merely on the level of the material, the Living Philosophy of Edith Stein provides a strong reminder and a solid teaching on who humans are and what actions should be done in relation to them.In the present age of wars, famine, oppression, and corruption, Edith Stein is a strong message and a living witness that the human soul must be taken care of and anything that oppresses it surely leads to destruction.It is in this sense that Edith Stein is a Doctor i.e. teacher and a "carer of souls".Tyler gives the readers an avenue to appreciate not only her person and teaching, but also, a glimpse of the beauty of her soul.This work may perhaps be considered as an argument, among many, why Edith Stein has to be considered a Doctor of Church, though this point may not be Tyler's main reason why he wrote the book.If so, then, this publication has exceeded what it is expected from it.