“In response to the dualistic vision of the person
(separation of mind and body) spawned primarily by Rene Descartes, Wojtyła’s
second book, The Acting Person (1969), argues that persons act as an
integrated, unified being …”.
Charles Dern
John
Paul II’s “Triptych” of the Human Person
This article focuses on the
first part of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body which broadens
the vision of humanity from not just this life (historical man), but to what
God intended for man before the Fall (original man), as well as what God has in
store for those who love Him (eschatological man).
Pope John Paul
II; “Original Man” Adam being created; “Historical Man” in utero;
and
“Eschatological Man” entering eternity.
We have good news! The rich
teaching of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body (TOB) is beginning to filter
into seminaries, undergraduate theology courses, and into
specialized seminars. But despite this good news, many of today’s
priests, deacons, and religious likely were educated before the insights from
the TOB were integrated into various seminary and monastic programs.
Adding to this problem is that the TOB was originally delivered as a
series of talks, with its style complicating and confounding what the late
Pontiff was trying to communicate. This problem is unfortunate (but not
insurmountable) because his Theology of the Body is essentially a series of
reflections on scripture passages, many of which appear in the regular Sunday
reading cycles. Given that most lay adults receive what precious little
instruction they do through Sunday homilies, they may be missing out on some
very profound insights that counteract utilitarian views of the person, and
misunderstandings of marriage, that so pervade contemporary society.
John Paul II began his work
for the Theology of the Body in the early 1970s as a book project when he was
still Cardinal Karol Wojtyła. As an academic philosopher, Wojtyła concerned
himself in particular with the philosophical question of what it means to be a
human person.
In addition to a number of
articles, Wojtyła published two books on this subject. His earlier
work, Love and Responsibility (1960), examines the nature of
human love—and by implication, Divine Love—and concludes that love’s very
essence includes both communion (gift of self to the other, such as occurs in
the Trinity)—and creativity (an outpouring of something new from the communion,
such as God’s outpouring of Love in creation). …. In response to the
dualistic vision of the person (separation of mind and body) spawned primarily
by Rene Descartes, Wojtyła’s second book, The Acting Person (1969),
argues that persons act as an integrated, unified being. ….
This article focuses on the
first part of his Theology of the Body which, “takes a step back” as it were,
and broadens the vision of humanity from not just this life (historical man),
but to what God intended for man before the Fall (original man), as well as
what God has in store for those who love Him (eschatological man). The
three reflections are likened to a “Triptych” or three-panel painting in which
all three sections are required to see the whole picture. This stands in
contrast to the sciences that tend to analyze the person only in a single
dimension (e.g., biology), and contemporary philosophies, that look at this
life only (e.g., existentialism). These approaches offer what John Paul
II calls an “inadequate anthropology” of the human person.
Original Man
Reflections on “original man”
in JP II’s theological study on the human being, begins by examining Mathew
19:3-8, when the Pharisees question Jesus about the permissibility of divorce.
…. Christ answers that divorce was not in God’s original plan for
man and woman. He then buttresses his answer in two very significant
ways. First, he quotes key passages from each of the two creation
accounts in Genesis (the Creator “made them male and female” and “the two shall
become one flesh”). Second, Jesus starts and ends His response to
the Pharisees by referring to “the beginning”. This exchange asserts that
there was a time (“the beginning”) in which humans did
not need divorce, just as the Creator intended.
Here, John Paul II finds that
by studying humanity in the original state intended by God, one can understand
more deeply what it means to be human.
Original Solitude – Human
Subjectivity
Even though the only “data”
available are the two Genesis creation accounts, John Paul II extracts multiple
insights. The first insight is that humans are God’s special crown of visible
creation. This idea is not new, yet many do not understand deeply enough
why and how the human person is extraordinarily special. Only then can we
understand why divorce, sexual acts outside of heterosexual marriage, and even
artificial contraception intrinsically assault the dignity due every human
being.
The foremost, and best-known,
feature that makes humans special, with respect to the rest of creation, is
that God created us in his image and likeness (Gen 1:27). This concept
alone is sufficient to ground human dignity, but also strengthened by related
insights. John Paul II states that humanity’s unique position is
delineated further by being set apart in the creation cycle: “man by contrast,
is not created according to a natural succession, but the Creator seems to halt
{in Gen. 1:27} before calling him to existence, as if he entered back into
himself to make a decision….”
