Love & Responsibility Home Page
Summaries of Past Discussions of Love & Responsibility
Our first, introductory session (19 July 2000)
Alberto Mora, co-organizer of the group, welcomed the twenty of us who were assembled and explained that the founding of the discussion group was inspired by a lecture on John Paul II's book, Love & Responsibility, given earlier at Lincoln House by George Sim Johnston. Alberto hoped that our discussion group would help make the Pope's thinking on this important subject more widely known.
Chris Slattery, co-host of the group, welcomed everyone to Todd Lincoln House and gave a brief history of the townhouse, which was originally home to Abraham Lincoln's two granddaughters. Currently, Todd Lincoln House is owned by Jim Manning who desires that it be used for pro-life, pro-family purposes. Chris Slattery heads Expectant Mother Care, which operates a crisis pregnancy center in the basement of Lincoln House.
Peter McFadden, the other co-organizer of the group, then gave a talk on the Pope and how reading his book was a beautiful experience for him. He noted that it is important to keep in mind that the Pope is both a philosopher and a priest. As a philosopher, the Pope is actually quite highly regarded, having presented papers at many European philosophical conferences before becoming Pope. His philosophical bent, and his penchant for complex words and language, however, make the Pope a very challenging read.
The Pope is worth reading, however, because he is also a priest, and his philosophical writing is motivated by his love for people. The Pope, in particular, has great affection for young people. He often took them on group outings to Poland's mountains, and listened to them discuss their lives and their problems. His book, Love & Responsibility, was written while the Pope was Bishop of Cracow, and although it is a work of philosophy, it was directly concerned with the lives of the young people committed to his pastoral care.
Peter described how reading the Pope's book had given him a deeper understanding of love and how we should relate to each other. It had also given him a deeper appreciation for the priesthood, and for Pope John Paul II in particular, as the book is powerful evidence that priests can offer wise guidance on issues regarding love and marriage, even if they do lead celibate lives. Peter also spoke about how the book had deepened his love for the Church, as it is a marvel to behold that someone such as John Paul II, from obscure origins in a small Polish village, could be elected Pope. Lastly, he noted that reading the Pope's book had also given him a greater love of God, as the Pope had helped him appreciate more deeply the mysteries of creation and also revelation. He hoped that others in the group would gain as much from reading the book as he had.
Jackie Asencio added an interesting note when she related that John Paul II had been the first priest in Poland to organize a pre-Cana conference. This not only underscored further the Pope's practical concern for young people but also the Pope's significance in regard to the development of the Church's thinking on love and marriage.
Thus, in undertaking to read Love and Responsibility, we are committing ourselves to a challenging but profoundly important task. It is hoped that each of us in the discussion group will provide encouragement to the others as we make our way through this book in the coming months.
The Person as Subject and Object of Action (9 August 2000)
For those picking up Love and Responsibility and hoping for an easy read, the Pope's opening sentence, “The world in which we live is composed of many objects,” is not a promising start, yet upon reflection the very core of John Paul's philosophy is contained in this deceptively simple, though somewhat opaque, sentence. Before clarifying the meaning of this sentence, the Pope only seems to confuse matters further when he adds: “an 'object,' strictly speaking, is something related to a 'subject'....It is then possible to say that the world in which we live is composed of many subjects.”
Why this talk of objects and subjects? And what are such words doing in a book about love? Because the Pope fears “it is easy to treat everything which is outside the subject, i.e. the whole world of objects, in a purely subjective way, to deal with it only as it enters into the consciousness of a subject, establishes itself and dwells in that consciousness.” The Pope then concludes the first paragraph of his book firmly: “We must, then, be clear right from the start that every subject also exists as an object, an objective 'something' or 'somebody' (his emphasis).”
In plain English, the Pope is all too well aware of our human tendency to view others only in terms of what value they hold for us, and that our perception of others and their needs are often not in sync with their objective, true self and their real needs. The Pope makes clear from the start that each person has a value in and of themselves, and that we must be on guard against our natural inclination to view others only in terms of what they do for us.
The Pope's insistence on keeping in mind the objective reality of others is the basis not only of his teaching on sexual morality but on human dignity in general. The Pope has been a true champion, not only of love, but of human rights worldwide. In our dealings with others, what we want should never take priority over what is best for others. (In understanding the depth of the Pope's passion for respecting human dignity, it is important to have in mind his experience as a young man living in Nazi-occupied Poland and witnessing first-hand all the horrors of that time.)
The meaning of words is important to the Pope, and in the first pages of the book he labors to define important terms. One word dear to the Pope is “person.” As he sees it, “it is not enough to define a man as an individual of the species Homo (or even Homo sapiens). The term 'person' has been coined to signify that a man cannot be wholly contained within the concept 'individual member of the species', but that there is something more to him, a particular richness and perfection in the manner of his being, which can only be brought out by the use of the word 'person.' The most obvious and simplest reason for this is that man has the ability to reason, he is a rational being, which cannot be said of any other entity in the visible world, for in none of them do we find any trace of conceptual thinking.”
A crucial element of the Pope's argument is that persons are not mere animals, “although physiological processes more or less similar to those in man take place within their organisms.” The Pope stresses, “the person as a subject is distinguished from even the most advanced animals by a specific inner self, an inner life, characteristic only of persons.”
This is a key point, as “The person's contact with the objective world, with reality, is not merely 'natural', physical, as is the case will all other creations of nature, nor is it merely sensual as in the case of animals. A human person, as a distinctly defined subject, establishes contact with all other entities precisely through the inner self.”
Contrary to simplistic critiques of Catholicism, the Pope is also an inveterate champion of human freedom: “Man's nature differs fundamentally from that of the animals. It includes the power of self-determination, based on reflection, and manifested in the fact that a man acts from choice. This power is called free will.”
The Pope continues: “Because a human being—a person—possesses free will, he is his own master, sui juris as the Latin phrase has it. This characteristic feature of a person goes with another distinctive attribute. The Latin of the philosophers defined it in the assertion that personality is alteri incommunicabilis—not capable of transmission, not transferable. The point here is not that a person is a unique and unrepeatable entity, for this can be said just as well of any other entity—of an animal, a plant, a stone. The incommunicable, the inalienable, in a person is intrinsic to that person's inner self, to the power of self-determination, free will. No one else can want for me. No one can substitute his act of will for mine.”
The Pope concludes: “It does sometimes happen that someone very much wants me to want what he wants. This is the moment when the impassable frontier between him and me, which is drawn by free will, becomes most obvious. I may not want that which he wants me to want—and in this precisely I am incommunicabilis. I am, and I must be, independent in my actions. All human relationships are posited on this fact. All true conceptions about education and culture begin from and return to this point.”
Interpretation of the Sexual Urge (6 December 2000)
Cyrille Rogacki began our December 6th discussion by drawing from George Weigel's Witness to Hope:
In representing sexual morality, the Church tended to focus more on legal prohibitions than on love—and thus was poorly positioned to respond to the challenge of the sexual revolution and its promise of liberation when it exploded after WWII.
In his native Poland of the late 1950s, Wojtyla saw the communist regime posing its own challenges to sexual morality and marital chastity—permissive abortion laws, campaigns against traditional families... Young people on state sponsored summer outings were encouraged to experiment with sex as another means of prying them away from the Church.
Wojtyla's work in philosophy and theology and his experiences as a confessor and counselor had convinced him that the Church's sexual ethic, properly interpreted, contained essential truths that deepened human happiness when they were faithfully lived out. As a spiritual advisor, Wojtyla had discovered that his “task is not only to command or forbid but to justify, to interpret and to explain” the ethics of marital chastity and sexual love. Rules of sexual conduct were important. In a modern cultural climate, though, men and woman would not embrace those rules unless they understood them as expressions of fundamental moral truths and as a road map to basic human goods.
Love is an expression of personal responsibility, responsibility to another human being, and responsibility to God. How, he asked, can men and women become responsible lovers, so that their sexual love embodies and symbolizes a genuine freedom? How can our love become a fully human love?
Analysis of the Verb “to use”
Love and Responsibility opens with Wojtyla's analysis of the verb “to use.”
Its first meaning: to employ some object of action as a means to an end. The Pope says this is OK with things and animals (so long as “use” is never attended by suffering or torture), but anyone who treats a person merely as a means to an end does violence to the very essence of the other.
Wojtyla argues that the moral imperative to avoid using others is the ethical basis of freedom, because it allows us to interact with others without reducing them to objects by manipulating them. We avoid using each other when two genuine freedoms meet each other in pursuit of a good we hold in common. (Love between two people is quite unthinkable without some common good to bind them together.) This encounter of two freedoms is the substance of love. Loving is the opposite of using.
In pursuit of goods—common aims—he says “Marriage is one of the most important areas where this principle is put into practice.... Such an end...is procreation, the future generation, a family, and at the same time the continual ripening of the relationship between two people.”
The second meaning of “to use”:
Wojtyla introduces the “positive charge of pleasure” and the “negative charge of pain.” Thus, the second meaning of to use (=enjoy) means to experience pleasure, the pleasure which in slightly different senses is associated both with the activity itself and the object of the activity.
For man, precisely because he has the power to reason, can, in his actions, not only clearly distinguish pleasure from its opposite, but can also isolate it, so to speak, and treat it as a distinct aim of his activity. His actions are then shaped only with a view to the pleasure he wishes to obtain, or the pain he wishes to avoid.... The belief that a human being is a person leads to the acceptance of the postulate that enjoyment must be subordinated to love.
The Pope’s Critique of Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism argues that pleasure is the essential ingredient of human happiness. It fails to see man is quite conspicuously an amalgam of matter and spirit that creates one personal existence. Per utilitarianism, the primary rule of human morality is the maximization of pleasure accompanied by the minimization of pain.
Principle of unity=maximum of pleasure for the greatest number of people—with a minimum of discomfort for the same number. Love is a “union of egoisms which can hold together only on condition that they confront each other with nothing unpleasant, nothing to conflict with their mutual pleasure.”
The real mistake of utilitarianism is the recognition of pleasure in itself as the sole or greatest good. Not clear how utilitarianism can put us on a plane of real love, freed from the dangers of “using” a person and of treating a person as a means to an end.
The Personalistic Norm
“A person is an entity of a sort to which the only proper and adequate way to relate is love.” Thus, the commandment to love.
The Pope concludes referring to St. Augustine’s distinction between “uti,” intent on pleasure for its own sake, with no concern for the object of the pleasure, and “frui,” which finds joy in a totally committed relationship with the other precisely because this is what the nature of the object demands.
Interpretation of the Sexual Urge
Sex: Instinct or Urge? The Pope concludes: Man is by nature capable of rising above instinct in his actions. Man exercises self-determination, decides for himself about his actions, takes responsibility—this is the point at which human freedom and the sex urge meet.
Although love grows out of the sexual urge and develops on that basis... It is nonetheless given its definitive shape by acts of will at the level of the person. Leaves room for free will. Must be evaluated on the plane of love. Man is at once a social being and a sexual being.
The Sexual Urge and Existence
The existence of the human species depends upon the sexual urge. The man and woman facilitate the existence of another concrete person, their own child, blood of their blood, flesh of their flesh. This person is at once an affirmation and a continuation of their own love. The natural order of human existence is not in conflict with love between persons but in strict harmony.
The Rigoristic Interpretation
The Pope next addresses the “rigoristic interpretation,” the puritanical interpretation built around naturalistic or empirico-sensualist principles. Under this interpretation, conjugal life is only good because it serves the purpose of procreation. Pleasure/enjoyment is a necessary evil.
The Pope’s response to puritanism: “There exists a joy which is consonant both with the nature of the sexual urge and with the dignity of human persons, a joy which results from collaboration, from mutual understanding and the harmonious realization of jointly chosen aims, in the broad field of action which is love between man and woman. The Creator designed this joy and linked it with love between man and woman in so far as that love develops on the basis of the sexual urge in a normal manner, in other words in a manner worthy of human persons.”
The “Libidinistic” Interpretation
Derives from Latin libido enjoyment resulting from use. Freud's pleasure principle: interprets all the phenomena of human life from earliest infancy onward as manifestations of the sexual urge. Procreation is a secondary end (accident). Inner human life almost totally negated—“this conception puts human psychology—perhaps without realizing it—on the same level as the psychology of animals.” (Apes in trousers.)
The sexual urge then, is not purely “libidinistic” but existential in character. A subject endowed with an inner self as man is, a subject who is a person, cannot abandon to instinct the whole responsibility for the use of the sexual urge, and make enjoyment his sole aim—but must assume full responsibility for the way in which the sexual urge is used.
Socioeconomic context—Thomas Malthus. Some argue there is the threat of overpopulation, that production of subsistence cannot keep pace with population. The Pope responds, this may or may not be true, but this matter cannot be solved by contradicting the personalistic norm. We must not succumb to the danger of subordinating the person to economics.
Two basic instincts: instinct of self-preservation and the sexual instinct. Self-preservation is egocentric, centered on the existence of the “I” whereas sexual instinct always transcends the limits of the “I.” Objective purpose of the sexual urge might be called “altero-centrism.” But the “libidinistic” interpretation of the sexual urge confuses these two topics, endowing the sexual urge with egocentic significance.
Final Thoughts on Chapter One (10 January 2001)
In our first discussion group meeting of the new millennium, we celebrated a milestone of our very own, the conclusion of Chapter 1 of Love and Responsibility.
Although the evening's discussions focused on the ending section of Chapter 1 called “Final Observations,” Peter began with a brief review of what we have covered to date, including the differentiation between subject and object, and Wojtyla's notion of the personalistic norm. Peter then introduced what Wojtyla sets forth on page 66 as the Church's traditional teaching on the three ends of marriage: “Marriage, objectively considered, must provide first of all the means of continuing existence, secondly a conjugal life for man and woman, and thirdly a legitimate orientation for desire.”
Peter commented that one's initial reaction to these three purposes might be one of surprise, given that procreation ranks first in the order of importance of the ends of marriage, ahead of what might be considered love, the “conjugal life for man and woman.” However, it is critical to understand that the Pope views all three aims fully and necessarily in the context and framework of love. He writes that “... the personalistic norm contained in the Gospel commandment to love points to the fundamental way to realize the ends...” and he later adds that the practical realization of each of the three separate purposes of marriage must also mean the successful practice of love as a virtue.
“The idea that the purposes of marriage could be realized on some basis other than the personalistic norm would be utterly un-Christian, because it would not conform to the fundamental ethical postulate of the Gospels. For this reason too we must be very much on guard against trivialization of the teaching of the purposes of marriage. ” Importantly, Wojtyla emphasizes that procreation as the primary end is not something distinct from love. There is no question of suggesting that procreation takes precedence over love.
Why is procreation so important, Peter asked the group. Why did God create the world and allow us to be “cooperators” in the ongoing existence of the human species? It all comes down to God's great love for us. Without existence, there is no opportunity for love. And in fact procreation provides us with an outlet for our own love. Raising children forces couples to extend their love outside of themselves. Good parents are not able to be selfish people! And in some sense the Church's ranking of procreation as the primary end of marriage is a gentle reminder to us that, ultimately, marriage is not primarily for us; it is surely a gift but also a challenge and a sacrifice. Jackie added that the Pope warns against the interpretation of sexuality as being merely an instrument of God. This in fact leads to the puritanical interpretation. A better interpretation, says Wojtyla, is that God wills you to procreate because you are meant to love.
Wojtyla states that the three aims of marriage can only be realized in practice as a single complex aim. Here, he's saying that a marriage without all three of these aims would in some sense be incomplete and incompatible with love between persons. For example, the second aim of marriage, a conjugal life for man and woman is defined by Wojtyla as man and woman living together, complementing each other and supporting each other (mutuum adiutorium). He relates this to education in marriage, mutual education between husband and wife, as a necessary basis for bringing children into the world. He writes, “If there is intimate cooperation between the man and woman in a marriage, and if they are able to educate and complement each other, their love matures to the point at which it is the proper basis for a family.“
Diane raised a question which brought the discussion to the topic of marriage as a sacrament vs. marriage as an institution (i.e., marriage pre-Christ and / or marriage outside of the Catholic Church). Jorge explained how marriage as a sacrament, like all sacraments, provides sanctifying grace, that is, grace that makes you part of God's love. He drew a visual image of iron and fire; iron becomes red hot like fire as it draws close to fire. In the same way, when we receive sacramental graces from God, we become like God, expanding and enriching our relationship with Him. Alberto offered that marriage is a reflection of the original unity of man and woman in the Garden of Eden. Yet because of Original Sin, the sacramental graces of marriage are necessary to unite a man and woman with God.
