Theology of the Body, Part 8

Now, more in my Theology of the Body series about the "theology of the body" (TOB) espoused by the late Pope John Paul II, as described in Christopher West's book Theology of the Body for Beginners.

In Theology of the Body, Part 7 I described TOB as a way of understanding Christ's redemption of humankind's "original sin." The original sin of Adam and Eve, our mythical forebears in the Book of Genesis, was rooted in lust: exchanging their initial ability to delight in each other sexually, in the context of giving themselves to one another totally, for something much, much less ennobling, and therefore shameful. Lust (even when shared) is self-gratification for its own sake. It blocks us from knowing the "nuptial meaning" of human existence.

I made the case in the prior post that you can match up the process of re-appropriating this nuptial meaning of life with the process of Self-realization laid out by Jung. Given the essential Jungian step which I refer to as "addressing the Anima (or Animus)", the biblical idea that a man and woman must cleave together as "one flesh" receives its secular, psychological interpretation. Two approaches to one great truth, these would seem to be.

The two approaches are united in being more matters of inner personal experience than just believing in psychological formulas or adhering to religious laws. Pope John Paul II talked about how the thing that his theology of the body seeks is not just adherence to an ethic or set of rules concerning sex. Rather, our hearts must be converted to a "new ethos" wherein we no longer desire to break the erstwhile rules.

To gain the inner personal experience we seek, so that we might come to know the "nuptial meaning of the body," is not something that we can expect to happen fully in this lifetime. Fulfillment, in the sense of completion, West writes, comes only in heaven. Yet we can make a start:

As we open ourselves to this gift, the grace of redemption begins to "re-vivify" our humanity, to enliven our hearts with God's own goodness. To the degree that we allow this grace to inform and transform us, God's Holy Spirit impregnates our sexual desires [in John Paul II's words] "with everything that is noble and beautiful," with "the supreme value which is love" ... (pp. 43-44)

My own problem with this is one West addresses in his section "Purity Is Not Prudishness" (pp. 45-47). The problem is this: I don't yet seem to have the ability to find the middle way between lust and prudishness.

I accordingly feel quite encouraged by John Paul's words (written in Love & Responsibility while he was still Karol Wojtyla) to the effect that "mature purity"

consists in quickness to affirm the value of a person in every situation, and in raising [sexual reactions] to the personal level ... (p. 45)

I sort of already know that, but can't always put it into practice ... and so I have found myself adopting a "don't look" policy: don't even produce an occasion of sin by looking at a woman with concupiscence in the first place. As West points out (p. 46), that's a bit like the Old Testament admonition, "Turn away your eyes from a shapely woman" — and it is no more than "a necessary first step," a "negative" and immature purity.

According to John Paul II:

"In mature purity man enjoys the fruits of the victory won over lust." He enjoys the "efficacy of the gift of the Holy Spirit" who restores to his experience of the body "all its simplicity, its explicitness, and also its interior joy" ...

... thus rescuing us from both lust and prudishness at one and the same time!

This means I can expect to discard my "don't look" training wheels real soon now.