….
Immediately after creating man
and woman, God blesses and commands them to be fertile, till the earth, and
have dominion over all plants and animals. These commands further
distinguish humanity from the remainder of creation:
“Already in the light of the
Bible’s first sentences, man can neither be understood nor explained in his
full depth with the categories taken from the ‘world’….” …. The depth
described here by John Paul II is the “subjectivity” (or personhood) of
humans. In other words, humans share materiality with the “world” in our
composition and general physical structure, but humans are not mere objects for
use (even responsible use) and, thus, have an inherent right to dignity and
respect, or in other words, they must always be treated with love.
The second creation account
(Gen 2:4b ff.) further affirms human subjectivity because only “man”: 1)
directly receives the Lord’s “breath of life;” 2) is given charge of the Garden
of Eden; and, 3) receives the moral command to avoid eating the fruit from the
tree of knowledge of good and evil. Death is the outcome for eating this
fruit. John Paul II notes that the consequence of death is “a radical
antithesis of all that man had been endowed with.” …. In other words,
before the Fall (“the beginning”), all of creation still is perfectly
“good,” or “full of life,” as God intended. There was no death, let alone
the experience of death. But man alone, because of his subjectivity, has
a capacity for some understanding of this outcome.
Original Unity – The Communion
of Persons
The second insight is that
humans can and need to commune with others. This is a
defining feature of subjectivity that we equate here with “personhood.”
Thus, it is significant that the Lord himself speaks the words: “It is
not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). John Paul II calls the
man’s state, before the creation of the woman, “original solitude,” which is a
quality unique to subjects who can say: “I.” As a first remedy to the
man’s solitude, the Lord creates the various animals, telling the man to name
them. In so doing, the man again distinguishes himself from them as being
a totally different creature. Because the man literally occupies a whole
different plane of existence from the animals, as Genesis 2:20 tells us: “none
proved to be a suitable partner for the man.”
The Lord then puts the man into a “deep sleep” or “torpor.”
John Paul II takes Genesis
2:21 to mean more than mere sleep “but a specific return to non-being … in
order that the solitary “man” may, by God’s creative initiative, reemerge from
that moment in his double unity as male and female.” …. Upon
awakening, the man immediately recognizes that the woman is “a help like unto
himself.” He can relate to her in ways that are completely unique, unlike
his relationship with any other creature. John Paul II calls the man’s
recognition of the possibility of communio with the woman
“original unity.” (John Paul II also notes that the joy evident in the words:
“This at last …” further demonstrates the subjectivity of the man (and by
extension, the woman) given that joy is an emotion proper only to
persons.) ….
Returning to the dialogue
between Jesus and the Pharisees in Mathew 19, it is very significant that Jesus
himself quotes the next verse from Genesis: “For this reason a man will
leave his father and his mother and unite with his wife, and the two will be
one flesh. So, it is that they are no longer two, but one flesh.” ….
It is not merely the physical complimentarily of man and woman that enables the
two to become “one flesh,” animals can express this complimentarity just as
well. Rather, the physical complimentarily, combined with
human subjectivity, makes marriage possible between man and woman. They then
engage in not only a physical act, but a personal act, a communio
personarum, or communion of persons. For John Paul II, “‘Communio’ says
more {than ‘community’} and with greater precision, because it
indicates precisely the ‘help’ that derives in some way from the very fact of
existing as a person ‘beside’ a person.” ….
This unity is even more deeply
significant when we consider our relationship with God. We know that
humans are already the image of God by virtue of our individual subjectivity,
but we recall that God has revealed himself as Triune; that is, God is his
own communio personarum (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).
Thus, “man became the image
of God, not only through his own humanity, but also through the communion of
persons … He is, in fact, ‘from the beginning’ … essentially the image
of an inscrutable divine communion of Persons … This … constitutes perhaps the
deepest theological aspect of everything one can say about man.” …. This
idea has profound significance for married love.
St. John of the Cross (on whom
Wojtyła wrote his theology dissertation) describes love as a cycle of self-gift
between persons. …. In 1 John 4:8, it tells us that God is Love and,
therefore, we can consider the Trinity—the eternal and infinite self-giving of
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to each other—as the paradigm for loving
another. We also realize that if humans are made in God’s image, then a
man and woman in marriage can most closely approximate the love within the
Trinity, as the married man and woman fulfill the Creator’s intention for the
“two becoming one flesh” by becoming a total and complete self-gift to each
other. ….
