Theology of the Body
Chris West
Mary Shivanandan
Series of Talks 1979-84
Purpose
† Defend Humanae Vitae
† Explaining the importance of the body
to understanding the human person
† Understanding the body as a sign of
transcendent realities
† Helping us understand our vocation in
the world as being made in the image
and likeness of God, as male and
female
Return to Scripture
Likewise let the other theological disciplines
be renewed through a more living contact
with the mystery of Christ and the history of
salvation. Special care must be given to the
perfecting of moral theology. Its scientific
exposition, nourished more on the teaching
of the Bible, should shed light on the
loftiness of the calling of the faithful in Christ
and the obligation that is theirs of bearing
fruit in charity for the life of the world.
(Optatam Totius, 16, 1965)
Christ Reveals Man to
Himself
In reality it is only in the mystery of the
Word made flesh that the mystery of
humanity truly becomes clear. For
Adam, the first man, was a type of him
who was to come, Christ the Lord.
Christ, the new Adam, in the very
revelation of the mystery of the Father
and of his love, fully reveals humanity
to itself and brings to light its very high
calling. (Gaudium et Spes, 22)
Self-Giving
† “If human beings are the only
creatures on earth that God has
wanted for their own sake, they
can fully discover their true selves
only in self-giving” (Gaudium et
Spes, 24)
† “Man must lose himself, to find
himself.” (Luke 17:33)
Matt: 19: 4-8
He said in reply, "Have you not read that
from the beginning the Creator 'made them male
and female' and said, 'For this reason a man
shall leave his father and mother and be joined
to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?
So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
Therefore, what God has joined together, no
human being must separate." They said to him,
"Then why did Moses command that the man
give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss
(her)?" He said to them, "Because of the
hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to
divorce your wives, but from the beginning it
was not so.”
Genesis 1:27, 31
God created man in the image of
himself, in the image of God he
created him, male and female he
created them. God blessed them,
saying to them, “Be fruitful, multiply,
fill the earth and conquer it.”…God
saw all that he had made and indeed
it was very good.
Man Made in the
Likeness and Image of
God
† Rational: thinks, is creative, is
intuitive
† Free: makes free choices, creates
himself and impacts the world
around him
† Relational: is designed to love and
be loved
Powerful Metaphysical
Context
† Man cannot be reduced to
the world.
† Procreation places him in the
world of time and becoming.
† The “goodness” of creation
introduces the notion of
value.
Blessing of Fertility
In the mystery of creation – on the
basis of the original and constituent
“solitude” of his being – man was
endowed with a deep unity between
what is, humanly and through the body,
male in him and what is, equally
humanly and through the body, female
in him. On all this, right from the
beginning, the blessing of fertility
descended, linked with human
procreation (cf. Gn1:28). (TOB, 47)
Genesis 2: 7, 18-19
Yahweh God fashioned man of dust from
the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a
breath of life and thus man became a living
being….Yahweh God said, It is not good
that the man should be alone. I will make
him a helpmate. So from the soil Yahweh
God fashioned all the wild beasts and all
the birds of heaven. These he brought to
the man to see what he would call them;
each one was to bear the name the man
would give it.
Original Solitude
of Adam
Original Solitude
† Names the animals
† dominion
† different
† Self-aware
† Alone
Genesis 2:20-22
But no helpmate suitable for man was
found for him. So Yahweh God made
the man fall into a deep sleep. And
while he slept, he took one of his ribs
and enclosed it in flesh. Yahweh God
built the rib he had taken from the man
into a woman, and brought her to the
man.
safsdfasf
Genesis 2:23
The man exclaimed:
“This at last is bone
of my bone and
flesh from my
flesh!” This is to be
called woman, for
this was taken from
man.
Original Innocence
†The man and his wife
were both naked, yet they
felt no shame.
†They had no disordered
passions.
Original Unity
† Intersubjectivity: They were one in
their thoughts.
† They could participate in the freedom
of the gift.
† They were transparent to each other.
† They were a Communion of Persons.
† They did not use each other.
† They simply delighted in each other.
Nuptial Meaning
of the Body
† The body is an outward SIGN of an
inner reality.
† Adam and Eve were made for each
other.
† They are complete only as a whole.
† We are all meant to give to others
and receive from others.