Our discussion then centered around couples having children outside of marriage vs. married couples deciding not to have children. In both cases, we considered, they provided opportunities to grow in love, but the realization of the full potential of love could only be found in a committed marriage welcoming the possibility of having children.
Love...as Attraction, Desire, Goodwill (24 January 2001)
This evening's discussion focused on the first section of Chapter 2 called “Metaphysical Analysis of Love.” Kathy gave us a synopsis of the introduction, where Wojtyla discusses the word “love” and its multiple meanings. As a starting point, love is always a mutual relationship between persons. In our general analysis of love between man and woman, we must distinguish love's basic elements, “both the substantial elements connected with attitudes to the good, and the structural elements connected with the reciprocal relationship between persons.” Wojtyla calls this general analysis “metaphysical” because “the love of man and woman takes shape deep down in the psyche of the two persons, and is bound up with the high sexual vitality of human beings...”
Alberto then explained Wojtyla's three characteristics of love which he examines in the following sections on love as attraction, desire, and goodwill:
Wojtyla also explains that love has a profound ethical significance in that it constitutes the content of the greatest commandment in the Gospel. And so, in the end, love is the greatest of all virtues which embraces all the others and raises them all to its own level.
Peter then led our discussion on the three aspects of love: love as attraction, love as desire, and love as goodwill.
Love as Attraction
Wojtyla explains love as attraction as being based on “a particular attitude to the good.” That is, to attract someone means to be regarded as “a good.” Attraction also involves knowledge, a cognitive commitment; but attraction is not purely cognitive... the emotions and the will are involved as well. To be attracted does not mean just thinking about someone as a good—it means a commitment to think about that person as a good, and this commitment is effected only by the will. But in addition to the will, the emotions, Wojtyla says, are present at the birth of love because they favored the development of a mutual attraction between man and woman.
We paused to discuss the notion of love being a decision. Love does draw from the intellect and from reason, yet, as Wojtyla explains, it is guided and oriented by emotion. Marriage and commitment are decisions, Alberto added.
“For every human person is an indescribably complex and, so to speak, uneven good. Man and woman alike are by nature corporeal and spiritual beings. And such a being is also at once a corporeal and spiritual good.” Yet there is more to attraction than sensations or feelings. Attraction has as its object a person, and its source is the whole person. Such an attitude to a person is love. Wojtyla states: Attraction is of the essence of love and in some sense is indeed love, although love is not merely attraction.
One's attraction to another depends on two things: on seeing values in the other person that are really there and on being particularly sensitive to those values. This explains why two people react differently to the same person and are attracted to different persons.
Wojtyla also explains the role of sentiments and feelings. He says that sentiments have the power to guide and orient cognitive acts. Feelings arise spontaneously, and the reaction which one person feels towards another often begins suddenly and unexpectedly. But this reaction is in effect “blind.” Feelings are not concerned with the truth about their object, and can distort or falsify attractions. Wojtyla explains that this can be very dangerous to love, ultimately causing emptiness and disappointment. The group also discussed the merits of love at first sight. Peter mentioned that the great Catholic philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand has written on love at first sight as being not purely a physical phenomenon. Meredith added that it depends on how and where you see someone (e.g., in an act of charity)… or holding a copy of Love and Responsibility.
“... in any attraction... the question of the truth about the person towards whom it is felt is so important.” Here, Peter interjected a joke about a media personality who once said, “Sincerity is everything, once you can fake it, you've got it made!” Two truths—the truth about the genuineness of feelings and the truth about the person who is the object of attraction—properly integrated, “give to an attraction that perfection which is one of the elements of a genuinely good and genuinely 'cultivated' love.”
Wojtyla continues that attraction must never be limited to partial values of a person, to something which is inherent in the person but is not the person as a whole. This traces back to Wojtyla’s “personalistic norm” which we covered in Chapter 1. Wojtyla concludes this section by explaining that while beauty is a value in the context of attraction one must discover and be attracted by inner as well as outer beauty—a full and deep appreciation of the beauty of the person.
Love as Desire
Desire, too, says Wojtyla, belongs to the very essence of the love that springs up between man and woman. “This results from the fact that the human person is a limited being, not self-sufficient and therefore—putting it in the most objective way—needs other beings.” Sex is a limitation, an imbalance—a man needs a woman to complete his own being, and a woman needs a man in the same way. Love as desire originates in a need and aims at finding a good which it lacks.
Love as desire cannot be reduced to desire itself. Love as desire is a longing for some good: I want you because you are good for me. Desire goes together with this longing but must be overshadowed by it. We know that desire is “at our disposal” but we see to it that desire does not dominate or overwhelm, for when desire is predominant it can deform love between man and woman and rob them both of it. Wojtyla concludes that “true 'love as desire' never becomes utilitarianism in its attitude for (even when desire is aroused) it has its roots in the personalistic principle.”
Love as Goodwill
Wojtyla begins this section by stating that “love is the fullest realization of the possibilities inherent in man.” He says that a genuine love is one in which the true essence of love is realized—a love which is directed to a genuine good in the true way. Genuine love between man and woman perfects the life and enlarges the existence of a person. False love is false in its premise or in its manifestations and is an evil love.
Love as desire is incomplete—it is not enough to long for a person as a good for oneself. One must long for that person's good. This uncompromisingly altruistic orientation of the will and feeling is love as goodwill. Wojtyla explains that love as desire and love as goodwill are not incompatible, but are closely connected: if one person wants another as a good for himself or herself, he or she must want that other person to be a real good. Goodwill is quite free of self-interest, traces of which are conspicuous in love as desire. Goodwill is the same as selflessness... I long for that which is good for you. Love as goodwill is love in a more unconditional sense than love as desire. It is the purest form of love bringing the greatest fulfillment. Comparing the three elements of love, Cyrille commented that the primary orientation and emphasis is different for each: love as attraction is something mutual between two persons, while love as desire is focused on one person fulfilling his or her needs (through the other), and love as goodwill is focused on what is good for the other.
The love between man and woman cannot but be love as desire, but must as time goes by move more and more in the direction of unqualified good will, especially in marriage. What is the difference between being in love and love? Meredith put it this way: On my wedding day, I will be in love. Forty years later, I will love.
Reciprocity...and From Sympathy to Friendship (7 February 2001)
What is reciprocity and what does Wojtyla consider genuine reciprocity? And in the context of love between man and woman, how do sympathy and comradeship differ from friendship? These were just some of the questions we pondered and debated during the course of this evening's discussion.
The Problem of Reciprocity
Diane led the group in discussing The Problem of Reciprocity (p. 84-88). Wojtyla begins with quite a beautiful thought, by describing love as something between the man and woman: “...love is not just something in the man and in the woman—for in that case there would properly speaking be two loves—but is something common to them and unique. Numerically and psychologically, there are two loves, but these two separate psychological facts combine to create a single objective whole...in which two people are joined.”
Wojtyla continues: “The route from one 'I' to another leads through free will, through a commitment of the will.” Unrequited love, when this route is one-sided, does not have the objective fullness which reciprocity would give it. Alberto drew our attention back to page 83 (top) where Wojtyla describes genuine love as love which is directed toward a genuine—not merely an apparent—good. If this one-sided love persists, as it sometimes does, for a very long time, this is because of some inner obstinacy. He pointed out how that person is not perceiving the truth about the object of his or her love, not seeing the true character of the other person. We agreed that this analysis on unrequited love is particular to love between man and woman; God loves us, though we may not love him in return, yet God's love is perfect.
Fully realized, love is essentially an interpersonal, not an individual matter. By its very nature, it is bilateral, not unilateral. Yet bilateral love is not in itself enough, since it still involves two 'I's rather than one 'we.' It is reciprocity that determines whether the 'we' comes into existence. This foreshadows Wojtyla's work “The Original Unity of Man and Woman.” Love matured to unity is reciprocity. Jorge added that at this point, your 'I' is identified to another; you are willing that other person's good. Alberto commented that marriage has a subjective characteristic—two flesh become one, in a mystery like the holy trinity. Marriage is often called a “school of love” in which both persons develop together as Christians, learning how to love through marriage. And, as well, it has objective unity, existing sacramentally. The sacrament gives the marriage the grace to attain mature love and to strive for perfection at a spiritual level.
Wojtyla then explains: “a person who desires another as a good desires above all that person's love in return for his or her own love, desires that is to say another person above all as co-creator of love, and not merely as the object of appetite.” Yet this can hardly be viewed as selfishness, as this reciprocity is the very nature of love. It is reciprocity that synthesizes love as good will and love as desire.
Aristotle described different kinds of reciprocity: a genuine reciprocity that is mature, deep and virtually indestructible, and a reciprocity based on self-interest, utility or pleasure. Reciprocity that assumes the characteristics of durability and reliability engenders trust in another person. “To be able to rely on another person, to think of that person as a friend who will never prove false, is for the person who loves a source of peace and joy. Peace and joy are fruits of love very closely bound up with its very essence.” This trust founded on reciprocity brings freedom from suspicion and jealous, which Wojtyla says often spring from human weakness. The group discussed jealousy: is jealousy always something negative? Is it a symptom of an imbalance of reciprocity? The Bible says our God is a Jealous God, Alberto commented, just as Christ was an Angry Christ with the money changers in the Temple. Yet Jesus said “Love is not jealous...”
Wojtyla ends by describing two types of reciprocity: a genuine reciprocity that is fully virtuous, and a false reciprocity based on a “consumer” attitude, based only on desire. He sets forth two conclusions: first, he underscores the need to analyze love not only from a psychological but an ethical point of view—referencing (p. 74) the Holy Gospel and Our Lord's great commandment to love. Second, practically speaking, he advises the “verification” of love before exchanging declarations, to determine whether reciprocity is not apparent but rather real. Ask yourself about your underlying motivation. Pray together. Listen well, to learn what the other person values most. “The structure of Love is that of an interpersonal communion.”
From Sympathy to Friendship
Next, Jorge led discussion on pages 88-95, where Wojtyla analyzes the bases of sympathy, friendship, and comradeship. Sympathy is based on emotions and sensations, on “vibes,” or “chemistry.” Sympathy can awaken a positive emotional response, and that response enhances the value of the other person. In this respect it is very fragile, due to this subjectivity. Wojtyla says “mere intellectual recognition of another person's worth, however whole hearted, is not love... Sympathy brings people close together, into the same orbit, so that each is aware of the other's whole personality, and continually discovers that person in his orbit.”
Yet sympathy is only one element of love. The most profound, and by far most important, element is the will. Love between a man and woman cannot remain on the level of mere sympathy—it must become friendship, where the will has a decisive role. Sympathy is the necessary basis of friendship, and as Jorge termed it, a “trigger” for friendship. Sympathy is often intense right from the start, whereas friendship is faint and frail at first.
Friendship brings with it the unification of persons, the doubling of 'I's. Wojtyla writes, “Friendship consists in a full commitment of the will to another person with a view to that person's good. There is, therefore, a need for sympathy to ripen into friendship and this process normally demands time and reflection.” Wojtyla points out that a mistake often made in love between man and woman is to leave it at the level of sympathy with no conscious effort to mold it into friendship. Then, when sympathy breaks down, love is often at an end as well.
Next Wojtyla, using a term that caused us to chuckle given the years he spent living under Communism, describes comradeship. “People attend the same class, work in the same laboratory, are employed by the same company, have the same special interest (philately, say), and this makes them comrades.” This comradeship gives man and woman an objective common interest (whereas sympathy links them in only a subjective way). Comradeship favors the development of love's objective side, without which it is incomplete. He concludes, “The social characteristic of comradeship is conspicuous in the fact that people linked by it usually form a distinct circle. This is another reason why comradeship may be very important for the development of mutual love between a man and a woman, if their love is to ripen into marriage and become the cornerstone of a new family. People capable of creating and living in a milieu of their own are probably well prepared to impart the character of a closely knit community to the family, and to create a good atmosphere for family life.”
Fr. Bob Connor on “Betrothed Love: Gift of Self” (21 February 2001)
Father Bob Connor begins with a short introduction reflecting on a variety of quotations all around the theme of "Gift of Self" and the question of "What is the 'I'?" He first remarks on a photograph of small boy kissing the Pope -- an emblem for the Radiation of Fatherhood, which is the Gift of Self.
The second quote is from the Holy Father as told to papal biographer George Weigel, "They try to understand me from the outside. But I can only be understood from inside." -- in other words, you have to experience what I experience.
Next is a quote from The Collected Plays and Writings on Theater of Karol Wojtyla, where Wojtyla explains that the Gift of Self is the only thing that is going to last: "And everything else will then turn out to be unimportant and inessential, except for this: father, child and love." The only realities, he is saying, are father, child, love.
From the introduction to Fides et Ratio, Wojtyla's admonition is to know yourself: Who am I ? Where have I come from? Where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life?
The question is "What is the 'I'?" Sources of Renewal is the study Wojtylamade for the Archdiocese of Krakow in 1966-1968, including his personal notes on the Second Vatican Council. What was the Second Vatican Council about? It strove to answer the more complex question - what does it mean to be a believer, an 'I' believing, an acting person? The Council raised the question of "What does it mean to be subject, not object?"
Walker Percy: The Bored Self -- why the self is the only object in the cosmos which gets bored?
John Lukacs: Words referring to 'self' appeared in English and French in their modern sense only two or three hundred years ago.
Percy also says that the self is literally unspeakable to itself. There is no concept or category in which we can subsume the 'I'. One cannot speak or hear a word which signifies oneself, as one can speak or hear a word signifying anything else, e.g., apple, Canada, 7-Up.
Finally, we have the symbol of the birdwatcher, an icon of the epistemology we are discussing. The telescope represents the only experience we consent to. We are looking for the 'I' through the telescope, but the bird is sitting on your head, so you do not see it. There is another tier of experience besides the experience you can capture through the telescope, which is the experience of the acting person. That experience yields a being which is called 'I' and which is discovered only in the act of the gift. Is there an experience in the moral moment, the moment of freedom and morality, in which we discover a being which until Descartes (17th c.) has never become explicit? Descartes isolated the being as res cositas, a thinking thing, i.e., consciousness. And the whole of modern thought has given us an understanding of the self as consciousness. Excellent, says the Pope, but something has been missed: specifically, the experience of the self.
Gift of Self
Page 96 of Love and Responsibility says that betrothed love has as its decisive and unique character the giving of one's own person to another. Here, Wojtyla is talking about a giving which is radical; he is talking about the 'I' not as consciousness or some sort of thought, but about the 'I' as being.
He continues to explain that in a marriage a woman experiences, in a psychological sense, a surrender -- that her role in marriage is to give herself, whereas the man's role is possession. But objectively and ontologically, there is a mutual gift of self on behalf of both the woman and the man; else there is a danger that one treats the other as an object to be used.
The Recovery of the 'I' Before Sin
Wojtyla is trying to recover an experience of the 'I' gift, an experience which we had prior to sin; yet we're in sin. We lost our primordial humanity through sin, and he's trying to recover it. God was revealed to be a triple 'I' -- Yahweh, a revelation of subjectivity (Yahweh means "I am who am with you.") John Paul II takes Christ's invitation to cross the threshold of sin to the pristine, primordial experience of what it means to be man, from the beginning, before he said 'no.' He does this by using the blend of a phenomenology of experience as a metaphysics of being and the first two chapters of Genesis. The goal is to disclose the underlying anthropology (meaning of man) and thereby disclose the non-reductive anthropology of the human 'I' and its dynamic as self-gift. Wojtyla discloses all of this through the series of Wednesday addresses (The Original Unity of Man and Woman) that follow.
The Discovery of the 'I'
Wojtyla explores the meaning of the experience of solitude in the first man: God had man name the animals, and in so doing, man experienced solitude and being alone. God put him to sleep and recreated man as male and female, and he then brought them together. The man knew the woman was different from the animals (man is not an animal...)
Meaning of Man's Original Solitude (10 October 1979)
God gives three commands to the primordial man: 1) subdue the earth (i.e., work) 2) procreate and 3) moral command -- don't eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. God brings the animals (Genesis 2) to man to see what man is going to call them -- naming, not abstract knowing. When man names the animals, he suddenly has an experience of being alone. Wojtyla says that man now has the experience of being an 'I' -- he has exercised himself, since he is deciding for himself the names of the animals. In the act of naming, he differentiates himself. Naming is a way of subduing -- by naming them, he owns the animals. In so doing, he actualizes his 'I' and exercises his subjectivity. This is self-determination.