It also follows that this
total and complete gift of body and soul is possible only in a monogamous
heterosexual marriage. Other “unions” (e.g., polygamy, polyandry, and
same-sex couples) contravene the Creator’s intention. Non-contracepted, conjugal
acts are the fullest possible embodied expression of the communion
personarum. Only these acts permit the possibility of total self-gift
and total receptivity, including the potential for becoming a parent through
one’s spouse.
We can now see why, when a
true covenantal marriage exists, divorce inherently opposes the Creator’s
plan.
The gift of self in marriage
certainly extends far beyond the conjugal act, and true love exists within a
marriage covenant, where each promises the total self to the other “until
death.” Therefore, to divorce one’s spouse is to break this covenant,
treating the spouse, and the covenant, as something disposable that served its
use for a time.
Original Nakedness and
Original Shame
The teaching against divorce
can be very difficult to live in contemporary society. Theologically,
part of the reason for this difficulty is the existence of original sin, which
separates humans from the “original” state to the present “historical” state.
Genesis 2:25 (“The man and woman were naked, yet they felt no shame”) reveals
another important reason why no divorce existed “in the beginning.” John
Paul II explains:
Genesis 2:25 certainly speaks
about something extraordinary that lies outside the limits of shame known by
human experience, and that is decisive for the particular fullness of
interpersonal communication … In such a relationship, the words “they did not
feel shame” can only signify … an original depth in affirming what is inherent
in the person … To this fullness of “exterior” perception, expressed by
physical nakedness, corresponds the “interior” fullness of the vision
of man in God, according to the image of the Creator. ….
In other words, the Creator
meant for us to see each other as he sees us; specifically, spouses are meant
to “know” each other in the total personhood of body and spirit. Before
the Fall, no break existed between what can be known about the person via the
senses, and his or her spirit “hidden” within.
After the Fall, the man and
the woman suddenly realize that they are naked. The words of Genesis 3:7
“reveal a certain constitutive fracture in the person’s interior, a
breakup, as it were, of man’s original spiritual and somatic unity.” ….
John Paul II calls this
experience “original shame,” which is a human attribute retained in our present
historical state.
The Fall has made it difficult
for humans to see the totality of other persons, and this difficulty is most
acutely evident within the often broken relationships between men and women.
Historical Man – The Problem
of Adultery
John Paul II begins his
reflection on the second part of the triptych—historical man—by considering our
reductive view of each other. Here, the Pope again begins with Christ’s
words: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’
But I say to you: Whoever looks at a woman to desire her {in a reductive way}
has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Mt.
5:27-28). ….
Never one to miss an
opportunity to reaffirm man’s subjectivity, John Paul II quickly notes that
“looking to desire” (lusting) is clearly an interior act that only humans, and
not animals, can do. 17 Even more important is
the radical way in which Christ addresses his audience, which would have
understood adultery as a mere right of property for a man over his wife, and,
therefore, as merely sin of the body. In contrast, “the effective necessity
of monogamy as an essential and indispensable implication of the
commandment ‘You shall not commit adultery’ never reached the
consciousness and ethos of the later generations of the Chosen People.” ….
Christ’s words remind us that
the root sin of adultery is not a property issue. Rather, adultery breaks the
personal covenant between the man and the woman, and is the antithesis of
conjugal faithfulness, a “good which can only be adequately realized in the
exclusive relation between the two (that is, in the spousal relationship
between one man and one woman).” ….
If the conjugal act between
spouses is a “truthful sign” of covenantal love in what John Paul II calls “the
spousal meaning of the body,” then in contrast, the sin of adultery (or
extra-marital sex of any kind) is the absence of the
possibility of communio. Now instead of promising the
unity of body, mind, and soul exclusively to each other in full personhood, the
adulterous couple ruptures the unity that accompanies participation in the most
deeply personal human activity: sexuality. In the process, the couple
essentially commits a lie with their bodies, because no marriage covenant is
present to protect the full personhood of either party, and of any children who
might be conceived between them. ….
