This evening, we discussed pages 143-153, the first two sections of Chapter 3—The Person and Chastity. Peter opened the discussion by reminding us of the words of Jesus, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” And they shall see love, Peter explained, because God is love.
Chastity and Resentment
Wojtyla starts off with a discussion of the “rehabilitation of chastity.” He speaks of chastity as a virtue that must be rehabilitated in contemporary society. Some view chastity with an attitude of resentment, an attitude arising from an erroneous or distorted sense of values. Virtue takes effort, Wojtyla is saying, and to avoid this effort, some cite as an excuse the claim that a certain virtue, e.g., chastity, is insignificant, not worthy or respect, or even evil. A systematic case has been built up against chastity, he says. The argument is that chastity is harmful to health (people need “sexual relief,” they claim)—and even an enemy of love. We must free ourselves from resentment and rehabilitate chastity. And to do so, we must “first of all eliminate the enormous accretion of subjectivity in our conception of love and of the happiness which it can bring to man and woman.”
The integration of love was the central theme of Chapter 2—the elements of love must be correctly integrated both in each person and between the two of them to form a personal and intra-personal whole. This love must be firmly based on the affirmation of the person.
Does Wojtyla's emphasis on respect for the other person de-emphasize the need for personal responsibility and respect for self, Diane asked? In true love, Sean said, man chooses woman and woman chooses man as the person on which to bestow the gift of life, functionally equivalent to marriage. In this, can you really offer your sexuality in the truest, most honest sense without respecting yourself? Alberto commented that, stepping back into a person's life in the formative years, the source of respect for self is often the love of one's parents. This parental love is an affirmation of the value of the child. Karee added that a parent's love is a surrogate for the love of God - it is God's love that gives you value as a person, and it is harder to feel unconditional love without the living love of parents.
Ellen added that at a certain point in your life you make a quality decision to be the best person you can be; and for her this decision came when she seriously sought God. True love in a relationship is choosing the real person inside, not just the other aspects about the person you might enjoy. If you are becoming the best person you can be, then you have a gift to bestow on your beloved that is not just the sexual component but the quality of your heart. We all may be damaged or weakened in some way because of past experiences, but God's grace refines us so that we can be a blessing to someone. Father Groeschel tells a story of a baby he was considering baptizing, but hesitated doing so because the baby's parents were terribly “messed up.” He later asked Mother Theresa about this decision, and he came away humbled. This child is so poor that God himself is his father, she said. When we consecrate ourselves to God, then we really have something to give—that which God has invested in us.
We do need some form of human love as an example, Sean said, to see how conjugal love “works.” Dr. Mango has asked whether you have seen your parents be tender towards each other. Have you witnessed a love that celebrates unity and the complementarity of the sexes? We all need to see how man fits into a woman's life in a healthy way.
But does Wojtyla reflect on responsibility for oneself, Diane asked? To be virtuous a person needs to look inward as well as outward. Peter responded that it is not possible to speak of responsibility for oneself without also speaking of responsibility for others, as we are made in the image of God who is Himself a community of persons. The human being, therefore, cannot be understood in isolation from others. Love understood as self-gift implies not only that we have something to give, but that we give it to an “other.” With true love, there is no opposition between loving others and loving oneself—that would only be true at lower levels of love. Laura added that St. Thomas Aquinas explains Christ's order of loves: Love God, then your neighbor as yourself. So you must love yourself first in order to love others. Loving others presupposes loving yourself. You cannot give what you don't have, said Luisa.
“Men and women desire love,” Wojtyla writes, “ in anticipation of the happiness which it can bring into their lives.” Yet this happiness is unattainable if it is accompanied by an ambition to possess or if it is dominated by concupiscence born of sensual reactions. He explains: “Love develops on the basis of the totally committed and fully responsible attitude of a person to a person; erotic experiences are born spontaneously from sensual and emotional reactions. A very rich and rapid growth of such sensations may conceal a love which has failed to develop.” An erotic experience may fail to ripen into a feeling at the personal level. This, his says, is something less than love. Yet, these sensual and emotional reactions are more often than not understood to be love. It is with this erroneous understanding of love that chastity is considered hostile, and even an obstacle.