Helen Keller: Corroborating Experience from Walker Percy
At the well-house, Helen became an 'I' through the experience of revelation of the mystery of language -- in realizing the word/symbol for water. There has never been a philosophy of the 'I' as being prior to this discovery of the experience of self. The Pope wanted to show this through this text. All of this is in line with the Greek tradition: with no external stimuli, one cannot know God -- all knowledge starts with the senses. There is nothing in the intellect which is not first in the senses. Yet this goes further.
Priesthood
The subduing of the animals --as well as the tilling of the earth -- is a priestly act. Priesthood means "mediation." Christ is the supreme priest because he is perfect God and man. He exercises his priesthood as God and man by subduing himself and relating to the Father, making a gift to the Father through the human will of Christ. Also, man is the priest of the universe. Our mission is to subdue ourselves and to turn it all into gift to God and to one another -- and that act is the priestly act.
What is involved in this topic is the transformation of the world, a new civilization, the third millennium, loving being laymen, becoming another Christ.... The subduing of self, experience of solitude, the gift of oneself to another is the basic anthropology, the basic meaning of man and woman... and it involves everything.
The Body as 'I' is not 'Thing'
It is not good for man to be alone. As soon as God sees that man has named the animals, and man has started to feel bad because he is alone, God said "it is not good to be alone." There is something wrong with the state of being of man alone.
"In this way, the second narrative could also be a preparation for understanding the Trinitarian concept of the "image of God," even if the latter appears only in the first narrative. Obviously, that is not without significance for the theology of the body. Perhaps it even constitutes the deepest theological aspect of all that can be said about man." Aristotle and Plato are incomplete, working with an experience which is post-lapsarian, post sinful, not with the full experience of what it means to be man. No one can cross that threshold unless he crosses it through Genesis.
Notice that the talk is not body / soul -- the body is the whole person. "In this way, we find ourselves almost at the heart of the anthropological reality that has the name "body." Man says to woman: Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. The man uttered these words as if it were only at the sight of the woman's body he sees an 'I' -- whereas with the animals he did not see an 'I.' The body reveals man. Your body is your 'I.' Your body is a language of 'gift.' "Right from the beginning, the theology of the body is bound up with the creation of man in the image of God (triple gift). It becomes, in a way, also the theology of sex, or rather the theology of masculinity and femininity, which has its starting point here in Genesis."
"Consciousness of solitude might have been shattered precisely because of his body itself. The man, 'adam, might have reached the conclusion, on the basis of the experience of his own body, that he was substantially similar to the living beings (animalia). On the contrary, as we read, he did not arrive at this conclusion; he reached the conviction that he was "alone." He has a consciousness of himself by naming the animals, a consciousness of being an 'I.' He experiences his body by naming. Then he looks at the animals and says "I'm alone." The woman is given to him, and he looks at the woman and says "I am not alone. Hi!" He sees in her body the experience he has of his own. She is an 'I' as I am an 'I.' She is a subject, rather than an object like the other animals. Catholicism is a religion of incarnation: Jesus Christ is a body, and always will be a body. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father.
"The body, then, is not an object, nor a "thing" understood in the modern sense of a machine or reducible to machinery." From Monday's paper, an article on the Genome project says that worms have 19,000 genes and we have 29,000. Yet, we are infinitely more complex than a worm. If the Pope is correct, if Genesis is correct, that means that the understanding the body is not a "thing" The human body is the person. The key to complexity is not more genes but more combinations and interactions generated by fewer units of code. Organisms must be explained as organisms and not summations of genes -- a huge refusal to be deterministic. It means that in living organisms, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. They can't explain the totality of a person. The Pope's approach is that reality is experienced in its profundity not only through sensation which has given us a conceptualism of grasping reality, but there is another level of experience which is the 'I.' Being is encountered most profoundly on the level of the 'I,' the totality.
Since the experience of solitude is bad for a being made in the image and likeness of a Three, the gift of the 'I' is its achievement as Image.
We are, with this notion, at the very grounding of reality. Here is where the metaphysics of reality is; to be evil is to be alone. This reflects the natural law from an Aristotelian understanding of nature... natural law is the law of the person. Where do we get the notion of good and evil from? From an experience of ourselves from being. But we are now going back before sin. Evil is rectified by the completion of creation.
By the Communion of Persons Man Becomes the Image of God 14 November 1979
The climax of our discussion is here: "If we wish to draw also from the narrative of the Yahwist text the concept of the "image of God," we can then deduce that man became the "image and likeness" of God not only through his own humanity (by being an individual, by being alone, by having intellect and will), but also through the communion of persons which man and woman form right from the beginning. The function of the image is to reflect the one who is the model, to reproduce its own prototype. Man becomes the image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion (man and woman). Right "from the beginning," he is not only an image in which the solitude of a Person who rules the world is reflected, but also, and essentially, an image of an inscrutable divine communion of Persons."
This means that the human person is never fully a person alone. God is gift so man is gift. God reveals who he is, the very nature of God, and we are discovering that man is made in the image of God, so if God is gift, we have to be gift. To be alone, to turn back on yourself, to think about yourself, to worry about yourself, not to think about others -- is death. To reflect the prototype, man must be in union with another. Jesus Christ recreates us into this relation by subduing the will of the man Jesus which carries all of the sin of all time, and he obeys the Father -- in other words man becomes relational in the crucifixion. And that is how He recreates the human person -- that's what redemption is and what the new millennium has to be about: the self-giving. Self-giving is the recreation of man as imaging the trinity.
This anthropology was not explained in Humanae Vitae, yet this is the reason why there can't be contraception. Since the Body is the 'I' and the 'I' is relation, you can't have sex and withhold egg and sperm, because they are you. Sex always has to be gift. With in vitro you are furthering life, but you don't have love, you don't have self-giving. It has to be self-giving, and it has to be physical, because you are the body. [The ramifications of this anthropology are immense. In politics, you can't have socialism without subsidiarity. See Gaudium et Spes 24.]
The Methodology of Wojtyla Enabling This Disclosure of the 'I' as Gift: The Experience of Self-Determination
The self was always considered thinking, yet Wojtyla experiences himself as the cause of free action. He has always "been here" on this -- as a Pole, as a member of the Rhapsodic Theatre, as a Christian, the understanding of faith through his thesis of St. John of the Cross -- his 'I' is not the result of reflection on the act of thinking or willing; it is discovered as the cause (freedom) of an experience of self-determination, as a free act. Our text is taken from the essay "Subjectivity and the Irreducible in the Human Being" from Person and Community.
What does he mean by irreducible? In philosophy, to reduce is to abstract and to put in a category. In other words, you talk about the nitrogen atom or the genome or the gene -- that's a reduction: a concept, a universal. Science reduces. Human thinking reduces. We're always creating a symbol of reality. To know is to "be identified with". In sex, the man "knows" the woman. In Genesis, the word for the act of sex is "to know." And knowing is a direct experience of -- to know is to "be one with." To know the pen, I have to create a symbol, to form a concept of the pen, an abstraction. The irreducible is that which can be expresses without need of concepts... the irreducible is the 'I.'
The Pope is trying to get at the root of knowing -- to "become one with." I can experience through sensation, I know through sensation, but he puts forth another way, which has not been explored in 3000 years of philosophic thought. Experts in the field of phenomenology claim that Karol Wojtyla has done what no other philosopher has done. He has transcended Plato and Aristotle, by the recovery of the being of the self, the 'I,' not by a concept but by a new understanding of experience:
"But as the need increases to understand the human being as a unique and unrepeatable person, especially in terms of the whole dynamism of action and inner happenings proper to the human being -- in other words, as the need increases to understand the personal subjectivity of the human being -- the category of lived experience takes on greater significance, and, in fact, key significance. For then the issue is not just the metaphysical objectification of the human being as an acting subject, as the agent of acts, but the revelation of the person as a subject experiencing its acts and inner happenings, and with them its own subjectivity." So lived experience is going to reveal to me my 'I.'
The 'I' is being, not consciousness. But the experience which discloses the 'I' as being is the work of consciousness. He distinguishes consciousness from thought which abstracts and reduces relation to categories. In its non-abstractive function, consciousness captures the subject in two moments, grasping the subject which has been objectified by reflective thought, and then actualized by itself. Wojtyla distinguishes between the reflectiveness of the mind turning back on its own act of knowing things, and the reflexiveness of consciousness which captures both the reflections of the subject in potency to self-determine and in the act of moving itself. This capturing of both states (of pre and post self-determination, as potency and act with respect to itself) constitutes the experience of the 'I' as 'I.' John Paul II uses this phenomenology, connected to a metaphysics of potency and act which he takes from Aristotle and St. Thomas, to fashion this experience of the 'I' as being, which becomes gift. Through this, you have the whole of sexual morality, the whole understanding of faith, etc.
The Acting Person
In The Acting Person, Wojtyla says: "The consequence of the reflexive turn of consciousness is that this object, just because it is from the ontological point of view the subject -- while having the experience of his own ego also has the experience of himself as the subject. In this interpretation 'reflexiveness' is also seen to be an essential as well as a very specific moment of consciousness. It is, however, necessary to add at once that this specific moment because apparent only when we observe and trace consciousness in its intrinsic, organic relation to the human being, in particular, the human being in action. We then discern clearly that it is one thing to be the subject, another to be cognized (that is, objectivized) as the subject, and still a different thing to experience one's self as the subject of one's own acts and experiences..." What's the difference between being a subject, reflecting on a subject as an object, and experiencing the subject as the efficient cause of its own action?
Notice how important the word experience is for him. See page 34 of Crossing the Threshold of Hope, where Wojtyla says that there is an experience of the external world, and there is another level of experience, an experience of God. Ratzinger, in his review of Crossing the Threshold of Hope, said that Karol Wojtyla insists that we have an experience of God. How do you experience God if God is other than the world -- the world didn't have to exist? Wojtyla's point is that in the experience of the 'I,' which is the imaging of the three persons, I am experiencing God by experiencing myself. He says that this is the answer to the atheism of the 20th century. The point is not to prove that God exists by the five ways of St. Thomas, or by thought or induction or deduction. They way to overcome the atheism of today is to experience self-gift.
He writes: "...it is one thing to be the subject, another to be cognized (that is, objectivized) as the subject, and still a different thing to experience one's self as the subject of one's own acts and experiences." This experience is to enter into the prayer of Christ, it is the experience of giving oneself, it is non-contraceptive sex, it is to live for others, to have a preferential option for the poor, this is to be celebate as a priest or layman -- another way of making the gift of self. "This discrimination is of tremendous import for all our further analyses, which we shall have to make in our efforts to grasp the whole dynamic reality of the acting person and to account for the subjectiveness that is given us in experience." The grasping of the subject of potency and act in self-determination constitutes the experience.
Novo Millennio Inuente
On October 22, 1978 in Wojytla's first address as Pope, Urbi et Orbi, to the world and the city of Rome, he began with the words "You are the Christ, the son of the living God." By this he meant that he is Peter. He explains this in the new document Novo Millennio Inuente, the blueprint of the new millennium [-- on www.zenit.org under Documents]. How had Peter come to this faith? And what is asked of us if we wish to follow in his footsteps with ever greater conviction? Matthew gives us an enlightening insight: "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven." Wojtyla says that "flesh and blood" is a reference to man and the common way of understanding things (by abstraction.) Luke 9:18 gives us an indication when Jesus was praying alone -- Jesus' prayer to the Father is self-gift. Who do men (who aren't praying) say who I am? The answer, using flesh and blood/abstraction/reason was wrong: in the case of Jesus, this common way of understanding was not enough. A grace of revelation is needed which comes from the Father. Jesus was praying alone -- Jesus' prayer to the Father is self-gift. Jesus says "You (who are praying), who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter says "You are Christ, Son of the Living God." Only the Father knows the Son and only the Son knows the Father. How could Simon know who Christ was unless he had the experience of being Christ while praying?
This is the faith in it's most profound experience, before sin, and we can do that because Jesus Christ is God, pre-lapsarian. He who is man and God can tell us what it was like from the beginning. What it means to be man is to be Gift, so come pray with me to the Father, Jesus says. And in that prayer, experience what it means to be God.
Gaudium et Spes 24 and the "Definition" of the Human Person
Karol Wojtyla was one of the critical architects of Gaudium et Spes, Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World. Number 24 of that document is a "definition" of the human person. "The human being, who is the only creature on earth that God willed for itself (i.e., is self-determining), the person cannot fully find himself or herself except through a disinterested gift of himself or herself."
Dominum et Vivificantem #59 and the Recovery of the 'I'
"As the year 2000 since the birth of Christ draws near, it is a question of ensuring that an ever greater number of people "may fully find themselves through a sincere gift of self,'... Through the action of the Spirit-Paraclete, may there be accomplished in our world a process of true growth in humanity, in both individual and community life. In this regard, Jesus himself when he prayed to the Father that "all may be one as we are one' implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine persons and the union of the children of God in truth and charity."
"For if man is the way of the Church, this way passes through the whole mystery of Christ, as man's divine model. Along this way the Holy Spirit, strengthening in each of us "the inner man," enables man ever more "fully to find himself through a sincere gift of self." These words of the Pastoral Constitution of the Council can be said to sum up the whole of Christian anthropology." And the whole of Christian anthropology is the foundation of ethics, politics, sex, art, everything... He has taken Gaudium et Spes 24 and lifted it out as the blueprint for the 21st century.
Who am I, where am I going, what's important? All, in the end, crumbles, and the only thing that is going to last is gift of self: Father, Child and Love.
Closing Thoughts
Christ is the Way for us now. We are not locked into a post-sinful state; we can be liberated from sin. Find the face of Christ, deal with Christ, love Christ, stay with Christ, go to Communion, go to Confession, start again, pray, change work into prayer, change fun into prayer... The bottom line is we all have to be saints -- if we are not saints, we are not human. If we have Christ, we have everything.
Sense Impression and Emotion...and Analysis of Sensuality (21 March 2001)
This evening's discussions covered sections from chapter two of Love and Responsibility: "Sense Impression and Emotion" and "Analysis of Sensuality," pages 101 through 109. Peter welcomed everyone and said a few words about his recent trip to Slovakia and Poland, where he was joined by Alberto Mora, Joy Cruz, Raj Thomas, and Brian McGovern. He was pleased to report that they had made the first successful steps to begin cooperation with young Catholics in Krakow and Slovakia, who are interested in starting similar Love & Responsibility discussion groups.
Sense Impression and Emotion
Peter launched our discussion with a reflection on the meaning of "Made in the image of God." What exactly does this mean? When he watches people passing by on the street or in hurrying along in Grand Central Station, he thinks to himself: Is that person made in the image of God? What about that person there? And that one over there? Wojtyla writes, in "Sense Impression and Emotion," that sight includes a specific psychic quality that belongs to the sphere of cognition. Our sense impressions are attached to emotions. When we see a picture of Mother Theresa, our first response might be "What an old woman," but rather, we think, "What a saintly woman, what a holy person." The physical is just a hint of deeper value, given what we know about each other. When you see Mother Theresa, what you see is love, and what you see is God, because God is love. Hence, made in the image of God.
Wojtyla introduces the concept of sense impression and continues with a discussion of emotion. Emotion, he says, is also, like a sense impression, as it is a sensory reaction to some object. However, in the content of an impression what is reflected is the image of the object, whereas in an emotion we are reacting to a value which we find in that object. A sense impression is a reaction to content; an emotion is a reaction to value. Not every sense impression engenders emotion. Kevin commented that in his study of child psychology, he learned that young children base their impressions entirely on their senses (emotion) - the tone of voice they hear, facial expressions they see, etc. Only when they grow older and begin to speak/understand language does reason come into play.
Lynne commented that men tend to develop an interest in someone just by seeing, whereas women tend to develop an interest by knowing. Meredith disagreed, saying that it depends on the man -- the modern culture has embedded this type of thinking in society as a way of degrading men -- the notion that men are attracted only by the physical. Lynne countered that she did not mean this in a degrading way at all, but rather as an observation of an inherent difference between men and women. Alberto added that when men see, they can accompany this seeing with emotion. We are making the assumption that a visual impression is a lessor good. Jorge said he in fact would agree with this assumption: If I see an object, and later I find out it is made of copper, it loses value in my eyes; if I later find out it is made of gold, it gains value for me. Kevin commented that despite any gender differences, some people are more visual than others who are more conceptual -- simply a different way of processing.