Even “looking to desire” (as
opposed to a completed act of adultery) detaches the spousal meaning from the
body, and from the person as a whole. Such an act conflicts with the
person’s inherent dignity by removing “the reciprocal existence of man and
woman from the personal perspectives ‘of communion’” and reduces
the person “toward utilitarian dimensions, in whose sphere of influence one
human being ‘makes use’ of another human being …” …. Such a reduction is
again “an inadequate anthropology” because its incomplete foundation
is a false understanding about the meaning of a human person, and in
particular, an embodied human person who is male or female.
John Paul II sees Christ’s
teaching about adultery not so much as accusing the “heart,” but
rather as calling us to something higher in which we live the original unity
described in Genesis, as much as possible, in our fallen state. Jesus’
teaching often is criticized for being a return to Manichaeism, which condemns
the body as “evil.”
Instead, however, the teaching
on adultery calls humans to consider each other as gifts in their entire
personhood, both interior and exterior, as the unity of body, mind, and
soul. This is possible through Christ’s “redemption of the body,” which allows
us to regain, among other things, “a clear sense of the spousal meaning of
the body” …. that is, what it really means to “know” another within
the realm of marital love.
In summary, historical man
(that is, each of us on this earthly journey) is called to exercise
“self-dominion” in which he “fulfills what is essentially personal in him.” …. When
we practice moral virtues, such as temperance and purity, we
actually become more human, or perhaps better put, more in the image of
God. Through the grace of Jesus Christ, we become integrated persons, who
more successfully fight the “battles” that want to split the spirit
and the flesh.
Eschatological Man
Thus far, we have considered humans as God first intended (original
man), and humans as we are (historical
man). To complete the picture of what it means to be human, John Paul II
considers “heavenly” or eschatological man, the third panel of the
Triptych. Whereas the Pharisees’ question concerning divorce was the
impetus for reflecting upon original man, reflections upon eschatological man
originate from the Sadducees’ question concerning marriage in heaven.
In Mark 12:20-27, the
Sadducees seek to trick Jesus with a question concerning levirate marriage. …. In
that time, if a Jewish woman was widowed and childless, then the
brother of the deceased husband was bound to take her as a wife and try to
provide an heir. If hypothetically, this happens “seven” times, then the
Sadducees, who did not believe in an afterlife, want to know whose wife this
repeatedly widowed woman will be after the resurrection. As he often did,
Jesus rejects his questioners’ premises, re-directing the conversation to
address more important topics.
The last part of his answer
reminds us that God is the God of the living, not the dead (verses
26-27). The first part points out that those who rise from the dead
“neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like angels in heaven”
(verse 25). John Paul II notes that Christ’s answer tells us that
“Marriage and procreation do not constitute man’s eschatological future.
In the resurrection they essentially lose their raison d’être.” ….
Although resurrected bodies
will retain their maleness or femaleness, there will be “a spiritualization
that is different from that of earthly life (and even different from
that of the very ‘beginning’).” …. This new spiritualization will mark
freedom from the “opposition” of mind and body, and a return to a perfecting
harmony between the two. It will be a realization “of God’s
self-communication in his very divinity, not only to the soul, but to
the whole of man’s psychosomatic subjectivity” ... that is, to the
whole person consisting of integrated body and soul.
But what of the “spousal
meaning of the body” that predominates when considering man’s original and
historical state? Recall that for John Paul II, the body is “spousal”
because it enables man and woman to give themselves completely to each other in
the totality of their humanity (physical as well as spiritual). In the
resurrection, one will be in complete and total self-gift to God with “a
love of such depth and power of concentration on God himself … that
it completely absorbs the person’s whole psychosomatic subjectivity …
a concentration that cannot be anything but full participation in
God’s inner life, that is, in trinitarian (sic) Reality itself … ” ….
One often hears an emphasis on
the “soul” only as being essential for the afterlife, with the body being an
afterthought that will be “reattached” in the general resurrection.
In contrast, the above concept
reaffirms the body’s enduring importance and integrality for defining a human person.
Instead of the body being, perhaps, a spiritualized appendage to the
resurrected person, John Paul II asserts that we will know God’s love in the
whole of our embodied personhood.
