Theology of the Body, by Pope John Paul II
Review By Jason Theobald:
“Through the mystery of the incarnate person and the biblical analogy of spousal love, John Paul II’s catechesis illumines the entirety of God’s plan for human life from origin to eschaton with a splendid supernatural light.” Between September 5, 1979 and November 28, 1984, John Paul II gave a series of Wednesday audiences on man, both male and female, and God’s plan for man here on this earth. These audiences were compiled into a book, along with John Paul II’s own footnotes, and some writings which were kept out of his weekly audiences; this book was entitled Man and Woman He Created Them: A theology of the Body. “The theology of the body is not merely a theory, but rather a specific evangelical, Christian pedagogy of the body.” John Paul the Great makes a point of showing that his writings are not his teachings, and are not the entire theology on the human body that is possible; rather, they are simply a biblically founded insight into the way God created man, both male and female, and the reasons for the way men and women are how they are.
The first audience appropriately begins with the idea of “In the Beginning”, which Jesus said when discussing divorce with the Pharisees in the Gospel of Matthew. John Paul II then begins to analyze this idea of ‘the beginning’ as something that was more than a simple phrase Jesus used in this response, and he takes the reader back to the very beginning. For his first 23 reflections, John Paul II analyzes the in and outs of Genesis, and what exactly the words found there mean to contemporary man and woman. He analyzes both creation accounts (the first one, which is actually newer, is called the Elohist tradition, while the second, older one is the Yahwist) , showing how sin and death came into play, and with those also the idea of redemption. “He is thus not merely shut out from original innocence due to his sinfulness, but also at the same time open to the mystery of the redemption realized in Christ and through Christ.” JPII then spends a great deal of time analyzing the idea of solitude, and the aloneness of Adam before Eve was created for him. He analyzes how God made him alone for a reason, and set him apart to be different from all other animals; “this is to say that through his own humanity, through what he is, he is at the same time set into a unique, exclusive, and unrepeatable relationship with God himself.” Through solitude he analyzes man’s ability to rule the earth, and his ability to be in relationship with God, his Creator. At this same time, he also looks to the way that man does not even know what death means until the fall into sin happens; JPII tells us that this idea of death would have been “a radical antithesis of all that man had been endowed with.” After analyzing Adam by himself, he discusses the creation of Eve, and the original unity of man and woman. One of his main points is the idea of communion personarum , the idea that before sin man and woman were not male and female, but rather they were bodies in perfect communion with each other. To create woman, man falls into a “torpor”, which is defined as a sleep during which “extraordinary events are to take place” , and this happens “in order that the solitary ‘man’ may by God’s creative initiative reemerge from that moment in his double unity as male and female.” After much on this original unity, he begins to look into the concept of the two becoming “one flesh.” JPII explains that because original man sees original woman as “flesh of my flesh and bone from my bones” , that every time a married couple unite in the conjugal act they are returning “To the beginning”, just as Christ called the Pharisees to do with regards to the issue of divorce.
After the idea of unity and solitude, JPII looks into the original nakedness of both Adam and Eve in the garden, and the fact that they were naked, “but they did not feel shame.” He points how this shows that shame is something that comes with sin, and it shows the loss of the innocence originally found in Eden. He quickly points out that the introduction of shame “is linked with the loss of that original fullness”, which could previously have been found in the communion of persons. He continues to point out how this shame led the two to recognize themselves as male and female. In essence it is the “’beginning’ of man’s being and existing as male and female” , which leads to the “meaning of the body that is rightly called spousal.” This idea leads to an analysis of the gift; the gift of one’s body given between male and female which is found in the spousal relationship. JPII shows us that this gift is all about love, and how because of our beginnings “the human will is originally innocent and thus furthers the reciprocity and the exchange of the gift of the body according to its masculinity and femininity as the gift of the person.” He outlines the ideas human innocence from the beginning, the loss of innocence, and the way that sin and death entered the world through this loss of innocence. The ideas of innocence, solitude, the gift, creation, and knowledge are all central to understand his point, and all point back to the question of divorce, where this reflection began, and the fullness of Marriage. As JPII says, the fullness of masculinity and femininity is a dignity that has been lost, and “in the sacrament of Marriage, namely, the way of the ‘redemption of the body’ must consist in retrieving this dignity.” JPII’s first analysis of Genesis gives us a basis as to why things are the way they are, and what must be done to return to a relationship with God.