Analysis of Sensuality
"Any immediate contact between a woman and a man is always the occasion of a sensory experience for both of them. Each of them is a 'body', is therefore exposed to the senses of the other and creates some impression. This impression is frequently accompanied by emotion. This is because by nature the woman represents for the man and the man for the woman a certain value. ... The ease at which the value and impression coalesce, the resulting ease with which emotions arise in contacts between persons of different sexes, is bound up with the sexual urge as a natural property and energy of human existence."
Is sensuality good or bad? In the end, it is something natural yet something to be channeled to a good use. Wojtyla writes that man is not guided by sensuality alone, since we are not animals acting only by instinct, and since a person of the other sex cannot be devalued as an object for use. "...in man, there can be no such thing as 'pure' sensuality, such as exists in animals, nor of the infallible regulation of sensual reactions by instinct. What then is completely natural in animals becomes sub-natural in man. .. sensuality in man is not 'pure,' but modified in one way or another by awareness of values."
Lynne drew an analogy of a car that needs gas to run, yet too much gas/too much acceleration can cause the car to crash. Likewise, too much sensuality that is not channeled or "modified" can destroy a relationship between two people and between man and God.
Wojtyla points out that sensuality by itself is not love, and may very easily become its opposite. "At the same time, we must recognize that when man and woman come together, sensuality, as the natural reaction to a person of the other sex, is a sort of raw material for true, conjugal love. By itself, however, it certainly does not play that role. The yearning for a sexual value connected with 'the body' as an object of use demands integration: it must become an integral part of a fully formed and mature attitude to the person, or else it is certainly not love.... Sensuality must then be open to the other, nobler elements of love."
Laura described the writings of St. Teresa of Avila and her experiences of a Dark Night where God left her. As a mystic, St. Teresa passes through seven interior castles. At the highest level of communion with the Lord, He doesn't let one feel Him (joy). One must go by faith. As one moves along drawing closer to God, all images, ideas and emotional attachments are purged, so that the ultimate meeting with God is pure and direct, with nothing in the way.
In the concluding sentences of Analysis of Sensuality, Wojtyla reveals how he understands the real joy between men and women. He writes: All this however most certainly does not go to show that sensual excitability, as a natural and congenital characteristic of a concrete person, is in itself morally wrong. An exuberant and readily roused sensuality is the stuff from which a rich -- if difficult -- personal life may be made. It may help the individual to respond more readily and completely to the decisive elements in personal love. Primitive sensual excitability [provided it is not of morbid origin] can become a factor making for a fuller and more ardent love." He adds, "Such a love will obviously be the result of sublimation."
Sentiment and Love...and The Problem of Integrating Love (28 March 2001)
This evening's discussions centered on two sections from the second chapter of Love and Responsibility: "Sentiment and Love" and "The Problem of Integrating Love" (pages 109-118). Peter took a moment to remind the group that in chapter two, which is called The Person and Love, Wojtyla is exploring different analyses of love: first a metaphysical analysis (love as attraction, desire, goodwill, reciprocity and betrothed love); second, a psychological analysis (sense impression and emotion, sensuality, sentiment); and, coming up in the last section of the chapter, an ethical analysis (experience and virtue, choice and responsibility, freedom).
Sentiment and Love
"Sentimentality," Wojtyla asserts, "must be clearly distinguished from sensuality." Sensuality has as its object a sexual value residing in the 'body' itself as a 'possible object of enjoyment.' On the other hand, with sentimentality, the object of the emotional experience is not only the body but the whole person of the other sex; i.e., 'femininity' or 'masculinity'. Sentimentality is accompanied by affection -- the desire to be near the other, "to move in each other's orbit," as Wojtyla says -- and not the conspicuous drive for enjoyment as is so characteristic of sensuality.
Wojtyla observes that with regard to sensuality and sentimentality, "...there seems as a rule to be a marked difference between woman and man. .... It is pretty generally recognized that woman is 'by nature' more sentimental, and man more sensual. ...Now, this form of sensuality [the body as a possible object of enjoyment] is more readily awakened in the man, more readily crystallized in his consciousness and attitude. The very structure of the male personality and psyche is such that it is more readily 'compelled' to disclose and objectivize the hidden significance of love for a person of the other sex. This goes with the relatively more active role of the male in such love, and also imposes responsibility on him. Whereas in the woman sensuality is as it were covert, and concealed by sentimentality. For this reason, she is 'by nature' more inclined to go on seeing as a manifestation of affection what a man already clearly realizes to be the effect of sensuality and the desire for enjoyment. There exists, then, as we see a certain psychological divergence between man and woman in the manner of their participation in love."
With sentimentality, Wojtyla writes, the value of the beloved person grows enormously, as a rule out of all proportion to his or her real value -- an idealization of the object of love. Sentimental love influences imagination and memory and is influenced by them in return. "Sentimentality is subjective and feeds, sometimes to excess, above all on values which the subject bears within himself or herself, and for which he or she consciously or unconsciously yearns." Lynne commented that she thinks it is easier for a man to be interested in pleasure, whereas woman internalize and think about love in a more intangible sense, with ideal, romantic notions. Jackie reflected on how women, according to Dr. Alice von Hildebrand, are even in the physical sense (anatomically) receptive vessels. It is part of the modern culture for woman to pursue just as men pursue, but deep inside, women know and feel this is not part of their nature. Lynne added, " When I think sentimentality, I think of the poetry of the Brownings "My love is like a red, red rose..." and when I think of sensuality, I think of Benny Hill!"
Wojtyla continues to explain that sentimental love, in excess, can be a source of disillusionment or even feelings of hatred, when the discrepancy between the ideal and reality surfaces. It is not obvious, he says, whether the tendency to idealize the object in sentimental love is a strength or a weakness, although we know that by itself, as a form of reciprocal relationship between an man and a woman, it is insufficient. "It too needs to be integrated, as does sensual desire. If 'love' remains just sensuality, just a matter of 'sex-appeal', it will not be love at all, but only the utilization of one person by another, or of two persons by each other. While if love remains mere sentiment it will equally be unlike love in the complete sense of the word. For both persons will remain in spite of everything divided from each other... " Prof. Peter added that it is not a question of a woman becoming more like a man, nor a man more like a woman, but rather each becoming more "person," that is, without sentimentality coloring truth nor sensuality reducing the other to an object. "Vive la difference!" Peter said.
Oscar Wilde, as Prof. Peter reminded us, is famous for saying, "Woman are not to be understood; they are to be loved." But you have to understand us to love us, said Sylvia. We have to try to understand, grow in our understanding, but love, said Peter. Yet how can we truly understand anyone when we don't even understand ourselves? he asked. Prof. Peter clarified the Pope's phenomonological use of the verb "understand": by understand, he means being present to the other person, immediate self-presence, self-consciousness, instead of the notion of understanding/analyzing a problem. Wojtyla relates this to the Trinity, the love of the Son for the Father and the Father for the Son in a self-gift. It is an other- and a self-discovery.
Next, Wojtyla turns to those forces of the human spirit which make the integration of an objective love possible.
The Problem of Integrating Love
In this section, in very beautiful and profound words, Wojtyla embarks on a discussion of truth and freedom. "Truth," he says, " is a condition of freedom, for if a man can preserve his freedom in relation to the objects which thrust themselves on him in the course of his activity as good and desirable, it is only because he is capable of viewing these goods in the light of truth and so adopting an independent attitude to them. Without this faculty man would inevitably be determined by them: these goods would take possession of him and determine totally the character of his actions and the whole direction of his activity."
He continues: "His ability to discover the truth gives man the possibility of self-determination, of deciding for himself the character and direction of his own actions, and that is what freedom means." Wojtyla is again using a countercultural definition of freedom, which in today's modern society has in many respects come to mean "do whatever one wants to do or feels like doing." Truth, Wojtyla is saying, is the condition to make any choice. Prof. Peter explained that Wojtyla believes freedom involves a seeking of truth... one is not truly free unless one is trying to do the right thing. Cyrille commented that Wojtyla's perspective very much reflects the context of the oppressive postwar Communist regime in Poland. You are free, he is telling his people, because you can discern and choose good from evil and can "adopt an independent attitude." A government does not make a person free, but rather God does, through His gift of self-determination.
Wojtyla then ties freedom and truth to the integration of love: "The process of integrating love relies on the primary elements of the human spirit -- freedom and truth." Love, he says, is always an interior matter of the spirit, where will is the final authority in ourselves. The value of the person is bound up with freedom, and freedom is a property of the will. Love demands freedom -- that which does not bear the mark of a free commitment is not love. A truly free commitment of the will is possible only on the basis of truth, and the experience of freedom necessarily accompanies truth.
Love, Wojtyla underscores, also insists on objective truth. Only thanks to this, he says, only on this basis, can the integration of love take place. The full picture of love is its objective value, which Wojtyla promises to discuss further in the next section on the ethical analysis of love.
The Pope on “Membership of One Another” (25 April 2001)
In betrothed love, through the gift of self, man belongs to woman as woman belongs to man. Such was the theme of this evening's discussions on a section from The Ethical Analysis of Love called "Membership of One Another" (pages 125-130). Wojtyla begins by reflecting on love as gift of self and on the intrinsic value of each person. He says that the value of the person is inseparable from the essential being of that person. By its very nature, a person is its own master. Yet, he states "...love forcibly detaches the person, so to speak, from this natural inviolability and inalienability. It makes the person what to do just that -- surrender itself to another, to the one it loves." Peter commented that this draws on one of the themes of the book, overcoming selfishness by going outside oneself. In love as gift of self, the person wishes to become the property of the other, renouncing its autonomy and inalienability. Wojtyla adds, "Love proceeds by way of this renunciation, guided by the profound conviction that it does not diminish and impoverish, but quite the contrary, enlarges and enriches the existence of the person."
Self-giving can have its full value only when it involves and is the work of the will. Betrothed love (gift of self) "commits the will," he writes, in a particularly profound way...in the language of the Gospels, "giving one's soul'. He explains that contrary to the superficial view of sex where the woman surrenders her body to a man in erotic love, we are speaking of the mutual surrender of both persons, of their belonging equally to each other.
The group discussed the role of man and woman in marriage. The Church has given each unique roles. Sean and Laura commented how St. Paul has written that a wife is to her husband as the Church is to Christ. This image, Sean explained, invokes some subsidiarity but excludes authority as unaccountable control. Laura added that in dying for his Church, Christ made the ultimate sacrifice. She added that it is much harder for a man to take on this responsibility than for a woman to submit.
Male and female are both female in response to God, said Laura. God is active, while we respond. The Church receives Christ. This helps to explain why women cannot be priests; the maleness of priests is not accidental nor is it inessential. She recommended a book by Dr. Alice von Hildebrand called Women and the Priesthood.
Peter described how in the Czech language, the suffix -ova is added to a husband's name to form his wife's name. The suffix means "belonging to." Jorge mentioned a book he had read that said that the man has the grace to make decisions. Sylvia vigorously disagreed -- this is not Christian, she said, and too often people pull the text of St. Paul out of context. He has a view of his time, she said. Decision-making should not be the husband's alone, she argued. Decision-making is a great responsibility, not a power play, Peter said. Man is the head of the family and woman is the heart, Laura added. Authority is not better, she said -- it has its own accountability. One is not superior, and each is called to holiness. Laura promised to research some of the writings of John Paul II on this matter and update the group at our next session.
The Pope then reminds us that sexual values -- which can have forms of sensual and emotional eroticism -- must be firmly welded in the consciousness and the will to the value of the person. "Without this, 'love' can only have an erotic significance and not its true (personal) significance: it can lead to sexual 'union' but with not warranty in a true union of persons." The two persons are then using each other to derive pleasure. All the conditions exist, he writes, for a conflict of interest between the two parties which will inevitably arise. "The ricketyness of the structure must show itself in time," he says, adding, "It is one of the greatest of sorrows when love proves to be not what it was thought to be, but its diagonal opposite." Sean remarked that one can see this in the most unlikely places, like on daytime talk shows where ex-couples lament deep betrayal. On some level, he said, they realize that being sexually involved implies something that should be exclusive -- they are acting the role of husband and wife, inwardly acknowledging that there could be a child. Cyrille commented that society -- especially the young -- seems increasingly desensitized. George Weigel's recent column described an AIDS testing ad on the back of a bus, targeted at young boys, which said "Gettin' busy?" Sean commented on what Humanae Vitae forewarned regarding the dangers of contraceptives -- intercourse purely for sexual pleasure in effect allows an element of pornography to creep into marital sex.
Wojtyla continues on a positive note: "Betrothed love, which carries within itself an inner need to make gift of one's own person to another human being (a need realized between man and woman in surrender of the body and in a full sexual relationship as well as in other ways) has a natural grandeur of its own. The measure of this is the value of the person who gives himself or herself, and not just the degree of sensual and sexual enjoyment which accompanies the gift of self.... Take away love from the fullness of self surrender, the completeness of personal commitment, and what remains will be a total denial and negation of it ." Here, he is quite sharply saying that without the fullness of self surrender and personal commitment, there is not just no love, there is denial and negation of love.
Wojtyla then points out the mystery of reciprocity in gift of self: acceptance of the gift in the giving and in the receiving. Peter remarked that his years spent in Eastern Europe taught him how to be a good guest; learning to receive takes humility. Wojtyla then calls out a skill in giving and receiving "...exhibited by the man whose attitude to a woman is informed by total affirmation of her value as a person, and equally by the woman whose attitude to a man is informed by affirmation of his value as a person." This skill, he says, creates a "climate" of betrothed love, the climate of surrender of the innermost self. Man and woman must first believe it the value of his or her own person before he or she can make a gift of self.
The Pope on “Choice and Responsibility” (10 May 2001)
Wojtyla begins the section entitled Choice and Responsibility with these words: “Nowhere else in the whole book, perhaps, is its title, Love and Responsibility, more to the point than it is here.” Indeed, our group found tonight's sections (pages 130-136) among the most profound and meaningful of our readings thus far.
Wojtyla continues, “There exists in love a particular responsibility—the responsibility for a person who is drawn into the closest possible partnership in the life and activity of another, and becomes in a sense the property of whoever benefits from this gift of self.” At our last discussion, we talked about this notion of property—specifically, whether a wife is the property of her husband. Here Wojtyla is reinforcing his message that just as the wife is the property of her husband, so is the husband property of his wife.
“It follows that the one also has a responsibility for one's own love: is it mature and complete enough to justify the enormous trust of another person, the hope that giving oneself will not mean losing one's own 'soul', but on the contrary enlarging one's own existence - or will it all end in disillusionment?” Peter explained that Wojtyla considers the gift of self such an awesome gift, that the only appropriate response is to act responsibly. Wojtyla is posing a challenging question: Is your love complete enough? Peter reflected on the commitment and example of love his father showed by caring night and day for his mother when she was seriously ill.
“Responsibility for love clearly comes down to responsibility for the person, originates in it and returns to it.... But its immensity can only be understood by one who has a complete awareness of the value of the person. Anyone who is capable only of reacting to the sexual values connected with the person, and inherent in it, but cannot see the values of the person as such, will always go on confusing love and eros, will complicate his own life and that of others by letting the reality of love, its true 'relish' escape him.” Sylvia commented that when one loves another, one embraces responsibility—and yet so many young people shy away from any commitment; they are confusing love and eros. Nona remarked that Love and Responsibility, along with Natural Family Planning (NFP), ought to be taught in pre-Cana. Alter behavior, and attitudes will follow, she quipped. She also told the group about a newsletter published by the Couple to Couple League. This newsletter is written by married couples practicing NFP to help other couples improve their own marriages.
The Holy Father then explains what he terms “the problem of choice” (page 131). Before the love between a man and a woman can become betrothed love, they each face the choice of the person on whom to bestow the gift of self. He writes, “The object of choice is another person, but it is as though one were choosing another 'I', choosing oneself in another, and the other in oneself. Only if it is objectively good for two persons to be together can they belong to each other.” There is an objective standard—if the relationship draws you closer to God. Yet even a painful relationship can bring one closer to God—though we are not to seek out painful relationships. Many times, Ellen said, God brings two people together to bring about unselfishness and self-sacrifice. Nona added that St. Monica did not have a great marriage, but she produced St. Augustine, and eventually her husband did convert. Life is often that way, she said. Meredith said that her grandfather converted at 89 years old to spend eternal life with her grandmother. Meredith clarified, “What is God telling you? And are you listening?” Ellen then added, “If you are involved with someone who does not know God, eventually you each will be on different wavelengths. The question to consider is whether each person has a track record of wanting to grow on a higher level—so that you are ”equally yoked,“ as the Bible says, on the same spiritual level, a level of zeal to grow towards heaven.” Peter reminded the group that Wojtyla calls men and women “co-creators of love”—pray together before getting married, so that there are less surprises once married.