Key Terms
† Original Solitude
† Original Unity
† Nuptial Meaning of the Body
† Communion of Persons
† Naked without Shame
† Freedom of the Gift
† Language of the Body
† Shame
Original
Sin
Results of
Original Sin
† Disunity/Fragmentation
†Of Man from God
†Of male and female from each
other
†Of the passions within each
person
† Shame
Language
of the Body
Human Sexuality
is a Language
† I want to give myself completely to you
and to receive you as a gift.
† I will respect you as a person.
† I will deserve your trust.
† I will not use or exploit you.
† I will delight in your “otherness”.
† I am willing to be a parent with you.
Need for
Self-Mastery
St Paul
Universal Call
to Holiness
What God wants is for you all to be
holy. He wants you to keep away from
fornication, and each one of you to
know how to use the body that belongs
to him in a way that is holy and
honourable, not giving way to selfish
lust like the pagans who do not know
God. He wants nobody at all ever to sin
by taking advantage of a brother in
these matters. (Thessalonians 4: 3-5)
Christ as
Bridegroom
Celibacy
† …There are eunuchs who were
born thus from their mother’s
womb and there are eunuchs
who have made themselves
eunuchs for the kingdom of
heaven’s sake. He who is able to
accept it, let him accept it. (Matt
19:12)
† For when they rise from the
dead, men and women do not
marry; no, they are like the
angels in heaven. (Mark 12:25)
St. Paul on Celibacy
I would like to see you free from all worry. An
unmarried man can devote himself to the Lord’s
affairs, all he need worry about is pleasing the
Lord; but a married man has to bother about the
world’s affairs and devote himself to pleasing
his wife: he is torn two ways. …I say this only to
help you, not to put a halter round your necks,
but simply to make sure that everything is as it
should be, and that you give your undivided
attention to the Lord. (1 Cor. 7: 32-35)
Continence
for the Kingdom
[Celibacy] is a charismatic sign. The
human being, male and female, who, in the
earthly situation where people marry, freely
chooses continence for the kingdom of
heaven, indicates that in that kingdom,
which is the other world of the
resurrection, people will no longer marry
(Mk 12:25). This is because God will be
“everything to everyone” (1 Cor 15:28).
(TOB, 267)
Celibacy:
Eschatological Sign
Earthly continence for the kingdom of
heaven is undoubtedly a sign that
indicates this truth and this reality. It is
sign that the body, whose end is not the
grave, is directed to glorification.
Already by this very fact, continence
for the kingdom of heaven is a witness
among men that anticipates the future
resurrection. (TOB, 267)
Mystic Marriage
Of St. Catherine
Celibacy: a Spousal
Relationship
…Continence for the sake of the kingdom of
heaven, the choice of virginity or celibacy for
one’s whole life, has become in the
experience of Christ’s disciples and
followers the act of a particular response of
love for the divine Spouse. Therefore it has
acquired the significance of an act of nuptial
love, that is, a nuptial giving of oneself for
the purpose of reciprocating in a particular
way the nuptial love of the Redeemer. (TOB,
282)
Wives be subject to your
husbands, as to the Lord
(Eph. 5:2)
…the author does not intend to say that the
husband is the lord of the wife and that the
interpersonal pact proper to marriage is a
pact of domination of the husband over the
wife. Instead, he express a different concept
– that the wife can and should find in her
relationship with Christ, who is the one Lord
of both the spouses, the motivation of that
relationship with her husband which flows
from the very essence of marriage and of the
family. (TOB, 310)
Mutual Submission
The husband and wife are in fact “subject to
one another,” and are mutually subordinated
to one another. The source of this mutual
subjection is to be found in Christian pietas,
and its expression is love….Love excludes
every kind of subjection whereby the wife
might become a servant or slave of the
husband, an object of unilateral
domination….The community or unity which
they should establish through marriage is
constituted by a reciprocal donation of self,
which is also a mutual subjection. (TOB, 310)
Contraception violates
the Language of the Body
It can be said that in the case of an
artificial separation of these two
aspects, a real bodily union is carried
out in the conjugal act, but it does not
correspond to the interior truth and to
the dignity of personal communion —
communion of persons. This
communion demands that the language
of the body be expressed reciprocally
in the integral truth of its meaning.
Cont.
If this truth be lacking, one cannot
speak either of the truth of self-mastery,
or of the truth of the reciprocal gift and
of the reciprocal acceptance of self on
the part of the person. Such a violation
of the interior order of conjugal union,
which is rooted in the very order of the
person, constitutes the essential evil of
the contraceptive act. (TOB, 398)