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
odominion
odifferent
• 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
o Of Man from God
o Of male and female from each
other
o 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
 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)