Wojtyla continues, “For a human being is always first and foremost himself ('a person'), and in order not merely to live with another but to live by and for that other person he must continually discover himself in the other and the other in himself.” He adds that love is impossible for those who are mutually inpenetrable—“only the spirituality and the 'inwardness' of persons create the conditions for mutual interpenetration, which enables each to live in and by the other.” The more spiritual a person is, he is saying, the more capable of true love. Nona commented that as the more one develops oneself spiritually, the more one has to surrender to God. Kevin added that even the religious non-spiritual are cold; when compared to someone spiritual, it is as though the two are speaking different languages. Peter said that what makes a person is inner life—the richer the inner life, the richer the relationship. Nona explained why people shy from commitment: first, it is a risk, a natural human fear of being rejected. Second, we fear not being truly loved and understood for the reasons we want to be loved and understood. Kevin compared it all to computer syntax—if you get it even a bit wrong, “system failure!” Jackie cautioned: don't be blinded by someone's spirituality. Laura added that while some people are religious in following the rules, their actions betray a lack of spirituality—the pharisee syndrome, she called it. Kevin views two elements of faith—1) the religious—law and ritual, and 2) spirituality. We need to be able to integrate both sides; people who see just one side and don't understand this integration thus see a distorted view of religion.
“... the way in which such choices are made remains one of the secrets of human individuality,” Wojtyla writes. Sylvia said, “but I believe there is one man out there for me, and God will guide my choice.” It doesn't depend on a single person, Nona answered. There are many people with whom you could have a satisfying life and fewer with whom you could have an ecstatic life. It is not only up to God, Joan said, but also up to you, to be open to His revelation. And don't let that stop you from being responsible and prudent, Jackie added. Sylvia answered, if you are a person of prayer, God speaks to you and things start to happen beautifully. St. Ignatius said “Do as if everything depended on you; and pray as if everything depended on God.”
“For the choice of a person is a process in which sexual values cannot function as the sole motive, or even—if we analyze this act of will thoroughly—as the primary motive.... Clearly, if we are to speak of choosing a person, the value of the person must itself be the primary reason for choice.” He adds, “Primary reason does not mean sole reason.” “So that if we consider the whole process by which a man chooses a woman or a woman a man, we can say that it is set in motion by recognition of and reaction to sexual values, but that in the last analysis each chooses the sexual values because they belong to a person, and not the person because of his or her sexual values.... True love, a love that is internally complete, is one in which we choose the person for the sake of the person,—that in which a man chooses a woman or a woman chooses a man not just as a sexual 'partner' but as the person on whom to bestow the gift of his or her own life.... The essential reason for choosing a person must be personal, not merely sexual. Life will determine the value of a choice and the value and true magnitude of love.”
A matured love is both serene and confident, Wojtyla writes, for it ceases to be absorbed entirely in itself and attaches itself instead to its object, to the beloved. The love for a person resulting from a valid choice (centered on the value of the person) makes us feel emotional love for the person as he or she really is, not for the person of our imagination. Sean remarked on the misguided culture of romance in our society—find this special person, and be in love, and be happy. In fact, it is a utilitarian mission, ultimately, using another as a tool or instrument for one's own happiness. Peter added that in marriage the goal is to draw closer to God, and we are supposed to represent God to our spouse, to love our spouse as God loves.
Wojtyla then explains that only when love between husband and wife is put to a test can its true value be seen. Peter spoke on what he called a counter-intuitive point: we ought to look forward to failure, to bad times—which will come anyway—as failure and bad experiences are chances to grow and to prove our love. You had better hope there are bad times before you are married, so that you develop a mature attitude on how to grow closer together and to God during these experiences. “The strength of such a love emerges most clearly when the beloved person stumbles, when his or her weaknesses or even sins come into the open. One who truly loves does not then withdraw his love, but loves all the more, loves in full consciousness of the other's shortcomings and faults, and without in the least approving of them. For the person as such never loses its essential value. The emotion which attaches itself to the value of the person remains loyal to the human being.”
The Commitment of Freedom
“Only true knowledge of a person makes it possible to commit one's freedom to him or her. Love consists of a commitment which limits one's freedom—it is a giving of the self, and to give oneself means just that: to limit one's freedom on behalf of another. Limitation of one's freedom might seem to be something negative and unpleasant, but love makes it a positive, joyful and creative thing. Freedom exists for the sake of love.”
What does Wojtyla mean by “true knowledge?” And how can we ever have “true knowledge” of another? True knowledge does not mean knowing the other entirely, but it does mean having essential knowledge of the other—core values, how the other reacts in a crisis. Peter remarked how Dietrich von Hildebrand writes on love at “first meeting,” a response to the values of another. Meredith added that her parents were immediately attracted to each other, attracted to the goodness in each other.
Wojtyla continues: “Love commits freedom and imbues it with that to which the will is naturally attracted—goodness. The will aspires to the good, and freedom belongs to the will, hence freedom exists for the sake of love, because it is by the way of love that human beings share most fully in the good. This is what gives freedom its real entitlement to one of the highest places in the moral order, in the hierarchy of man's wholesome longings and desires. But man longs for love more than for freedom—freedom is the means and love is the end. He longs however for true love, for only if it is based on truth is a genuine commitment of freedom possible. The will is free, but at the same time it 'is obliged to' seek the good which is congenial to it, it can seek and choose freely, but it is not free from the need to seek and to choose.”
The Commitment of Freedom…and The Education of Love (24 May 2001)
Today's discussion covers the last two sections in chapter two, entitled The Commitment of Freedom and The Education of Love. But before delving into these sections, Peter spent a few minutes summarizing what we have read thus far in chapter two, The Person and Love. Wojtyla begins the chapter with a section on the metaphysical analysis of love. He explores the various facets of love: love as attraction, desire, and goodwill, and he analyzes the bases of sympathy, friendship and comradeship. In this section we reach the milestone page 96, where, as Father Bob has dramatically explained to us, Wojtyla makes history. It is on this page that Wojtyla describes the uniqueness of betrothed love as “gift of self.” In the next section of chapter two, Wojtyla discusses the psychological analysis of love: sense impression and emotion, sensuality, sentiment, and finally the integration of these elements, where in a very beautiful way he ties freedom and truth to the integration of love. The third and last section of the chapter focuses on the ethical analysis of love. Here, Wojtyla coins the phrase “membership in one another” and expounds on choice and responsibility.
Before proceeding with today's discussion, Peter told the group about some tapes of Christopher West (who heads the Archdiocese of Denver's office of marriage and family) that he has been listening to, called “Understanding the Eucharist through John Paul II's Theology of the Body.” One insight Peter shared with the group was especially interesting: when Christ died on the cross, the curtain of the tabernacle was torn in two. [“Then the curtain hanging in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” Matthew 27.51] What exactly does this mean? In the Jewish temples, the torah rests in the tabernacle, protected by a curtain and only accessible on holy days by the temple rabbis. When Jesus died for our sins, the word became flesh—and now accessible to us all—with the curtain of the tabernacle torn in two.
The Commitment of Freedom
Wojtyla begins this section on p. 135 by stating, “Only true knowledge of a person makes it possible to commit one's freedom to him or her. Love consists of a commitment which limits one's freedom—it is a giving of the self, and to give oneself means just that: to limit one's freedom on behalf of another. Limitation of one's freedom might seem to be something negative and unpleasant, but love makes it a positive, joyful and creative thing. Freedom exists for the sake of love.”
Diane remarked that sometimes love 'goes wrong' because people haven't given up their freedom; they've kept it. Nona added that this relates to the notion of husbands and wives reciprocally submitting to each other. Kevin commented that our notion of freedom must rest in a context of good. If freedom is detached from this context, it is falsifying and shallow, a limited view of freedom that modern secular thinking sells, and not a true freedom.
Wojtyla continues: “Love commits freedom and imbues it with that to which the will is naturally attracted—goodness. The will aspires to the good, and freedom belongs to the will, hence freedom exists for the sake of love, because it is by the way of love that human beings share most fully in the good. This is what gives freedom its real entitlement to one of the highest places in the moral order, in the hierarchy of man's wholesome longings and desires. But man longs for love more than for freedom—freedom is the means and love is the end. He longs however for true love, for only if it is based on truth is a genuine commitment of freedom possible. The will is free, but at the same time it 'is obliged to' seek the good which is congenial to it, it can seek and choose freely, but it is not free from the need to seek and to choose.”
The will is a “creative power,” as Wojtyla frequently mentions. He says that sexual values can 'lay siege' to the will. When the will succumbs to sensual attraction it begins to feel desire for another. Sentiment frees desire of its carnal consumer character, instead focusing on the longing for the other as a human person. “The sexual instinct makes the will desire and long for a person because of the person's sexual value.” The will however does not stop here—it desires the absolute good and unlimited happiness for the other person, atoning for the desire to have the other person and assuming within the framework of betrothed love the responsibility for the other.
The divine aspect of love, Wojtyla explains, is the drive to endow beloved persons with the good, to make them happy. For people of profound faith, this means to desire God for the person. Diane directed us to footnote 33, which reads: We often find in the love of one person for another a discrepancy between the good desired for the beloved and the possibility of realizing it. The lover is not able to bestow immortality on the beloved person—although he desires to and undoubtedly would do so if he were omnipotent. This is the reason why 'what he really wants for the beloved is God'. The empirically inescapable connection between love and the affirmation of life compels us to recognize (as a result of metaphysical interpretation) that in the perspective of the Creative Love the death of personal existences can only be a transition to a higher form of live. Morte fortius caritas.
Peter reflected that these words reminded him of St. John of the Cross, who said that in the twilight of our lives we will be tested in love. Nona commented on how people receive death—embracing it or being terrified of it. We should try to embrace God, to deepen our connection with Christ so that we want so much to be with him. Meredith added that as a spouse, one's mission is to get one's spouse to heaven.
Wojtyla continues: “This is what makes it possible for a man to be reborn because of love, makes him aware of the riches within him, his spiritual fertility and creativity: I am capable of desiring good for another person, therefore I am in general capable of desiring the good. True love compels me to believe in my own spiritual powers. ... When love attains its full dimensions, it introduces into a relationship not only a 'climate' of honesty between persons but a certain awareness of the 'absolute', a sense of contact with the unconditional and the ultimate.”
The Education of Love
In this short section, Wojtyla reflects on the fact that love is never something ready made, something merely 'given' to man and woman. Rather, it is always a task. “Love should be seen as something which in a sense never 'is' but is always only 'becoming', and what it becomes depends upon the contribution of both persons and the depth of their commitment.”
Creativity plays an important role in the sphere of love, as does the work of Divine Grace. “Grace”, he says, “has the power to make straight the paths of human love.”
Chastity and Resentment…and Carnal Concupiscence (5 June 2001)
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.
Subjectivism and Egoism...and The Structure of Sin (21 June 2001)
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.]”
The True Meaning of Chastity (28 June and 12 July 2001)
Tonight’s discussion addressed the last section of Chapter Three called “The True Meaning of Chastity,” pages 166-173. Peter introduced this important section by saying that he found it to capture, in a certain sense, the essence of the book, and in fact the essence of the Pope. He focused our attention on the bottom of page 171, where Wojtyla writes, “The connection between chastity and love results from the personalistic norm, which — as we said in Chapter One — has a dual content: a positive content (‘thou shalt love!’) and a negative content (‘thou shalt not use!’).”
Many people put inordinate weight on the negative, and think of chastity in a negative sense, while John Paul, said Peter, puts it first in the positive context of thou shalt love. Alberto concurred, adding that one of the most attractive qualities of John Paul II is that he is so positive, and this clearly requires more intellectual effort and understanding than merely prohibiting this or that action.
Wojtyla explains that people are unwilling to acknowledge the enormous value of chastity to human love because they reject the full objective truth about the love of man and woman, and “put a subjective fiction in its place.” When the objective truth about love is accepted, chastity is understood as a great positive value and an essential element in “the culture of the person.” He then returns to his theme of the integration of love, asserting that “love is only psychologically complete when it possesses an ethical value, when it is a virtue. Only in love as a virtue is it possible to satisfy the objective demands of the personalistic norm, which requires "loving kindness" towards a person and rejects any form of ‘utilization’ of the person.”
He then proceeds to explain chastity in the context of St. Thomas Aquinas's hierarchy of virtues from Summa Theologica. In St. Thomas’ system, chastity is linked with the cardinal virtue of “moderation.” Wojtyla writes, “The virtue of moderation strives to save a reasonable being from this perversion of his nature.... The virtue of moderation helps reasonable people to live reasonably, and so to attain the perfection proper to their nature.”
Alberto explained that moderation is a question of placing the senses in a proper order — where reason is master of the senses. Patrick commented on Aristotle’s concept of the extremes and the mean, with virtue resting at the equilibrium, the mean. Wojtyla writes that a virtue is a habit, “a habitual attitude to the true good,” permanently in equilibrium, not just on occasions but with consistency. Laura added that it is important to stress the “true good” in this definition of virtue — cults, for example, have rules and regulations which members may follow habitually, but without a true good they are not virtuous.
Yet Wojtyla’s description of chastity transcends St. Thomas’ hierarchy of values (the Pope is “para-thomistic,” we joked). Wojtyla strives to emphasize the “kinship” between chastity and love. He says, “Chastity can only be thought of in association with the virtue of love. Its function is to free love from the utilitarian attitude.” As we know from our last section, this utilitarian attitude is grounded in carnal concupiscence, the subjectivism of emotions and the subjectivism of value judgments, and it can easily transition to “sinful love.”
“To be chaste,” Wojtyla writes, “means to have a ‘transparent’ attitude to a person of the other sex — chastity means just that — the interior transparency without which love is not itself, for it cannot be itself until the desire to enjoy is subordinated to a readiness to show loving kindness in every situation.”
Peter observed that if you are focused singularly on your own emotions, you cannot see the other person clearly. Patrick added that not only can you not see them, they cannot really see you — they never really come to know you as a person, and hence the relationship is incomplete. Joan remarked that you can, however, learn these things, learn about someone, by spending time with them.
Wojtyla cautions that chastity is often misunderstood to mean a blind inhibition of sensuality so that the value of the body is pushed into the subconscious — which explains why chastity is often mistaken for a negative virtue. He writes, “Chastity, in this view, is one long ‘no.’ Whereas it is above all the ‘yes’ of which certain ‘no’s’ are the consequence.”
“The essence of chastity consists in quickness to affirm the value of the person in every situation, and in raising to the personal level all reactions to the value of ‘the body and sex.’ This requires a special interior, spiritual effort, for affirmation of the value of the person can only be the product of the spirit, but this effort is above all positive and creative ‘from within,’ not negative and destructive. It is not a matter of summarily ‘annihilating’ the value ‘body and sex’ in the conscious mind by pushing reactions to them down into the subconscious, but of sustained long term integration; the value ‘body and sex’ must be grounded and implanted in the value of the person.”
Peter remarked that when it comes to chastity, you look at someone as a body or as a person — either one. Christopher West, in his tapes on the Eucharist and the Theology of the Body, mentioned that if you are oriented towards the person, you always respond to the person as a true good.
Peter then related a lament from a woman friend in Slovakia who spoke of the “Western wind” impacting that country since its liberation from communism. Young Slovaks now see how men and women relate in American movies, and Slovak women are concerned that Slovak men now expect that kind of behavior from them. Laura remarked that throughout history, women have been the keeper of the “heart.” Peter added that more has been given to women — the power to give life, for example. Women have more responsibility on their shoulders to say no, because they have been given a greater sensitivity to these issues. Patrick said he felt that men have dropped the ball. Alberto observed that many of the social problems we talk about today can be traced to so many single mothers, where children are not raised in a strong family atmosphere. Joan shared some of her daily observances as a counselor — young single women are looking for love and are even encouraged by their parents to have babies; it has become a status symbol, she said, along with accompanying peer pressure. Alberto added that many don’t believe that good is even possible. Peter told about a mother he met who was so very proud that her unmarried daughter had given birth to two children by the same man. That would mean they do implicitly recognize the dignity of marriage, Alberto said. Yes, Peter said, to some extent, but the long hard road for us is to resurrect the idea that it is possible to have a great family life. A lot of people don’t have a single positive role model. Alberto observed that in the past, a baby was considered a new soul, an objective good. Today, parents see the value to them — happiness, pride, etc. Many people today believe the world is overpopulated and that it is best to reduce the population. Having more than two children, they think, is selfish. Laura added that this parental attitude is reflected in parents refusing to discipline their children properly. They are afraid to give their children moral guidance — it is not formation, but rather indulgence. And because of relativism, people cannot make objective decisions; they don’t have a sense of right and wrong.