The second chapter of reflections focus on the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus preaches this message: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you: Whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” His reflections then analyze what Jesus meant by desire, and how this can be applied to daily life. He analyzes this statement as it compares to the writings of the Old Testament, through the idea of Ethos, and its anthropological meaning. All of these analyses lead us to see the ethics of what Jesus is talking about; He is discussing what is adultery versus what is not, but he goes about it in a way to show ethics rather than legalistic ideas. In his ethics, “If the conjugal act, as an exterior act…is legitimate…then also the interior act in the same relationship is analogously in conformity with ethics.” John Paul II discusses how we are each a “man of concupiscence” , meaning that we have a tendency to act on desires, especially sexual desire. From there, he shows how this concupiscence disallows our ability to give our body as a gift in the spousal union; “Concupiscence brings with it the loss of the interior freedom of the gift. The spousal meaning of the human body is linked exactly to this freedom.” He points out to us that God has given us our bodies so that we may give them back as a gift, but if we fall into this trap of concupiscence we lose the ability to follow through and give that gift. His analysis then discusses the way that Israel, in a concept widely seen in the Old Testament, is shown as an adulterous bride to the Father, who is commonly portrayed as the bridegroom. His analysis continues to look at the way that adultery and concupiscence affects each one of us, until he gets to his next idea, the idea of the human heart, and whether it is accused or called.
His analysis of the human heart consists mainly with a contrast of Christian understanding with Manichaeism, an idea that human beings are trapped in matter and freed only by knowledge. The analysis talks about how humans are not accused, as Manichaeism would say, but more so that they are called; “Even if they contain a certain ‘accusation’ of the human heart, all the more do they turn to it with an appeal.” His analysis points to the divergence of the heart (which can be remedied through the redemption given on the cross), and then he focuses on the idea of the erotic, in comparison with the Christian ethos. After looking at the problems with what is seen as erotic, JPII calls us back to the Christian ethos, in which comes the “Redemption of the Body.” In his continued analysis of the human heart, JPII then looks at Purity, as it concerns “Life according to the Spirit”. While it is easy, as he says, to be a man of the flesh, it can be seen that “In this struggle between good and evil, man proves to be stronger thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit, who, working within the human spirit, causes its desires to bear fruit in the good.” His analysis of living in purity versus living in the spirit tell of the way that Christ, through his death and Resurrection, has set us free from this concupiscence if we take up our cross to follow him. His analysis points to the fact that “purity in the sense of temperance matures in the heart of the human being who cultivates it and who seeks to discover and affirm the spousal meaning of the body.”
JPII then points to the way that this ethos and this battle between purity and concupiscence are so easily seen in art and the media. His main point in this analysis is how the human body is used; he warns against what is so often seen in media, how the human body is objectified, and made to be viewed in a purely sexual manner. He tells us that this is wrong, and that “because of the great value of the body in this system of interpersonal ‘communion,’ making the body in its nakedness…the object or subject…is a problem that is not only aesthetic, but also ethical.” His main point consists in the fact that human body is so essential, and the way that one gives his or her body to another points to something greater, and that an objectifying of this body is truly a disregard for the sanctity of the body, which was given by God in the beginning. After this, John Paul II looks at the phrase found in the discussion between Jesus and the Sadducees (who did not believe in life after death), when he tells these people that in the afterlife man and woman do not have husband or wife. This is significant, mainly in the idea of the resurrection of the body which is to come. One main idea which comes from this is that marriage, which has always been in this world, belongs strictly “to this world.” JPII points out, in reflecting on Jesus’ discussion of the resurrection, that “In the resurrection, the body will return to perfect unity and harmony with the spirit”. He analyzes this text in the Gospel, along with Paul’s interpretations, and in them he shows that Christ conquered death with His death, and on the last day we will be united with God, and this will be the only unity we need.
After this analysis of the resurrection, the Theology of the Body turns to the idea of continence, or chastity, for the kingdom of heaven. His main point is that continence, or restraining from engaging in the conjugal union, is something that leads one to holiness differently and more aptly than marriage, for it require one to focus completely on union with God. JPII is quick to also point out that the “’superiority’ of continence to marriage never means, in the authentic tradition of the Church, a disparagement of marriage or a belittling of its essential value.” His main point in all of this is that if someone chooses to renounce marriage for God, this helps him or her enter the kingdom of heaven because the renunciation constantly points them towards heaven. All of this analysis of continence comes from Christ, when he discussed the absence of marriage in heaven, and St. Paul, when he wrote “Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife.” The idea here is that both see continence for God as something to be respected, and something that will lead a person to heaven.
All of the previous analysis was in part I of the Theology of the Body, based off of multiple texts; Part II of TOB simply analyzes Ephesians 5:21-33, and what it means for the sacrament of Marriage. He talks in depth about the reciprocity of the two; how the author of Ephesians says:
“Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, he who is the Savior of his body. And as the Church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to subject to their husbands in everything. And you, husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her”.
