Saturday, February 28, 2015
TOB: What is original solitude?
We continue here our explorations
into St. John Paul II’s series of Wednesday Catecheses, which eventually became
known as Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body (TOB,
for short). To see other posts on this topic, click here.
As I wrote in my first
post on this topic, John Paul II’s TOB is often looked at solely
in terms of what it has to say about sex and marriage. This is not without
warrant—indeed, John Paul II placed a great deal of emphasis on marriage and
the family during his papacy—but if looked at only in this light, we miss the
bigger picture. Man and Woman He Created
Them is about, in the simplest terms, what it means to be human—a bodily
creature who comes from and responds to God.
This
method of theological anthropology is evident from the beginning of TOB, After
John Paul II sets up the starting point for his reflections—that is, Jesus’
insistence that we return to “the beginning” in his dialogue with the Pharisees
about divorce—the pope introduces the three “original experiences” based on the
creation accounts in Genesis. These three experiences—solitude, unity, and
nakedness—all help us understand what it is to be both spirit and body. What
does it mean to be in the material world but not entirely of it? There is more
going on in TOB than thoughts on what conjugal love is and means.
This is
reinforced by John Paul II’s reflections on the first of the three original
experiences -- original solitude. Though in the first creation account, male
and female appear simultaneously (“So God created man in his own image, in the
image of God he created him; male and female he created them” Gen 1:27), this
is not the case in the second creation account. Instead we are presented with
Adam, the first human, whose name means something like “humanity.” John Paul II
is careful to note that in this second account, the worlds “male” and “female”
(‘is and ‘issah in the original Hebrew) do not appear until there are two. I’ll
talk about this more when I address original unity, but for now we’ll give our
attention to the solitary Adam.
John
Paul II explains the experience of original solitude in terms of man’s place
and situation in the world—man is neither animal nor pure spirit. As both, man is above the rest of the
creatures. The first indication of this superior place in the created world is
the directive about the garden: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the
garden of Eden to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). Work, then, helps set
humanity apart from everything else in this world; man is the only creature
with the capacity to care for what has been created—to receive it, we can say,
as a gift. This receptivity and capacity
to work, then, is a first step in thinking about original solitude.
 |
| "For to be a farmer's boy" by Winslow Homer is in the Public Domain |
Another
indication of man’s being set apart is the naming of the animals: “out of the
ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air,
and brought them to the man to see what he would call them” (Gen 2:19). This
too is a form of dominion—to name something is to see and understand its
essence; no other creature in the world has been given this task and privilege.
Though
this multi-faceted dominion is clearly a gift for and to man, making it clear
that the earth is for him, it also
sets the man apart in such a way that it’s not entirely clear to whom or what
he belongs. By tilling the garden and naming the animals, it is evident that
though Adam has a material body like the rest of creation, there is something
more in him as well. Obviously the question of belonging becomes clearer when
Eve is created from Adam’s rib, but we should not pass too quickly over
original solitude, as, for John Paul II, it is the key to other original
experiences.
John
Paul II draws our attention to a third dimension of human existence that occurs
before the original unity of male and female: “And the Lord God commanded the
man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it, you
shall die’” (Gen 2:16-17). John Paul II asks this question of the passage:
“could man, who in his original consciousness knows only the experience of
existing and thus of life, have understood what the words ‘You shall die’ mean?”
(7th Catechesis). Put another way: how could Adam understand death as
death has not yet entered the world?
We tend
to glide over this question because of our familiarity with these passages. But
if the commandment about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil can hold
any weight, so to speak, with Adam, then he must have at least some sense of
the consequence the Lord gives him. What can this mean?
John
Paul II writes: “The words of God-Yahweh addressed to the man confirm a
dependence in existing, so that they show man as a limited being and by his
nature, susceptible to nonexistence.” In other words, because man is a
creature, nonexistence is constitutive to his very being. Though it is somewhat
unfathomable, we all know with certainty that there was a time when we were
not. This is the situation of the creature.
Thus the
commandment, though often viewed in negative terms (likely because we
transgressed it and pay the price), is actually also a gift in line with the
other directives of keeping the garden and naming the animals: it allows man to
know his place in relation to the world and God, in short, it gives him the
capacity to know what he is—a creature.
This,
then, is the main thrust of original solitude: that man can rest in the
knowledge that he is a creature, and not just a creature, but also one to whom
God speaks. The original experience of solitude secures our knowledge of our
selves in this world, that each person is created for his or her own sake by
God, who gives the world to man as a gift.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Throwback Thursday
 |
| "Mother Teresa Collage" is licensed under C.C. by 2.0 |
"There are other types of poverty just painful because they are more intrinsic.