The Pope writes that chastity is a difficult, long term matter, “and one must wait patiently for it to bear fruit, for the happiness of loving kindness which it must bring. But at the same time, chastity is the sure way to happiness.” Chastity involves a humility of the body. Part of this humility is recognizing that we live with concupiscence through the consequences of original sin — that we have these negative tendencies and must work to counter them.
Wojtyla writes that the “body” must show humility in the face of human happiness. Happiness is not just mere enjoyment, the sum of pleasures the body can bring to a relationship between a man and woman. Man and woman “can and must seek their temporal, earthly happiness in a lasting union which has an interpersonal character since it is based in each of them on unreserved affirmation of the value of the person.” If the body is not humble, then it can obscure the full truth about the happiness of man — obscure the vision of the ultimate happiness: the happiness of the human person in union with a personal God. This, says Wojtyla is how we should understand Christ’s words from the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
“It should be added that the truth about the union of the human person with a personal God, which will be fully accomplished within the dimensions of eternity, at the same time illuminates more fully and makes plainer the value of human love, the value of the union of man and woman as two persons.” Marriage is a lasting union on earth to prepare ourselves for permanent union with God; in this way, marriage is the image of our relation with God.
The True Meaning of Chastity (second discussion)
At tonight’s discussion, the last meeting until we meet in the fall, we once again focused on the last section of Chapter Three called “The True Meaning of Chastity,” pages 166-173. Emily commented that the Pope has opened a door for us in that he explains why we have to say “no” in order to say “yes.” Here, she said, he was ahead of his times. Jackie agreed but added that Wojtyla was influenced by the thinking and writing of Dietrich von Hildebrand who had written extensively on love and marriage. Peter added that the Pope also clearly bases his thinking on what Jesus taught: love one another. In these pages, Wojtyla is getting back to the core of his message. Kevin added that Wojtyla is answering the question “why?” He is explaining why it is wrong to be unchaste or to use people in an objectified form — he is explaining what reduces the human character.
Wojtyla explains the commonly held view of chastity, and writes, “Chastity, in this view, is one long ‘no.’ Whereas it is above all the ‘yes’ of which certain ‘no’s’ are the consequence.” Peter observed that importantly for Wojtyla, the “yes” comes first. And this could be applied to any of the virtues, that they ought to be construed in a positive light, first and foremost.
This message of chastity as a positive element is extremely challenging to explain to secular people, Jackie remarked. Manny offered that those with a secular perspective are missing the reality — they are seeing a small part of the whole. He described the sexual drive as a metaphor of a hungry lion stalking deer. He pounces, kills the deer, eats the meat — never appreciating the beauty of the deer. Similarly even in our common jargon we speak of some places as “meat markets.” Kevin added that to understand Wojtyla’s view of chastity, one would need to believe in God and in the existence of the soul, else there is nothing to prevent one from using other human beings — and embryonic stem cell research is a current case in point. For these people, the human person has no value apart from utility.
Manny described society’s view as “Sex is natural, don’t you get it?” Yes, sex is natural, but you are not seeing the rest, that you are a human being and not an animal. Ellen commented that some tend to fragment and compartmentalize their lives — career vs. family, spiritual vs. physical; whereas our approach should be integrated, like holistic medicine, so that we are at peace with ourselves. Peter remarked that often people understand chastity as the choice between sex or no sex. His first boss used to say, “You can’t win a horse race without a horse.” In this case, love is the horse. The key is not to be focused on the “no sex,” but to live at the level of the person, “to love.”
Sean observed that, per the scriptural passage, nothing from without can defile, but only from within. Sin starts on a spiritual level and manifests on a physical level. We need to have the wisdom to recognize the truth, and then the strength to act in truth, to iconize our physical lives in the meaning of God’s creation.
Temporal, sexual pleasures lead to a joy which lacks humility, Kevin commented, where egoism, power and possessiveness come into play. Peter added that St. Thomas Aquinas spoke of humility as the subordination of the low to the high. The humility of the body is subject to reason and the love of the person.
It is important to see marriage as something more than a relationship and sex, Karee added; at its basis, it is the creation of a new family, where man and wife enter into a union with God and leave everything else behind, taking up your cross and following Him. Peter remarked that John Paul II describes the marriage act as the perfect imaging of God. Alberto reminded us that Father Bob speaks of Catholicism as an incarnate religion.
We returned to page 66 of Love & Responsibility to review where John Paul has outlined the three ends of marriage: the primary end is procreatio, but it has a secondary end, mutuum adiutorium; and apart from these, a tertiary end, remedium concupiscentiae. “Marriage, objectively considered, must provide first of all the means of continuing existence, secondly a conjugal life for man and woman, and thirdly a legitimate orientation for desire.” Peter noted John Paul’s very positive translation of the Latin “remedium concupiscentiae,” literally remedy for concupiscence, into “legitimate orientation for desire.” He also noted how love in the Pope’s thinking ties together the three ends: “The practical realization of all the purposes of marriage must then also mean the successful practice of love as a virture.”
The Phenomenon of Sexual Shame and Its Interpretation (18 October 2001)
Tonight we turned to the topic of sexual shame. Peter introduced the topic by referencing the Pope’s “Theology of the Body,” where John Paul has interpreted Genesis with profound meaning — including the passage from Genesis (2:25): “And the man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed.”
In Love and Responsibility, Wojtyla writes that shame, at first glance, is a tendency to concealment, of facts or states of mind or emotions. Shame arises when something which of its very nature or in view of its purpose ought to be private passes the bounds of a person’s privacy and somehow becomes public. He writes that the essence of shame can only be understood if we “heavily emphasize the truth that the existence of the person is an interior one, i.e., that the person possesses an interior peculiarly its own, and from this arises the need to conceal (that is, to retain internally) certain experiences or values, or else to withdraw with them into itself.”
From an anthropological point of view, Wojtyla then explores the tendency of human beings to conceal their nakedness and comments on primitive cultures in tropical climates where instead the act of covering up is in fact shameful. He concludes that clothing the body to cover nakedness goes together with sexual shame but is not an essential feature of it.
What is an essential feature, he continues, is the tendency to conceal sexual values themselves. Young children do not express sexual shame because they have not developed sexual values.
Men and women experience shame differently. Wojtyla writes: “Since sensuality, which is oriented towards ‘the body as an object of enjoyment’ is in general stronger and more importunate in men, modesty and shame — the tendency to conceal sexual values specifically connected with the body — must be more pronounced in girls and women. At the same time, they are less aware of sensuality and of its natural orientation in men, because in them emotion is usually stronger than sensuality, and sensuality tends to be latent in emotion.” He adds, “The evolution of modesty in woman requires some initial insight into the male psychology.”
“On the other hand, a man is keenly aware of his own sensuality, and this for him is the source of shame. For him, sexual values are more closely bound up with the ‘body and sex as potential objects of enjoyment,’ this is the form in which he becomes aware of them, and experienced in this way they become for him a source of shame.... He is ashamed of his body because he is ashamed of the reaction to the value ‘body’ which he encounters in himself.” Shame is not just a response to someone else's sensual and sexual reaction to the body as an object for use, but also a need to prevent such reactions, which are incompatible with the value of the person.
Cyrille commented that Wojtyla’s use of shame is not necessarily rooted in “I did something wrong and want to conceal it” but rather a self-consciousness. Sean added that it could lead to something wrong “if I don't keep a handle on it.” Sarah said it is something exposed, something that should be concealed.
Wojtyla then explains that shame is evidence that we are persons — shame is related to preserving the value of the person. Because the person is its own master, no one can take possession of the person unless the person permits this, makes a gift of itself from love. The experience of shame is a natural reflection of the essential nature of the person. The function of shame is to exclude an attitude toward the person that is incompatible with its essential nature (not to be used by another.)
He continues:
“For this shrinking from reactions to mere sexual values goes together with the longing to inspire love, to inspire a ‘reaction’ to the value of the person, and with the longing to experience love in the same sense — the first perhaps stronger in women, the second in men, but one should not suppose that either is exclusive to either of the sexes. A woman wants to be loved so that she can show love. A man wants to love so that he can be loved.” AnaMaria remarked that Archbishop Sheen had said something in the same vein: that man searches for the love of pleasure, and woman searches for the pleasure of love. It is beautiful, she said, to inspire each other to love and to enjoy love. Sarah added that Wojtyla seems to be saying that man takes the initiative and woman is the active receiver who bears fruit. Laura commented that for women, the means is to be loved and the end is to show love; while for men, the end is to be loved while the means is to love.
Emily brought footnote 48 to our attention, which relates that Wojtyla believes that shame does not arise out of contempt for the human body, but rather out of “respect for the body and for human physical dynamism...[which] attains its full human expression by way of integration with the general dynamism of man....for the dynamisms of the body are not an independent and self-contained phenomenon, but are naturally oriented to serving the good of the integral human person.” The Pope is consistent here in his thread of thinking. Emily also remarked that this section deals with modesty in a way that can appeal to all religions. In our society (e.g., the fashion world), preaching modesty can be a challenge. We need to explain to young girls how to interact. Becky added that some young girls don’t realize that they are being looked at as an object. Rose Mary pointed out that we must show that there are other ways to be attractive, with dignity. AnaMaria added that charity comes into play on the woman’s part — since we know that men are more visual, we shouldn’t provoke. Dawn brought up a fine line of balance — when you make a woman entirely responsible for whether she is attracting a man — it works both ways, and both are responsible. Sean remarked that we dwell too much in our culture on the issue of consent. While this is an important issue, it can’t cover the entire spectrum of how we should relate to each other. It’s about more than gaining permission — we are not talking property rights, but rather the dignity of a person. Society has stretched “consent” farther than what it can cover.
“The spontaneous need to conceal mere sexual values bound up with the person is the natural way to the discovery of the value of the person as such.... It is a matter of not just protecting but of revealing the value of the person, and of doing so in the context of the sexual values which are simultaneously present in a particular person.... (In the woman, it expresses itself like this: ‘You must not touch me, not even in your secret carnal thoughts’ and in the man like this: ‘I must not touch her, not even with a deeply hidden wish to enjoy her, for she cannot be an object for use.’) This ‘fear of contact’ which is so characteristic of persons who truly love each other is an indirect way of affirming the value of the person as such, and this as we know is a constituent part of love in the proper, that is the ethical, sense of the word.”
Love, he says, is an interior matter of the soul, not just a physical matter. Here we find the confirmation of the spirituality and “inwardness” of the human person, which detects some evil in all that is not sufficiently “inwardly” felt, or spiritual, but only exterior, physical and irrational. “Given then, that when a man and a woman share an experience of sexual values all these external aspects are conspicuous, while their personal union is as it were hidden within each of them and invisible to anyone from outside, we can see why love, in so far as it is a matter of ‘the body and sex’ needs concealment.”
The Law of the Absorption of Shame by Love & The Problem of Shamelessness (1 November 2001)
Tonight’s discussion focused on pages 181-193. We began with the section “Law of the Absorption of Shame by Love.” By this, Wojtyla means that shame is “swallowed up by love, dissolved in it, so that the man and woman are no longer ashamed to be sharing their experience of sexual values.”
Shame, according to Wojtyla, has a dual significance. It means both the endeavor to conceal sexual values so that they don’t obscure the values of the person, but it also means the longing to experience love. He explains: Love between man and woman develops, as we know, on the basis of sexual values, but in the last resort the attitudes of each of them to the value of the person are the decisive factor, since love is a union of persons.
Wojtyla writes: “To say that love is ‘absorbed’ by love does not mean that it is eliminated or destroyed.... for only where it is preserved intact can love be realized in full.” He explains that shame is the natural form of self-defense for the person against the danger of being used as an object for sexual use. Equally, shame prevents someone from using another as an object.
Only true love, a love which possesses in full the ethical essence proper to it, is capable of absorbing shame. True love is a love in which sexual values are subordinated to the value of the person. The value of the person is dominant, and affirmation of it pervades all the experiences born of man’s natural sensuality or sentiment. True love ensures that these experiences are imbued with the value of the person to such an extent that it is impossible for the will to regard the other person as an object for use.
Given such an attitude, there is no reason for shame, or for concealment of the values of sex, since there is no danger that they might obscure the value of the person.... The need for shame has been absorbed by mature love for a person. "A man and a woman can become ‘one flesh’ — in the familiar words of the Book of Genesis (2:24), with which the Creator defined the essence of marriage — and that oneness will not be a form of shamelessness, but only the full realization of the union of persons, which results from reciprocal conjugal love.”
Sean pointed out that Wojtyla uses the word reciprocal — marriage is not just a mutual agreement for use, but conjugal implies total abandonment of the self to the other — a much deeper mutual gift.
Wojtyla then warns that shame, and its absorption by love, might be treated superficially. “The feeling of shame inspired in one person by sexual desire for another is...blurred in the consciousness, where it coexists with a growing emotional attachment which has the power to liberate the minds of man and woman alike from the feeling of shame. And this emotional-affective process explains the view, so very often expressed or implied, that ‘the emotion (love) itself gives men and women the right to physical intimacy and to sexual intercourse.’”
This is a mistaken view, says Wojtyla, for love as an emotional experience, even if reciprocated, is very far from being the same as love completed by the commitment of the will in a marriage. “The mere elimination of the feeling of shame by some sort of amorous feeling is not enough...” Hence, he says, there is a need to develop sexual shame by education.
Sean described chastity and shame as little no’s always in the context of a bigger yes. Chastity is a way of living where one is open to receiving love — a positive orientation. The wonders and joys of shame could be misunderstood, he said, without that context. Peter pointed out that this is why we love the Pope — he looks at shame, something easily viewed negatively, and instead sees a longing for love, with shame clearing the way for love.
Kevin remarked that the sexual revolution of the 1960s was about getting rid of sexual shame. Why is it, he asked, that some people in certain times and places have a puritanical view vs. a view that says anything goes? Kevin’s theory is that the “anything goes” morality happens when societies become comfortable and secure, as opposed to the difficult times during which protective mechanisms are heightened.
The Problem of Shamelessness
Wojtyla explains that there is a certain relativism about what is shameless, possibly depending on moral culture, external climate, etc. Nevertheless, he says, this does not mean that shamelessness itself is relative. Shame, he says, is “a tendency, uniquely characteristic of the human person, to conceal sexual values sufficiently to prevent them from obscuring the value of person as such.” Besides physical shame (connected to the body), there is emotional shame which endeavors to conceal reactions and feelings in which the habit of regarding “the body and sex” as objects for use is in evidence.
Physical shamelessness is a behavior where the values of sex are given such prominence that they obscure the essential value of the person. Emotional shamelessness is the rejection of that healthy tendency to be ashamed of reactions and feeling which make another person merely an object of use because of sexual values. True emotional shame does not equate to prudery, he clarifies; emotional shame is a healthy reaction. Gerard remarked that for Muslims our physical being is bad, and that notion tends to lead to obsession with sex. They lack an appreciation for the dignity of the human person. Pat remarked that shame is there to protect, until love happens...shame is protecting what is good.
Wojtyla then explains that physical shame is important — especially for women — to conceal (via dress, for example) sexual values from men. On the other hand, emotional shame is important — especially for men — to avoid feelings about using persons as objects for sexual use. One is necessary, he is saying, because the other is a possibility.
Sarah explained how she sees this in her high school classes where she teaches. She sees that some girls put their sexual values on display opening themselves up to be used as objects, later to be hurt emotionally; yet boys expose their emotions without necessarily understanding how those might be interpreted. Kevin remarked that what we tend to overlook is that shame has to be somehow inculcated.
Wojtyla then addresses the problem of pornography in art. He writes:
“An artist communicates in his work his own thoughts, feelings, and attitudes, but his work does not serve only this purpose. It serves the truth, in that it must capture and transmit some fragment of reality in a beautiful way. Aesthetic beauty is the most distinctive characteristic of a work of art. A fragment of reality which artists very frequently try to capture is the love of man and woman.... Art has a right and a duty, for the sake of realism, to reproduce the human body, and the love of man and woman as they are in reality, to speak the whole truth about them.”