JPII analyzes this idea and how it shows that men and women each have distinct roles to be played out for the sacrament. He also points out that “The reciprocal relations of husband and wife must spring from their common relation with Christ.” He discusses how they are each subject to one another, and how each must give of themselves for the good of the other. This relationship, he points out, reflects the one of Christ to the church;
“The analogy of marriage, as a human reality in which spousal love is incarnated, helps in some way to understand the mystery of grace as an eternal reality in God and as a ‘historical’ fruit of the redemption of humanity in Christ.”
Marriage, he discusses, was the first sacrament of the church, and in thus it has deep connection with the church. Marriage, as Paul helps us to realize, “is a specific remedium concupiscentiae, remedy of concupiscence.” In this way, John Paul II explains, Marriage becomes a key aspect of the new covenant in Christ, the covenant that provides for redemption.
The next large portion of the analysis are devoted to the idea of Marriage; what the couple says, and how the couple is to profess love through the “language of the body.” His discussion of this language of the body consists in the idea that “man is in some sense unable to express this singular language of his personal existence and vocation [to the communion of persons] without the body.” He explains that this language is meant, through the sacrament, to point to God, and point to the purity found within this sacrament, and what true love is;
“the one who rereads this ‘language’ and then expresses it not according to the needs proper to marriage as a covenant and sacrament, is naturally and morally the man of concupiscence: male and female, both understood as the ‘man of concupiscence.’”
The main idea found in this idea of the language of the body is that man is called, through this sacrament, to echo God’s love in the way he lives his life.
After this, JPII turns his attention to the books of Song of Songs and of Tobit, and the language that each of these uses. Song of Songs is a key text because it is love poetry from God, but the two are mainly used to show one common idea, the idea of a bride also being sister. In Song of Songs, the author writes: “You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride;” , and in Tobit he also calls his bride sister. John Paul II analyzes in depth Song of Songs, as it expresses love in such a deep way through the body, and the words of both the bride and the bridegroom. One of his key points in this is that the true love in this marital relationship shows “the impossibility, as it were, of one person being appropriated and possessed by the other.” He uses Tobit to show that in the marital act, the union of the bodies becomes a prayer of the persons involved, and an openness to God.
His final analysis in the Theology of the Body is over the document called Humane Vitae, and encyclical about human life written by Pope Paul VI in 1968. One of the main ideas that JPII pulls from this document is how the spousal love must be firmly connected with the idea of procreation, otherwise neither can work. He points out that using the body’s biological calendar is key, and the continence required during the other periods points the couple to the kingdom of heaven together. He talks about responsible parenthood in that “Responsible fatherhood and motherhood understood integrally are nothing other than an important component of conjugal and familial spirituality as a whole.” He then points out the idea of continence being good for a marriage in that the “ascesis of continence, about which the encyclical speaks (see HV 21), does not impoverish ‘affective manifestations’ but, on the contrary, it makes them spiritually more intense and enriches them.” Overall, JPII points out that good parenthood, responsible parenthood, is not responsible if the parents simply rely on artificial birth control to plan the course of their lives.
John Paul II then concludes his Theology of the Body, in which he titles it The Redemption of the Body and the Sacramentality of Marriage. He proceeds to summarize each aspect of his writings and teachings by the group they were in, and he finishes out his writing with this statement:
“Still, the most important aspect seems to be the essential aspect that, in the whole of the reflections carried out, one can specify as follows: to face the questions raised by Humane Vitae above all in theology, to formulate these questions, and to look for an answer to them, one must find that biblical, theological sphere to which we allude when we speak about the “redemption of the body and the sacramentality of marriage.”
JPII explains that his writing was simply done to help us have a clue as to what God had planned for our bodies and the redemption given to those bodies through the sacrifice of the cross.
In his reflections on the Theology of the Body, John Paul II provided all people with insights into the way that we were created, and what that means for each and every one of us. He set out to establish a purely scriptural understanding of the human body, how sin affected that body, and what the history of our bodies means today. John Paul II so often spoke about the culture of death found in our world, and with this work he single handedly provided the necessary means to change from a culture of death. This was a phenomenal work which stands up to all great writings in Catholic and Christian theology since the beginnings of the church.
In daily life today, this book is influential in that it is a calling to a higher form of living. JPII calls the “man of concupiscence” , i.e. each and every one of us, to a higher form of living, to living out purity of heart instead of living out the desires of the flesh. He does this by explaining how we got to where we are now, where exactly the hearts of this world are, and most importantly he points out what that means in our world. For each of us, this Theology of the Body is a detailed calling to a simple task, and that is to live a pure and chase life, a life of continence for the kingdom of heaven, in each and every aspect of our lives.
This series of reflections given by John Paul II, originally written before he became Pope, have become a cornerstone in Catholic theology today, and for great reasons. With this theology given to us, our world can and will go through a radical change; people can now understand their bodies, and understand how and why God made us the way that we are. In this, our world can be free from concupiscence and enter into a deeper and new relationship with God.