"Perhaps what my husband or wife lacks, what my children lack, what my parents lack, is not clothes or food. Perhaps they lack love, because I do not give it to them!
- Bl. Mother Teresa
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
What is sexual difference? Part II
Sexual
difference is one of the most contentious topics today. We toss around the word “gender” with a
panoply of meanings, though each person professes the utmost confidence that
his (or should we use the gender
neutral “hen”?) understanding of the term is the most accurate.
So, in a
quest to understand what sexual difference is and why it matters, we are
carefully defining our terms. This post
is the second in a series.
In Part I of our
reflections, we looked at who God is and summarized that He is relational, has
unity and difference (three Persons, one God) and that within God there is both
giving and receiving. In Part III we
will focus on the visible ways in which we can see the Trinitarian stamp in
humanity, but first we must take a quick (and confessedly inadequate) primer in
metaphysics. To understand why the
visible has an inherent logic and meaning, we must understand something of the invisible behind it.
In
Ancient Greece, the philosopher Aristotle asked the question, “What is
being?” He came to understand it as
composed of two things – each necessary for a thing to exist, but not reducible
to each other – form and matter.
Form is
the principle of unity. It is what
actuates a thing. Because a thing has
form, it cannot be “mere matter.”
Therefore, a whole is greater than its parts. A person is still a person if his finger is
cut off. Likewise, a frog dissected in
biology class cannot be magically put back together again as a living frog.
Matter is
the material. In modernity, this tends
to be that to which things are reduced, because form, is in a sense taken for
granted: if it gives matter its being, then we think all we see is just matter. But if things were merely matter, they could
not exist.
Fast
forward from Aristotle to St. Thomas Aquinas.
Instead of beginning with the question, “What is being?” he wanted to
know why things exist. For Aristotle,
the world was eternal and therefore it seemed an irrelevant question. But for Aquinas, who believed that the world
was created out of nothing, this was an important question with which to
begin.
 |
| "Angels at Mamre (Holy Trinity)" by Rublev is in the Public Domain |
St.
Thomas Aquinas had a more comprehensive notion of what it means to be, which includes
the “real distinction.” An existent or
entity is composed of esse (being or “that a thing is” and essence (“what a
thing is”). Essence is composed of form
and matter. So, for Aquinas there are
three dimensions of a particular being – esse, form and matter.
Though
belief in what is immaterial has always been part of humanity, there has been a
shift in the last several centuries to not take these immaterial realities
seriously. In many ways we seek value
only in what is provable through experiment and what is tangible or makeable. Metaphysics is not visible and therefore is
not seen as true or as valuable. But it’s
vital for a full and philosophical explanation of the human person to understand
what form is. When it is denied by the
world at large, we miss out on huge implications of who the human person truly
is.
In
answering the question, “What is sexual difference?” we start with God who is
eternal Gift, a Communion of Persons in which the Father gives to the Son, the
Son receives the Father and gives Himself in return, and the Holy Spirit is the
love that they share. In Genesis 1, the
pattern of God creating and then saying, “It is good” is interrupted before the
creation of man. Here, God pauses and
looks into Himself, seeking in a sense the “blueprint” for the creation of the
human person in His own image and likeness.
There is a “Trinitarian logic” at the ground of the human person, both
physically and metaphysically. Esse/being
in all its fullness gives itself to existents/entities and “receives” from
them. Likewise, form – although
invisible – gives shape to matter, which in turn receives and instantiates
form. This logic of gift is then made
visible in our male and female bodies. God
has not only given us the gift of
ourselves but also the ability to give – a reflection of and a
participation in His own generosity and love.
In our next post in this series we will look more closely at the meaning of sexual difference and what our masculinity and femininity reveal to us about being human.
Monday, February 23, 2015
Is the World a Jungle or a Home?
Being as Gift
,
Children
,
CTejeda
,
Family
,
Gift
,
Parenting
1 comment
:
Roughly a year ago a wise religious sister shared with me a
profound truth, “either one receives the world, and life itself, as a gift and
therefore perceives one’s surroundings as a hospitable home or the world is simply
experienced as a harsh jungle threatening one’s life constantly.”