Pornography, he continues, is a tendency to accentuate the sexual element when reproducing the human body or human love. This destroys the integral image of the human reality which is love between man and woman. “For the truth about human love consists always in reproducing the interpersonal relationship, however large sexual values may loom in the relationship.”
Self Control and Objectivization (6 December 2001)
Wojtyla begins by reminding us of the cardinal virtue which St. Thomas Aquinas called temperantia -- to moderate the promptings of concupiscence -- as the chaste man is the self-controlled man. "The dignity of the person demands control of concupiscence. If the person does not exercise such control it jeopardizes its natural perfectibility, allows an inferior and dependent part of itself to enjoy freedom of action, and indeed subjects itself to this lesser self." Yet he continues, "Control of concupiscence has as its objective not only the perfection of the person who attempts to achieve it, but also the realization of love in the world of persons, and especially in relations between persons of different sex."
Both sensual excitability and sentimental susceptibility are natural to man, "fundamentally consonant with his nature" and do not contradict the realization of love between a man and a woman. By moderation, we mean the ability to find the 'mean' in the control of sensual excitability and sentimental susceptibility so to avoid danger of exploitation.
The Pope then speaks of "those well-known interior crises in which the person undergoes something like an invasion." He writes, "The person feels the need, natural to a reasonable being, to defend itself against the forces of sensuality and concupiscence, above all because their invasion threatens its natural power of self-determination." Kevin remarked that day to day, we can often feel subjected to images and harsh portrayals, and while we can 'get used to it,' somewhere deep in our minds this strikes us as invasive. Kelly added that it is all about educating your conscience, cultivating your spirit. The true test is what you do when you're faced with it. Sylvia commented that sexually explicit billboards, for example, exploit our natural potential for weakness, our vulnerability.
Virtue can only come from spiritual strength, says Wojtyla. We see the real truth when we put the value of the person, and love, above the values of sex and above the enjoyment associated with them.
Continence is not an end in itself. And 'blind' self-restraint alone is not enough. Peter remarked that John Paul II is reshaping our understanding of the Church's teachings by defining according to what we are 'for' rather than what we are 'against'. Wojtyla continues, there is no valid continence without recognition of the objective order of values: the value of the person is higher than the value of sex. "Therefore," he writes, "the value of the person must 'take command' so to speak of all that happens in a man. When it does, continence is no longer blind. It goes beyond mere self-restraint and interdiction and permits the mind and the will to 'open up' to a value which is both genuine and superior.
Thus, objectivization is closely connected with sublimation." By objectivization Wojtyla means keeping the objective truth of the person in the forefront. The 'why not?' 'because I must not' train of logic is not enough. Only when this value (of the person) takes possession of the mind and the will does the will become calm and free itself from a characteristic sense of loss.
Kevin commented on the theme of puritanism -- the higher class of America tends to be rooted in Anglicanism/puritanism, stemming back to the British aristocracy, Victorian puritanism of 100 years ago where anything sexual was chastised and concealed. Yet the descendents of this same culture are the ones putting up the sexually explicit billboards of today, the ones pushing abortion on the poor. The great grandchildren of the puritans became the sexual revolutionaries, because puritanism was based on a false truth, it was moralistic instead of moral, and this led to its own demise. Sylvia characterized it as a reaction to extremism, feeling repressed vs. freely choosing. Sean referenced the Albigensian heresy, where flesh was considered evil and the spirit good. Here, there was a grotesquery, with no value to the dignity of the human body. Alberto added that the Albigensians tended to view the body and soul separately, a false dichotomy.
Wojtyla then returns to the subject of sentimental desire, which he differentiates from sensual and carnal enjoyment. Sentimental desire is much more about a desire to be close to someone of the other sex. Sean reminded us how earlier in the book Wojtyla explained that sentimentality is not extremely better than sensuality, because sentimentality can be self-reflective, looking for someone to fill a need for your, rather than looking past yourself to the other, for objective good and truth to build a healthy relationship. And yet, Wojtyla says, sentiment may play an important auxiliary role in the whole process of sublimation. He writes:
"The ability to react spontaneously to the value 'human being of the other sex', to 'femininity' or 'masculinity', coupled with a tendency to idealize those values, combine fairly easily in one's reactions with the concept of the person, so that what was a spontaneous process of emotional idealization may cease to centre on the values 'femininity' and 'masculinity' and centre instead on the value of the person, awareness of which simultaneously ripens in the mind as the result of conscious thought. In this way, the virtue of chastity also finds some support in the emotional sphere."
Wojtyla ends on the thought of using the energy latent in sensuality and sentiments to remind you of the value of the person, to shape but not repress your reactions. Alberto remarked that this is what Wojtyla is getting at when he speaks of sublimation: taking energy which could be directed to good or evil, and directing it to something good.
Tenderness and Sensuality (10 January 2002)
In this section, which concludes chapter three, Wojtyla defines tenderness as "the ability to feel with and for the whole person," and calls it an important factor in love. He also explains the connection between tenderness and continence, and he warns how tenderness expressed too early in a relationship may in fact prevent the ripening of a genuine love.
Wojtyla writes, "We feel tenderness for a person .. when we become conscious of the ties that unite us. ... that we can enter into their inner feelings, and experience their state of mind in our own 'interior'. The essence of tenderness is in the tendency to make one's own the feelings and mental states of another. He says, "This tendency seeks outward expression: I feel the need to let the other 'I' know that I take his feelings and his state of mind to hear, to make the other human being feel that I am sharing it all, that I am feeling what he feels." Furthermore, there is a need to actively communicate tenderness, yet "tenderness resides in an inner emotional attitude, not in its outward manifestations, for they can equally well be purely conventional and social." Claire pointed out that some people are naturally warm, like mothers who hug their daughter's girlfriends. Peter added that there are cultural differences as well, joking about a 'Slovakia hugging marathon'.
There is a very clear distinction that needs to be drawn between tenderness and sensuality. Sensuality is naturally oriented towards seeking sexual enjoyment. Tenderness, on the other hand, is not an expression of concupiscence but rather one of benevolence and devotion; its immediate aim is not enjoyment but a feeling of nearness. Also, Lucie pointed out the differences between tenderness and touching - tenderness can be manifested without touching, for example through the tone of voice. Peter added that tenderness is not necessarily something physical but rather the ability to feel for others and to express those feelings.
He continues, "There exists, then a problem of educating tenderness, within the general problem of educating love 'in' man and woman, and consequently 'between' them. This problem is the problem of continence. For tenderness demands vigilance against the danger that its manifestations may acquire a different significance and become merely forms of sensual and sexual gratification." Tenderness, therefore, requires a "perfected inner self-control."
Can we speak of a 'right to tenderness'? Wojtyla poses and answers this question affirmatively, when there is love. He says we all have a right to give and to receive tenderness, but tenderness requires a single criterion, that of love and love of the person. Tenderness, he says, has no raison d'etre outside love. Tenderness also requires a certain firmness and intransigence of will. He adds: We must not forget that love for a human being must also contain certain elements of struggle. Struggle for the beloved human being, and his or her true good.
Wojtyla then applies these observations to the relationships between men and women. He says that love is powered to a great extent by sensuality and sentiment, hence tenderness can easily diverge from love of the person and stray in the direction of sensual or emotional egoism. Furthermore, exterior manifestations of tenderness may create illusions of a love which in reality may not exist. He concludes that if we are to grant men and women the 'right' to tenderness, we must also demand an even greater sense of responsibility. "There undoubtedly exists a tendency ... to enlarge those rights, to seek to enjoy them prematurely when both are only at the stage of the arousal of sentiment, and with it of sensuality, while the objective aspect of love, and the union of persons, are still missing. " Such premature tenderness can destroy love.
Claire pointed out that Wojtyla is saying don't use tenderness until there is true love. Sean brought up the image of Hollywood types who hug instead of shaking hands -- tenderness as a sort of prop, projecting a love that is not really there, so that it becomes something false and negative. "Without the virtue of moderation, without chastity and self-control it is impossible so to educate and develop tenderness that it does not harm love but serves it. ... It is much more a matter of the steady participation of emotion, of a durable commitment to love, for it is this that brings a man and a woman close together, creates an interior climate of 'communicativeness'."
"A great deal of tenderness of this kind is needed in marriage, in that life together in which it is not only a body that needs a body, but a human being that needs a human being. ... Both in the woman and in the man tenderness creates a feeling of not being alone, a feeling that her or his whole life is equally the content of another and very dear person's life. This conviction very greatly facilitates and reinforces their sense of unity."
Wojtyla proceeds to explain why he has embarked on a discussion of tenderness within a chapter on continence. There is in fact a close connection between tenderness and continence -- there can be no genuine tenderness without a perfected habit of continence -- continence to overcome the temptation merely to enjoy. True love, a union of persons, may develop from the very same raw material as the semblance of love which merely masks an inner attitude of egoism that is contrary to love. Continence, says Wojtyla, liberates us from this attitude and indirectly creates love.
Sean remarked that while tenderness can exist without chastity, chastity/continence helps channel the tenderness in a positive direction, to a genuine love, instead of sentimentality or worse. Lucie observed that the notion of continence is in fact a broader notion than chastity. Yet chastity is self-moderation, pureness of heart, but not necessarily abstention (i.e., chastity within marriage).
He concludes: Love between man and woman cannot be built without sacrifices and self-denial. We find the formula for this renunciation in the Gospel, in the words of Christ. "Whoever would follow me must first renounce his own self... The Gospel teaches continence as a way of showing love."
Monogamy and the Indissolubility of Marriage (7 February 2002)
In this opening segment of Chapter 4, Justice Toward the Creator, Wojtyla explains why marriages should be monogamous and indissoluble. He cites the personalistic norm (that one should never use another person as merely an object) as the source and foundation of this principle. "If a person can never in any circumstances be a mere object of enjoyment for another person, but can only be the object (or rather the co-subject) of love, the union of man and woman needs a suitable framework, one which permits the full development of the sexual relationship while ensuring the durability of their union. Such a union is, of course, called a marriage."
The principle of the personalistic norm, which "bids us show 'loving kindness', and treat a person in a manner appropriate to his or her essential nature," is fully compatible only with monogamy and the indissolubility of marriage. If a marriage is not based on this principle, it is only or mainly an institutional framework in which a man and woman obtain sexual pleasure, and not a durable union of persons based on mutual affirmation of the value of the person. The group discussed how marriage is not solely for procreation but for the bonding and union between man and wife. Procreation is intertwined with the love of the marriage. Peter added that every marriage is supposed to be fruitful, and if the husband and wife cannot for some reason bear children then they are called to be parents in another sense.
Marriage, the pope explains, is strictly a feature of man's physical and terrestrial existence, so that it is naturally dissolved by the death of one of the spouses; the other is then free to marry someone else. Peter reminded us that marriage is a means of sanctification for oneself and one's spouse -- the goal is to grow in love, to attain heaven to become holy, and to love like God loves.
Christ dealt decisively with the question of monogamy and the indissolubility of marriage. He constantly referred back to Genesis, where marriage as instituted by the Creator was originally strictly monogamous and indissoluble. In the first year of Theology of the Body (original unity of man and woman), the pope explored the question of the Creator's intention of marriage. And in these pages, he writes: "The idea of monogamous marriage which dwelt in the mind and will of the Creator ('... in the beginning it was not so') was distorted by the 'chosen people' as well as others." He continues to explain that the abolition of polygamy and the re-establishment of monogamy and the indissolubility of marriage are a "necessary consequence of the command to love..."
"...if we adhere strictly to the personalistic norm, we must admit that where there are serious reasons (marital infidelity is a particularly serious one) why husband and wife cannot go on living together there is only one possibility - separation, but without dissolution of the marriage itself. Obviously, even separation is an evil ('a necessary evil') if we take the view that marriage is of its nature a lasting union of man and woman."
By email, Father Koterski helped explain what Wojtyla meant by 'a necessary evil.' Father writes: I think that this is a good translation of the point in question. But perhaps a distinction may help here to understand it, namely, the distinction between "doing an evil" and "undergoing an evil". It is never permitted that we deliberately choose to do what is morally evil. But there are times when we need to do actions which have an unfortunate side-effect that we can foresee but do not desire or intend that unfortunate side-effect. In moral theology, this is called "the principle of the double effect." (You may find it helpful to read more about that idea.) I think that this is what is meant here by "necessary evil" -- namely, that separation is not in itself desirable, but it may be necessary in order to do something like saving one spouse from getting beaten by the other spouse."
Wojtyla writes that in their conjugal life a man and a woman unite as person and their union therefore lasts as long as they live. We cannot accept, he says, that their union lasts only as long as the persons themselves wish it to last, for that would be a contradiction of the personalistic norm. They cannot change their mind and cancel the fact that they are objectively united as man and wife. The personalistic norm takes precedence of the will and the decisions of either person. Laura added that even if the two are OK with separating, each is still saying "I give up on you." And that is not affirming the value of the person.
Tata, Luisa's friend visiting from the Philippines, spoke about his own marriage. He said he has been married for 10 years, and while he and his wife have been necessarily separated many times over the years, they have endured with God as the center of their marriage. The common denominator is love, and to nurture love, we need someone in the center of that love, and that is God. Laura commented that this focus on God is not worship of self but worship of Go. Often the husband or wife want too much for themselves, but with God at the center, there is a humility and selflessness that leads to self donation to the spouse. John added that marriage is not two people looking at each other, it's two people looking in the right direction. Peter commented on a book he has just read written by a priest who had served 18 years on the Roman Rota (marriage tribunal). This priest underscored several important points about marriage. He said that not only should we accept that we are imperfect, but it is because we are imperfect that we need marriage as a means of sanctification, as a chance to grow. He cited an example of a wife who endured a difficult marriage and by doing so showed an example of saintliness. Jackie added that graces will come even more if one is serious about being true to the marriage vow.
"The principle of monogamy and the indissolubility of marriage make necessary the integration of love. ... Without integration marriage is an enormous risk." This integration the pope describes is the integration of the components of love, the raw materials as he calls them: the sensual, the psychological and, importantly, the will -- making the decision to love even when the sensuality and emotions are not there. Laura commented that this component of will is necessary for any strong relationship, with family, friends, to encounter conflict and grow together. "A man and a woman whose love has not begun to mature, has not established itself as a genuine union of persons, should not marry for they are not ready to undergo the test to which married life will subject them. This does not, however, mean that their love must have reached full maturity at the moment of marriage, but only that it must be ripe enough for its continued ripening in and through marriage to be ensured."
Father Koterski also summarized the final paragraph of this section: I take the pope to be saying that both sound moral theology (with its source in revelation) and sound moral philosophy (the natural law, the personalist form) require that marriage be monogamous, that marriage may not be polygamous. His point is that revelation makes this perfectly clear, but that even if one did not believe in the truth of revelation, then even human reasoning unaided by faith will still make it clear. Why? Because even unaided human reasoning can see that the value of the person requires that the parties to any marriage be equal. Polygamy, on the other hand, makes one party superior to any one of the several parties of the other sex; the plural parties will not be respected as equals but will be treated as having an importance in proportion to the use they provide to the more important party. But such a utilitarian! evaluation fails to honor the person as person and instead makes the person a mere means to the other's end.
The Value of the Institution of Marriage (21 February 2002)
In this segment, Wojtyla discusses marriage as an institution, something 'instituted', 'established' in accordance with a concept of justice. Although a sexual relationship between a man and woman has an intimate character, the man and woman belong to society and therefore must justify their relationship in the eyes of society -- through the institution of marriage. Peter commented that reading this section on the importance of marriage was a poignant exercise, as the institution of marriage is very much under attack in our society.
Wojtyla describes the family in relation to the institution of marriage. The fruit of the relationship, a child, is also a member of this society, and the birth of the child turns the union of the man and woman based on the sexual relationship into a family. "The family is in itself a small society, and the existence of all large societies -- nation, state, Church -- depends on it. ... The family is the primary institution at the base of our existence as human beings." Sylvia suggested that the community has an interest in marriage because of the children marriages produce. Wojtyla then stresses that while marriage leads to the existence of a family, marriage itself is not as a result absorbed by the family -- it remains distinct and different from the family. Family possesses the structure of society in which the parents exercise authority over the children; marriage, on the other hand, is an interpersonal structure, a union and community of two persons. Luisa summed this up: the sacrament is matrimony, not parenthood.