What is the special role of chastity? We should speak of love only when the necessary components of love are held together by the “correct gravitational pull,” where the relationship between a man and a woman is based on a total affirmation of the value of the person. He writes, “The word 'chaste' ('clean') implies liberation from everything that 'makes dirty'. Love must be so to speak pellucid: through all the sensations, all the actions which originate in it we must always be able to discern an attitude to a person of the opposite sex which derives from sincere affirmation of the worth of that person. Since sensations and actions springing from sexual reactions and the emotions connected with them tend to deprive love of its crystal clarity—a special virtue is necessary to protect its true character and objective profile. This special virtue is chastity, which is intimately allied to love between man and woman.”
Carnal Concupiscence
Diane led our discussion on the section on carnal concupiscence. Wojtyla writes: “Any association between the sexes, and especially cohabitation, comprises a whole series of 'actions,' the subject of which is a person of one sex and the object a person of the other. Only love blurs this relationship—the subject-object relationship gives way to a unification of persons, in which the man and woman feel themselves to be, as it were, the conjoint subject of action.” Yet though their wills and emotions are united, and they feel that they form a single subject of action, but in reality they are two different beings with separate actions. These actions are external and internal—the sixth commandment (Thou shalt not commit adultery) has an external manifestation, while the ninth commandment (Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife) focuses internally.
Wojtyla then explores the differences among sensual interest, concupiscence and carnal desire; there is a transition from sensual interest—interest in the body—to concupiscence—seeking to fulfill the sexual interest—to carnal desire—desire to possess the sexual value. This transition is the source of great tensions in the inner life of the person; and it is here where the virtue of continence comes into play.
Alberto commented that sensuality is, per Wojtyla's usage, a morally neutral term. Peter directed us back to page 108 where sensuality is defined as the raw material of love, which should be properly channeled and integrated. Yet (on page 149) Wojtyla explains that the sensual reaction—interest in the sexual value connected with the body—so easily turns into carnal desire proving that desire exists as a force underlying sensuality, “a force which quickly channels sensual reactions in the direction of concupiscence.” When carnal desire is unchecked, it seeks satisfaction in 'the body and sex,' by way of enjoyment. As soon as it achieves its end, all 'interest' in it disappears until desire is aroused again. “Sensuality,” explains Wojtyla, “is 'expended' in concupiscence.” It is a waste when sensual interest (the raw material of love) is used up by carnal concupiscence seeking an outlet. As Diane explained, something healthy is squandered on something unhealthy.
And hence arises a serious danger of a moral nature: “Carnal concupiscence leads to a 'love' which is not love, a love which provokes erotic feelings based on nothing but sensual desire and its satisfaction. These feelings have as their object a person of the other sex, yet do not rise to the level of the person, since they do not go beyond 'the body and sex', as their proper and sole content. The result is the 'non-integration' of love. Carnal concupiscence impels, very powerfully impels, people toward physical intimacy, toward sexual intercourse, but if this grows out of nothing more than concupiscence it does not unite a man and a woman as persons, it does not have the value of a personal union, and is not love in the true (i.e., the ethical) sense. On the contrary, physical intimacy (sexual intercourse) which grows out of concupiscence and nothing more is a negation of the love of persons, for it rests on the impulse to 'enjoy' which is characteristic of pure sensuality. That impulse must be tied into a correct and respectful attitude to the person—this is what we mean by integration.”
Emotion, Wojtyla explains, does serve as a natural safeguard against carnal concupiscence. Emotion, he reminds us, is the capacity to react to the human being of the other sex—to his masculinity, or her femininity—rather than to the body as a possible source of enjoyment. Yet sentimental love that flows from emotion is not on its own a solution to the problem of concupiscence. At most, it provides an idealization of the person of the other sex. Complete security against carnal concupiscence, Wojtyla says, is only found in the virtue of chastity.