Celibacy for the Kingdom
Finally, the place of celibacy
for the sake of the kingdom also plays an integral part in a proper
understanding of human sexuality. John Paul II returns to the
question of divorce in Mathew 19, specifically the disciples’ reaction to
Jesus’ teaching on chaste married love, which appears so difficult that his
disciples retort that “it is better not to marry.” Jesus notes that “not all
can accept this word” (on marital fidelity) but continues by lauding those who
“have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 19:12). As
with Jesus’ teaching on “adultery in the heart,” one must realize that the
thought of “continence for the kingdom of heaven,” as John Paul II calls it,
was a radical idea to the people of the Old Testament who, because of the words
of Genesis 1:28, saw fertility as a blessing, and childlessness as a curse.
John Paul II states that those
who remain celibate for the sake of the kingdom have a “particular
sensibility of the human spirit that seems to anticipate, already in the
condition of temporality, what man will share in the future
resurrection.” 29 The grace of lifelong celibacy
is an “invitation to solitude for God.” … which never ceases to be
a personal dimension of everyone’s {male or female} nature, a new and
even fuller form of intersubjective communion with others.” ….
Yet, this celibacy does not negate the communio personarum emphasized
as essential for marriage. Instead, celibacy for the sake of the
kingdom allows communio with others that is just as important
and potentially just as (spiritually) fruitful.
Conclusion
This Triptych vision of
“integral humanity” confirms in scripture what Karol Wojtyła sought to work out
philosophically. Explaining this integral humanity, which is the ultimate
thesis of the Theology of the Body, is essential for understanding and opposing
the immorality of artificial contraception and divorce. …. Many
theological arguments favoring contraceptives justify splitting the “spiritual”
needs of spousal unity (i.e., a need for intercourse) from the “merely
physical” problem of spacing births. The use of a device or a biochemical
approach to prevent fertilization is then reduced to a merely physical or
“ontic” evil that must be “weighed” as part of the spouses’ total
situation. …. In the secular world, the primacy of rationality to the
exclusion of embodiedness as integral to the definition of the human person has
lead to the legalization of abortion, and the justification of
embryo-destructive stem cell research.
So how do these three states
of man (original, historical and eschatological) combine to provide a total
picture of what it means to be a human person, and specifically, male and
female persons in marriage? First and foremost, all three states point to
the subjectivity, and the psychosomatic unity, of the human person.
Original man needs his body to perform uniquely human activities (such as
tilling the earth) and continually displays behavior (such as solitude or joy
of unity) that other animals cannot display. Historical man learns that
adultery is not merely a physical act of property violation, but an interior
act as well. Even the commission of “adultery in the heart” assaults
human dignity. Christ’s teaching on the resurrection reiterates the
body’s essentiality to the human person in the afterlife for eschatological
man.
Each part of this Triptych
also contributes essential components to reveal the full meaning of
the human person. Genesis’ description of man’s joy after God created
woman reveals that humans must commune with each other. When a man and
woman marry, they enter a marital covenant that the Creator himself made
possible by creating humanity as “male and female” so that the “two can become
one flesh,” and can emulate, in a special way, the communio personarum of
the Trinity. This vision is vastly richer and deeper than a secular view
that reduces marriage to a couple who ratifies a mere contract that can be
nullified when it no longer fulfills the needs of one or both parties.
The historical perspective
reminds us that our will and reason are darkened by passions that blind us to
the other as God’s intended gift of being fully human. Instead, we often
see others as things to fulfill our own wants and needs. One practical
effect of this fallen nature is to confuse us into accepting evils, such as
artificial contraception, as being “reasonable,” if not “good.” With
God’s grace, however, we can recognize evil when it exists, avoid calling it a
“good,” and pursue true fulfillment.
The eschatological perspective
reminds us that our ultimate purpose is to be united with the Beatific
Vision. In cultures that overemphasize sex as an ultimate good, Christ’s
teaching, that there will be no marriage in heaven, reaffirms the value of
chastity and, especially, the value of lifelong celibacy which anticipates the
kingdom to come.
The Theology of the Body
offers many additional reflections on many other passages of scripture.
As a whole, the Theology of the Body offers a powerful, beautiful, and positive
answer to the many contemporary social problems with sexuality at their
root. John Paul II’s catechesis offers a depth that can fulfill
individuals highly trained in theology and spirituality. Yet,
simultaneously, everyone can benefit from pondering the handful of scriptural
reflections offered here.