The inner and essential raison d'etre of marriage is not simply the transformation into a family but the creation of a lasting union between a man and woman based on love. A marriage which through no fault of the spouses is childless nevertheless retains its full value as an institution. "No doubt a marriage serves love more fully when it serves the cause of existence, and develops into a family. This is how we should understand the statement that procreation is the principal end of marriage. But a marriage which cannot fulfill that purpose does not lose its significance as an institution of an interpersonal character." Sylvia commented that our traits of being human blossom when we bring souls into the world. Children give us greater insight to what God is like; through children, people can experience unconditional love.
The institution of marriage is important because it provides a justification for a sexual relationship between a man and woman in society. "The 'love' which psychologically is for both of them the justification and legitimation of their relationship must also gain acceptance by other people. ... Marriage signifies the maturity of the union between a man and a woman, to testify that theirs is a love on which a lasting union and community can be based." The framework of marriage ensures that the partners treat each other as persons. Extra-marital sexual relationships immediately place one person as an object of use by the other. "A 'marital' sexual relationship outside the framework of marriage is always objectively a wrong done to the woman. Always -- even when the woman consents to it and indeed even when she herself actively desires and seeks it." For this reason, he continues, adultery in the broadest sense is always wrong, and pre-marital and extra-marital relationships are always morally bad.
Jonelle commented that marriage is especially important to women, but single women in a relationship are afraid to bring up marriage because society feels that the man should 'pop the question.' The woman stays quiet and submissive, afraid he might leave if she says something. Sean commented that in recent decades, the respect for the husband and the father has declined. Being a husband and father used to define manhood; yet now we are assaulted with messages that the head of the household is evil and controlling. Public service ads on child abuse always bash the father of a nuclear family. Sylvia remarked that women have lost their sense of self-respect and modesty -- society says that unless you are sexy you are not a woman. In 19th century literature, a wonderful, attractive woman was a pure woman.
Laura added that some men don't want responsibility -- they want to love promiscuously, easy come/easy go, and with someone virtuous, they know they can't escape easily. Laura remarked that responsibility and virtue have to be considered admirable qualities. Janet Smith writes that in a relationship outside of marriage there is something being withheld, there is a lack of a formal commitment, and the body language is, as a result, a lie; people are reduced to objects.
There is also a need to justify sexual relations between a man and a woman in the eyes of God the Creator. Man differs from other creatures in that he at once realizes he is his own property and the property of the Creator. The effect of marriage is to make each person in some way the property of the other, thus requiring justification of the relationship in the eyes of the Creator. Sean added that never are we more an icon of God than when we are creating.
According to the Church, marriage has been a sacrament from the beginning, ever since the creation of the first human couple. "It is not enough for a woman and a man to give themselves to each other in marriage. If each of these persons is simultaneously the property of the Creator, He must also give the man to the woman and the woman to the man, or at any rate approve the reciprocal gift of self implicit in the institution of marriage." We learned from the Gospels that man obtains grace through the sacraments administered by the Church, which was endowed by Christ with supernatural authority for this purpose. Thus, only the sacrament of marriage fully justifies the union in the eyes of God.
Procreation and Parenthood (7 March 2002)
A marriage is a "durable institution which forms the framework for the lifelong coexistence of a man and a woman" including acts of an economic, cultural, or religious character that combine to create a "rich and multifaceted communal life." Yet a married couple's sexual relations are especially important because they directly affect the development of love between persons. Each and every sexual act must have its own internal justification, Wojtyla says, for unless justice is done there can be no question of a union of persons. A whole number of factors can degrade the act of mutual love to a utilitarian level; it is in this context perhaps more than in any other, Wojtyla advises, that people must show responsibility for their love.
In this segment, Wojtyla returns to a discussion of the order of nature, which he says is above all, that of existence and procreation. "Sexual intercourse, on all occasions, is in the nature of things affected in one way or another by its primary purpose, procreation….the marital relationship is therefore not just a union of persons, a reciprocal relationship between a man and a woman, but is essentially a union of persons affected by the possibility of procreation." Thus, in the sexual relationship between a man and a woman, two orders meet: The order of nature, which has as its object reproduction, and the persona order, aimed at the fullest realization of love between persons.
We cannot separate these two orders; in fact, one depends on the other. "Sexual relations between a man and a woman in marriage have their full value as a union of persons only when they go with conscious acceptance of the possibility of parenthood. This is a result of the direct synthesis of the natural and personal order." Sean added that we make a big mistake if we think that our bodies are something we have vs. who we are. Who we are is the hallmark/the icon of the Creator.
Therefore, when a man and woman have intercourse, their union must be accompanied by an awareness that they may become parents. Sexual union is only raised to the level of the person when it is accompanied in the mind and will by the acceptance of the possibility of parenthood. If the possibility of parenthood is deliberately excluded, the relationship changes from mutual love to bilateral enjoyment, incompatible with the personalistic norm.
Some say man should not subordinate himself to nature. Wojtyla responds by stating that "nature cannot be conquered by violating its laws." Man cannot triumph over nature through violence (the violence being the violation of the other person by making it an object of enjoyment rather than an object of love). He concludes: acceptance of the possibility of procreation in the marital relationship safeguards love and is an indispensable condition of a truly personal union. And he adds, "There is a fundamental contradiction between 'loving' and 'using' a person."
Wojtyla then clarifies that marital sexual intercourse does not need to have procreation as its end. He says, "We cannot demand of the spouses that they must positively desire to procreate on every occasion when they have intercourse…. Marriage is an institution which exists for the sake of love, not merely for the purpose of biological reproduction. Marital intercourse is in itself an interpersonal act, an act of betrothed love, so that the intentions and attention of each partner must be fixed on the other, upon his or her true good. They must not be concentrated on the possible consequences of the act, especially if that would mean a diversion of attention from the partner…. It is sufficient to say that 'in performing this act we know that we may become parents and we are willing for that to happen." Peter observed that there are two dangers, first using a spouse as a means of enjoyment, and second, having children as the sole aim, rather than the union of love.
Wojtyla writes about natural family planning: man, as an intelligent creature, can arrange things such that sexual intercourse does not result in procreation, by having intercourse during fertile periods and abstaining during infertile periods. This is in accord with the laws of nature, whereas artificial means of birth control deprive conjugal relations of their naturalness. As long as a husband and wife do not use artificial means to prevent procreation, they are accepting in their consciousness and will the possibility of parenthood.
Peter commented that the Church advocates 'responsible parenthood' -- we are not supposed to have as many children as physically possible, but we are to approach the question with generosity. He added that from his conversations with non-contracepting couples, NFP is not easy -- the temptation to use contraception is always there. But to answer the question of why not birth control, one simple answer is that it is degrading to women. Tata added that Wojtyla's message is very simple: we are all part of nature, nature procreates, but we are men and women, and there are emotions and will involved. There is now something called responsibility that enters the picture. We use reason to be more responsible and break nature.
The group discussed the effect of contraception on couples. John suggested that it could be manifested in a consumerist mentality. Sarah said that since they are hiding from each other, there has to be some effect. Ed added that NFP couples have a negligible divorce rate. Laura agreed, adding that a 'bad seed is bound to have consequences.' Contracepting couples are withholding from each other, not giving freely. Peter reflected upon a message of Fr. Doyle, who said that temptation is not necessarily a choice between something good and something bad, but something good and something better; in other words, people who are contracepting could have better relationships. Juan echoed Janet Smith, saying 'if I am in love with my wife, I want another just like her.' Juan spoke of the young people in his neighborhood who are especially wounded by their sexual conduct outside of marriage. The women, he said, are so damaged that they no longer believe there is a love that IS true and holy and honorable.
Wojtyla concludes this section by saying, "Man must reconcile himself to his natural greatness." Especially when man immerses himself in the natural order, he must not forget that he is a person: instinct alone will not suffice, and he must make decisions based on his interior self, his reason and his sense of responsibility. "Willingness for parenthood is an indispensable condition for love."
Periodic Continence: Method and Interpretation (21 March 2002)
To hear an audio recording of Nona Aguilar’s talk on “How Natural Family Planning Enriches Married Life” and, one could add, “...How Children Enrich Families and Our World,” click here. Nona is author of the book, “The New, No-Pill, No-Risk Birth Control,” which is available through Amazon.com. You must have RealPlayer installed to hear the recording. Click here to download a copy of RealPlayer, if necessary (please note there is a free RealPlayer Basic version of the software available).
The Concept of “Justice Towards the Creator” (4 April 2002)
In this section, Wojtyla address the justification of the whole sexual behavior of man in the eyes of God. He explains:
“Justice is universally recognized as a cardinal and fundamental virtue, since without it human beings can have no ordered communal life. When we speak of justice towards God we are saying that He too is a Personal Being, with whom man must have some sort of relationship. Obviously this position presupposes a knowledge and understanding of the rights of God on the one hand and the duties of man on the other.
“God is Creator and man is His creature. The ‘essences of all creatures derive from Him and reflect the eternal thoughts and plans of God.’ Faith founded on revelation discloses to us that God is Redeemer, and God sanctifies man by Grace. The personalistic norm has its fullest justification and ultimate origin in the relationship between God and man. This is exemplified in the commandment to love: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy mind and all thy soul, and thy neighbor as thyself.’”
Luisa commented that if we do love the Lord this way, we can become the true persons we were created to be and can judge lovingly, in our completeness (but we must be in union with the Creator to judge lovingly). Emily added, if someone insults you, what do you do? We are called to love as He loved. Tata observed that in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus asked: How can you love me if you don’t love your neighbor, and He said: Make peace with your enemy. Juan brought up the passage in John which says “you’re a liar if you say you love God and not your enemy.” Laura added that this is impossible without God. Emily said that this is where love and mercy come in. We don’t deserve to be forgiven. Love (with mercy) is more than justice.
True religion consists in justice towards God. Man is fully aware of God’s love, understands God’s claim on his person, and sees the extent of human obligation towards God. “Man is just towards God the Creator when he recognizes the order of nature and conforms to it in his actions.” We have an obligation towards God. Peter remarked how this is manifested through our daily spiritual life. No one has more responsibility than the Pope, Peter said, yet he finds time to pray throughout the day. Sean quipped that he gets to pray on the job. Laura remarked that we have so many distractions today, so it is not always easy to see God’s love. This is why we really need prayer time, to pull away a little.
But “man, by understanding the order of nature and conforming to it in his actions, participates in the thought of God, becomes particeps Creatoris,” and shares in His laws. Sean remarked that justice means giving someone their due, while love means more than this. Juan added that justice can be seen on a legalistic level, but love intensifies justice because it is personal, not just legalistic.
Alberto said that this brings to mind the whole question of the dignity of man. Justice presupposes that you are respecting a person for what they are. If you recognize the true person, justice would be very demanding. Anushree added that even giving a person his due can be very demanding and can require love, e.g., dealing with a difficult person at work. You must think: I love God, so I’ll give you your due.
Justice towards the Creator comprises two elements: 1) obedience to the order of nature and 2) emphasis on the value of the person. Wojtyla concludes: “Man can only be just to God the Creator if he loves his fellows.”
This principle has special relevance to the conjugal and sexual life of men and women. It is impossible for a man and woman to behave with justice towards God if they do not respect the personalistic norm towards each other. “Justice towards the Creator therefore demands above all respect on man’s part for the personal order. And love is a very specific manifestation of that order, reflecting in a special way the essential nature of God... ‘God is Love’. (John, 4:8)”
Sean suggested that there is a natural form of justice and also a supernatural form, which involves self-giving love. If we don’t realize this dimension, he said, we’re selling ourselves short.
Wojtyla explains that in the natural world, sex is connected with reproduction, but because men and woman are persons, they consciously take part in the work of creation. For this reason, it is impossible to compare marital life with the sexual life of animals which is completely governed by instinct. Justice towards the Creator is inseparable from responsibility for love; this makes necessary the institution of marriage. “A man and woman fulfill their obligations to God the Creator only when they raise their relationship to the level of love, to the level of a truly personal union.” Only then are they truly particeps Creatoris. He concludes: “Unwillingness for parenthood in a man and a woman deprives sexual relations of the value of love, which is a union on the truly personal level, and all that remains is the sexual act itself, or rather reciprocal sexual exploitation.”
Mystical and Physical Virginity (18 April 2002)
Wojtyla begins by reasserting that: “...justice to the Creator is done when reasonable creatures acknowledge His supreme rights both in the sphere of nature and in the sphere of the person and adapt their behavior to them.” He continues, “The rights of the Creator over the creature are very extensive: it is in its entirety the property of the Creator, for even beings who have themselves ‘created’ depend upon existence: if the creature did not exist its own creative activity would be impossible.” Man then concludes that “if I want to be completely just to God the Creator, I must offer him all that is in me, my whole being, for He has first claim on all of it.” Peter remarked on a talk given by Fr. Peter Hopkins, in which Fr. Peter emphasized we are on a journey to God. The big picture is the resurrection. We come from God, belong to Him and are on our way towards God.
Christ showed for us that man’s relationship with God must not be based on justice alone. Self-giving has roots in love, not justice. “... love raises man’s relations with God to a higher level than mere justice could. Justice is not at all concerned with the unification of persons, whereas love aims precisely at this.”
“When the relationship of man to God is understood in this way the idea of virginity acquires its full significance. ‘Virgin’ means ‘untouched’ — we speak in this sense of a virgin forest, for instance. Applied to a man or a woman ‘virgin’ means untouched, intact from the sexual point of view.... Sexual intercourse destroys this physical virginity.... When a woman gives herself to a man in marital intercourse, this gift must have the full value of betrothed love. The woman ceases to be a ‘virgin’ in the physical sense.... We see then the possibility of betrothed and requited love between God and man: the human soul, which is the betrothed of God, gives itself to Him alone. This total and exclusive gift of self to God is the result of a spiritual process which occurs within a person under the influence of Grace. This is the essence of mystical virginity — conjugal love pledged to God Himself.”
Wojtyla explains that physical virginity or celibacy is not the essence of virginity. Physical virginity is a factor favoring spiritual virginity, and also the result of this. It is possible to remain physically virgin without ever becoming spiritually virgin.
“The celibacy of priests in the Catholic Church is a special phenomenon.... Priestly celibacy, which goes so closely with dedication to the business of the kingdom of God on earth, asks to be reinforced by spiritual virginity, although the sacrament of Holy Orders can be taken by people who have previously been married.”
“Man has an inborn need of betrothed love, a need to give himself to another. The purely negative fact of not belonging to another can be taken as indicating at least the possibility of giving oneself to God.... The man who chooses virginity chooses God. This does not however, mean that in choosing marriage he renounces God for a human being.... Considered in the perspective of the person’s human existence, marriage is only a tentative solution of the problem of a union of persons through love.
Emily commented on an encyclical of Pius XII who wrote that the relation between spouses is not one of lust but they should help each other get to heaven. Marriage is not second class. Spouses are there to help each other in perfection. Peter added that married love is a symbol of God’s love for us. Sylvia remarked that marriage is an opportunity to practice heroic virtues — fidelity, loyalty, unconditional love, creating new life and helping them on the road to God. Emily brought to mind the scene in “The Sound of Music” where the Mother Superior tells Maria: loving this man doesn’t mean you love God less.
Sean commented that when he read about the superiority of virginity to marriage, he first felt a bit uncomfortable. Paul often equates flesh with sin and spirituality with good, sometimes to an exaggerated extent, but marriage is an icon of God’s love. Jesus says to Thomas, you believe because you have seen; blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. In a sense, married people have a tangible icon of God’s love — it’s hard to love someone who’s not there. Sean concluded that he sees a higher calling in virginity because it is something more difficult.
“The value of virginity, and indeed its superiority to marriage, which is expressly emphasized in the Bible (1 Corinthians 7) and has always been maintained in the teaching of the Church, is to be found in the exceptionally important part which virginity plays in realizing the kingdom of God on earth. The kingdom of God on earth is realized in that particular people gradually prepare and perfect themselves for eternal union with God. In this union the objective development of the human person reaches its highest point. Spiritual virginity, the self-giving of a human person wedded to God Himself, expressly anticipates this eternal union with God and points the way towards it.”
Peter described the themes of the play written by Karol Wojtyla called “The Radiation of Fatherhood.” Many people choose loneliness over giving, though we’re not meant to be lonely; these themes are at the core of Love and Responsibility. The play ends:
“And everything else will then turn out to be unimportant and inessential except this: father, child, and love. And then, looking at the simplest things, we will all say, Could we have not learned this long ago? Has this not always been embedded in everything that is?”