Her words came back to me recently as I was watching my
toddler son explore our kitchen. In the
span of 45 seconds, he bonked his head twice and was sent reeling backward onto
his posterior. Clearly our kitchen was a
jungle for him. Then, before bedtime, that
same son bent over to pick up a toy only to unexpectedly hit the corner of the
bed with his head causing him to fall backward and land on the carpet. The bedroom proved itself to be no less than
the Amazon.
So how do I communicate to my children that ‘there is more
than meets the eye’ when it comes to their experience of the school of hard
knocks? I think it has to do with an
exchange I just had with my older, three-year-old son.
 |
| This photo by the Montgomery County Planning Commission is licensed under C.C. by 2.0. |
Unbeknownst to him, Grandma had mailed him a picture book
about hook and ladder fire engines. So I
told him Grandma had sent him a surprise and that he should close his eyes and
hold out his hands to receive it. After
two or three more repeat instructions he trusted and did it. When he opened his eyes, he discovered the
fantastic gift and was thrilled with it.
He was genuinely delighted with the book and kept asking me, “What is a
surprise?” I found his question
endearing, and this experience of surprise was an irreplaceable moment for him. In his innocence, surprise is
now synonymous
with a good thing given by a loved one who knows one’s preferences.
The next morning, as we were walking down the stairs, he
looked out the window and saw a slight dusting of snow and immediately
exclaimed, “it snowed! Thank you
Jesus!” Clearly for him this experience
demonstrated that the “world is a home.”
Perhaps this is the punch line of Christian parenting? I must form my children to know through
personal experience, not just lecture or conceptually, that life is full of
goodness, providence and being intimately known. Inevitably, when their innocence is worn down
and the struggles of life (see Genesis 3; i.e. labor pains, thorns, thistles
and sweat) have mounded up, they can then enter the philosophical fray and
concur that creation is very good and
given to humanity to till and keep; all in anticipation of the Master’s return
when He will invite His faithful servants to reside with Him in His Father’s
house.
I’m truly beginning to discover that being “like a child”
(Mt 18:3) as an adult necessitates
me being physically, emotionally and spiritually present to the children in my
life (primarily my sons) so that when they oscillate between “jungle” and
“home” experiences of the world, I relearn the lesson too and revisit my
ultimate conclusion about life. Namely,
that the world is an awe-inspiring gift, and if I have the eyes, ears and heart
to receive it, I will become like a child trusting his father that the next
thing placed in his hands will be an unexpected delight.
Life isn't a perpetual pop quiz that we dread because we
have never understood the material. Life is a surprise mailing of a hook and
ladder fire engine book that you love so much that you take it with you to nap
time so that it fills your dreams.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
What can experience mean?
We continue here our explorations into St. John Paul II’s
series of Wednesday Catecheses, which eventually became known as Man
and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body (TOB, for short). To
see other posts on this topic, click here.
The first part of the Wednesday Catecheses, sometimes called
the first “cycle” of TOB, concentrates on what John Paul II calls the “original
experiences”: solitude, unity and nakedness. Each of the three warrants its own
post so for now I’ll just concentrate on opening up the word “experience,” and what
John Paul II is drawing out of it here. Using the creation accounts in Genesis
as his guide, John Paul II contemplates the first experiences of man. In these
reflections, the late pope leads us to an incredibly deep and rich
understanding of man’s place in the world as creature, as worker, and as male
and female. In a word, thinking about the original experiences helps us
understand what it means to be human.
 |
| Michelangelo's "Creation of Eve" is in the Public Domain. |
It’s important to remember that these original experiences
are not fairy tales. The Genesis accounts are mythic in structure, but mythic
in the sense that they recall something common to all mankind—a memory, so to
speak, that we all have within us. John Paul II speaks of solitude, unity and
nakedness as original not simply because they are first temporally, but because
they are at our origin: these three experiences are common to us in our very
humanity.
John Paul II spends most of his time in this first cycle on
the original experiences exegeting the second creation account in Genesis,
though always keeping the first in view as well. This second account, called
“Yahwist” on account of its using that name to refer to God, is older, and John
Paul II notes, has a more subjective tone. That is to say, in the second
creation account we see creation more from man’s point of view, as it were.
Therefore, John Paul II refers explicitly to this second account more often in
order to contemplate man’s original experience of his body, which in turn helps
man understand his relationship to the world and God.
Let me reiterate that last point: John Paul II is proposing
here that it is mankind’s having a body and his experience in that body, that
allows man to know himself, the world and God. “The body reveals man,” says the
late pope in the 9th Catechesis.
