In this week’s discussion, we continued reading Chapter Three, The Person and Chastity, looking closely at the sections “Subjectivism and Egoism” and “The Structure of Sin,” pages 153-165. In these sections, Wojtyla is exploring the role of emotion and sensual reaction in love; and as well he is defining for us where certain actions become sinful.
Subjectivism and Egoism
Emotion, Wojtyla says, is a subjective psychological fact connected with the reaction to different values. And emotion, more than anything else, introduces a subjective element into love between people. Wojtyla writes that we must take full account of the “plasticity of human emotions.” That emotions have an effect on our approach to the truth must be the understatement of the year, Laura said. Kevin added that this has been the dilemma of men throughout all time — that emotions blur our understanding of reality...and can in fact be a stealth threat to love. Peter explained that there is a danger of our getting detached from objective truth through our feelings — the “if this feels good, it must be right” or “follow your heart” kind of mentality. In footnote 35, Wojtyla asserts that emotions are not a reliable guide to what is right and what is wrong. Laura observed that emotions can seem particularly genuine, can seemingly communicate a truth, when in fact they are a lie.
Yet, importantly, Wojtyla considers emotion to be something that can be developed and adapted “to the shape which a man consciously wills.” He continues, “The integration of love requires the individual consciously and by acts of will to impose a shape on all the material that sensual and emotional reactions provide. He must by unqualified affirmation of the value of the person place all this on the level of an interpersonal relationship and keep it within the limits of a true union of persons.”
Subjectivism, says Wojtyla, is fundamentally different from subjectivity in love. Subjectivity is in the nature of love (love involves two subjects, man and woman). On the other hand, subjectivism is a distortion of love, an exaggeration of the subjective element. Subjectivism has two forms: emotional subjectivism and subjectivism of values.
In emotional subjectivism, emotions “divert the gaze of truth” from the objective elements and deflect it towards our feelings as we act. This results in the possibility of disintegration, since emotion then overshadows the totality of other objective factors — in other words, our feelings crowd out all else. It also results in replacing objective principles with the value of emotion (i.e., something is good because it is imbued with full emotion.)
The second form of subjectivism is subjectivism of values. Here, Wojtyla is saying that pleasure can be valued as the sole raison d’etre of the sexual experience. He says, “The result is a confusion, a disorientation of feelings and actions so serious that it ends by destroying completely not only the essence of love, but even the erotic character of the experiences in question. For love must be unambiguously directed to the person, and even sensuality and sentiment, which supply love with ‘raw material,’ are natural reactions to the corresponding values connected with the person. ... This form of subjectivism, then, destroys the very essence of love...”
Peter commented that he always considered chastity to be something physical, defined by actions. In fact, the Pope is concentrating on emotion, what is interior. Emily added that chastity deals with the interior first, what comes from the heart. Kevin observed that we tend to think that in marriage we can do anything, yet we still have to contend with human impulses.
Wojtyla clarifies that we must not see pleasure itself as an evil — pleasure in itself is a moral good. But he points to the moral evil involved in fixing the will on pleasure alone. Such a fixation is not only subjective but egoistic. A single-minded quest for pleasure results in using a person as a mere ‘object’ of use. Wojtyla concludes with this thought: “...both persons involved, while cultivating as intensively as they can the subjective aspect of their love, must also endeavor to achieve objectivity. Combining the one with the other requires a special effort, but this is unavoidable labour if the existence of love is to be assured.”
The group noticed the use of the word “cultivating” — it is not enough to “channel” emotions; Wojtyla is saying we must shape and develop them (cultivate them) through our will. The foundation of virtue is habit, said Emily. Blow it this time, and next time do better.
The Structure of Sin
Wojtyla has termed sensuality and emotion the “raw material” of love (i.e., they create states of feeling “within” persons, and situations “between” persons favorable to love). Sadly, they are also the raw material favorable to sin. We must then understand the way sin can result from these raw materials.
Peter related a story he heard from Christopher West’s tapes on Understanding the Eucharist through John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. Two bishops were leaving a building when they passed a prostitute. The first averted his eyes and upbraided the second bishop for looking at the prostitute. Only then did he see tears in the second bishop’s eyes — what a lovely woman, and what terrible things she is doing with her body, he said. Which response was appropriate? Actually, both. The first bishop curbed any carnal desire through his averted glance. The second saw the person of the woman through the love of her body.
Concupiscence, Wojtyla writes, is a consistent tendency to see persons of the other sex through the prism of sexuality alone, as “objects of personal enjoyment.” Concupiscence is a latent inclination to invert the objective order of values. He says, “Concupiscence is then in every man the terrain on which two attitudes to a person of the other sex contend for mastery. The object of the struggle is ‘the body,’ which because of its sexual value (‘body and sex’) arouses and appetite for enjoyment, whereas it should awaken love because of the value of the person, since it is after all the body of a person.”
He then emphasizes that according to Catholic theology, concupiscence is not sin, but rather the '“germ of sin” — since only that which derives from the will can be a sin, only an act of a conscious and voluntary nature. As soon as the will consents it begins actively to want what is “spontaneously” happening in the senses. This dividing line, this threshold, is not always easy to identify.
Laura explained, from a Thomistic approach, three levels of knowledge of moral/natural law. The first level is the most basic level (invincible ignorance) — we are not ignorant of self-preservation, of not killing each other, etc. The second level is a bit less obvious — e.g., marriage as natural law. The third level is still more complex, e.g., birth control. At the highest level we are most culpable because the knowledge is most intuitive...raw instinct vs. an inculcated value system.
Wojtyla cites Original Sin as the cause of concupiscence — that a human being encountering a person of the other sex does not simply and spontaneously experience “love” but a feeling muddied by the longing to enjoy. Emotions, he says, cannot therefore be acknowledged as love but only as something from which love must be obtained. “Sinful love” comes into being when the affirmation of the value of the person is absent and when “enjoying” replaces “loving.”
There is a particular danger with sinful love — immediately, and before reflection, it is not felt to be sinful but is felt to be love. The direct effect of this is to reduce the gravity of the sin, but indirectly makes the sin more dangerous. Sinful love is essentially rooted in free will, for the will can and must prevent the disintegration of love — prevent pleasure or indeed emotion from overshadowing the value of the person.
Wojtyla ends the section on “The Structure of Sin” as follows: “The task of the will [to which true love ought to be particularly attractive, because it creates a real opportunity for the will to immerse itself in the good], is to safeguard ... the person against ‘evil love.’ [And since love always joins two persons, to protect one's own person is also to protect the other.]”