In the very same paragraph, he also says of the person that “man as a
person, that is, as a being that is, also in all its bodiliness, ‘similar’ to
God.” Our lived experience in and through the body opens us up to God. Indeed,
it is also where we are similar to Him.
Perhaps this seems like common sense: of course my
experience is how I know things, since knowledge first comes from the senses.
But maybe it’s not so evident to us—we have a tendency, I think, to regard our
day-to-day lives and experiences as having little to do with the laws of the
universe or the truth of the world. What could my body help me to understand
about those things? Well, John Paul II avers, everything. Without the body,
there would be no experience, and therefore nothing to know.
We tend to think in a false dichotomy of subjective vs.
objective. My subjective experiences only accidentally connect with what is
objectively true, but the two aren’t intrinsically connected to each other. In
fact, “subjective” has become a bit of an epithet.* But if what is objectively
true about the world, man and God doesn’t have everything to do with how I
(subjectively) experience such things, then the world (and man and God) becomes
foreign to me, a place in which I don’t really belong. That is problematic and
deeply divisive, but it’s the situation we find ourselves in when we pit
subjective against objective and vice versa.
John Paul II is trying to cut through this dichotomy by
recovering experience as a means to know the true, good and beautiful, rather
than as something incommunicable that traps us in ourselves. Experience and
meaning are not opposed. The original experiences help us to see this more
fully because they are at the basis of every other experience, and therefore
something which we all share. Solitude, unity and nakedness, as John Paul II
articulates them in TOB, are the abiding presence of “the beginning” in the
midst of our lives. And as we have this deep memory of creation within us
simply because we are human (and therefore bodily), surely our lived, bodily
experience is also what helps us to understand the transcendent.
*the Dude abides.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Throwback Thursday
"By virtue of the sacramentality of their marriage, spouses are bound to one another in the most profoundly indissoluble manner. Their belonging to each other is the real representation, by means of the sacramental sign, of the very relationship of Christ with the Church.
 |
| Public Domain |
"Spouses are therefore the permanent reminder to the Church of what happened on the Cross; they are for one another and for the children witnesses to the salvation in which the sacrament makes them sharers. Of this salvation event marriage, like every sacrament, is a memorial, actuation and prophecy: 'As a memorial, the sacrament gives them the grace and duty of commemorating the great works of God and of bearing witness to them before their children. As actuation, it gives them the grace and duty of putting into practice in the present, towards each other and their children, the demands of a love which forgives and redeems. As prophecy, it gives them the grace and duty of living and bearing witness to the hope of the future encounter with Christ.'"
-- St. John Paul II, "Familiaris Consortio" #13
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Openness to life does not guarantee having children
A while ago, I attended a friend's bridal shower. We played
that game where the shower planners ask the groom a series of questions about
the bride beforehand, and then at the shower the bride is asked the same
questions to see if their answers match or (usually for a laugh) don't.
Questions like, "What is the bride's least favorite chore?" and
"What was the bride's first pet?" and so on.
One of the questions was, "How many children does the
bride want to have?" At the shower, my friend answered without hesitation,
"As many as God gives us." I think the groom's answer was a specific
number, (maybe four?) so that got a laugh.
Fast forward: nine months after my friend got married, they
welcomed their son into the world. A big Catholic family was in the making.
The funny (ironic? sad? devastating?) thing is, that when I
was getting married almost four years ago, I answered that question exactly the
same way: "as many as God gives us." In fact, on one of the first
dates with my future husband, he asked me, "How many kids do you
want?" and I replied (blushing, and feeling slightly giddy at the thought
of us having kids together), "Enough to fill a church pew!"
And yet here we are, still childless. A family of two. I am
conscious of that heavy label every single day: infertile. Or, more biblically,
barren.
 |
| "relax baby" by Janine is licensed under C.C. by 2.0. |
We have been open to life our entire marriage, and so far the
number of children God wants to give us appears to be a big fat zero. (And by
"open to life," I mean what the Church means: that each and every
marital act is open to the possibility of conception and not closed off to that
possibility by means of contraception or sterilization, cf. Humanae
Vitae, no. 11.)
I could fill several books with moody, macabre reflections
about the experience of being infertile, about what it's like when children
don't come despite your strong desire and best efforts. But I'll spare you that
(for now).
What I'd like to share here is one truth that infertility has
hammered home for me, the title of this post: openness to life does not guarantee
having children.
Perhaps that seems so obvious as to be banal. Of course not
every procreative act results in actual procreation; basic biology tells us
that. And yet there are many days when it seems to me like this fact is not
obvious at all.
For example: at large Catholic events when a speaker is
introduced and the crowd gasps and cheers at the fact that he has ten children.
Of course we should celebrate the gift of life and the generosity of large
families. But would people cheer for us, just as open to life, although with
nothing (visible) to show for it?
Or another example: I have read articles or been part of conversations that implicitly, or quite explicitly, blame everything from demographic winter to the closing of Catholic schools to the growing use of immoral reproductive technology on childless couples or small families, without the qualification that not all of them chose not to have a(nother) child. I would very much like to bump up the birthrate!
In short, it seems from my (emotionally biased, yes) vantage
point that even within the Church many forget that having children is not first
something a couple wills or does, such that they can take credit for
procreation or deserve blame for its absence. Having children is not, first, a
choice, a box to check "yes" or "no". If only it were that
simple! Rather, having children is something that a couple receives through no
merit of their own but simply because our God is abundantly generous and has
inscribed in our bodies the awesome power to participate in the very act of
creation.
In other words, children are a gift. They are gratuitously,
mysteriously given, and sometimes, even more mysteriously, not given.
Only God knows whether my friend and her husband will
conceive easily again (and again); only God knows whether my husband and I will
live our entire marriage as a family or two, or whether we will be blessed with
children through conception or adoption. But what I do know, what the
experience of infertility has taught me through an often painful valley of
tears, is that life is not at our command nor something we can take credit for.
We will remain open to life in obedience to God and the truth of our bodies and
marriage. As for having a church pew full of children, well, we'll welcome as
many as God gives us.
The author is a graduate of the John Paul II Institute.
Friday, February 13, 2015
TOB: What is meant by "beginning"?
Jesus Christ
,
Marriage
,
RColeman
,
Scripture
,
St. John Paul II
,
Theology of the Body
,
TOB
No comments
:
We continue here our explorations into
St. John Paul II’s series of Wednesday Catecheses, which eventually became
known as Man and Woman He Created Them: A
Theology of the Body (TOB, for short). To see other posts on this topic,
click here.
As I said in my first post on TOB, my aim in this series has been
and will be to highlight some less commonly written about aspects of the
Wednesday Catecheses. One, I think, is that the entirety of TOB is scriptural
exegesis. Indeed, we could describe John Paul II’s Man and Woman He Created Them as an incredibly in-depth and rich
exegesis on the Gospel passages in Matthew and Mark that describe the encounter
Christ has with the Pharisees in which they ask him about divorce. The late
pope starts with the Gospels and only turns to the Genesis accounts in light of
Christ’s words. This is, first of all, an indication of how we should be
reading all of Scripture all of the time—in and through the Word that is Jesus
Christ. This is perhaps John Paul II’s first lesson in his Wednesday Catecheses,
albeit an implicit one.
Let’s then, as the saint did, look at
this passage in Matthew (19:3-8):
Some Pharisees came to him, and to test
him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?” He
answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘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,
let no one separate.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses
command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?” He
said to them, “It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you
to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
Let’s also look at the first comment
John Paul II makes on this passage: “Christ does not accept the discussion on
the level which his interlocutors try to introduce it.” This is also a key
aspect of John Paul II’s writings, though again one which I think is often
passed over—that is, John Paul II is communicating a method here: we cannot
accept the given framework (of a problem, of a discussion, of a culture) if it is
not given in the fullness of what is true, good and beautiful. In a word: we
must reject that which does not come from God.
 |
| "The Birth of Christ" by Henri Fantin Latour is in the Public Domain |
But is Christ’s response to the
Pharisees a simple rejection? I would say no. What Christ rejects is the
hardness of their hearts, the sinfulness of Israel, but he does not reject Israel
outright. What he does is go back to “the beginning,” a beginning that Israel
knows well, and to Scriptures that the Pharisees know and must acknowledge to
be true. This is not, then, a simple reference; it is a directive: go back to
the Scriptures and try to understand and read with faith.
Many times in the Gospels we encounter
this phrase about Jesus: “He spoke with authority.” What does this mean? Surely
it conveys something more than tone of voice, and we also know that Christ did
not go around proclaiming he was the Son of God in so many words. Rather, this
authority comes from Christ himself; he radiates understanding of the
Scriptures, and has since he was a child: “all who heard him were amazed at his
understanding and his answers” (Lk 2:47). He is no Pharisee but rather lives
the Scriptures from the inside out, as it were. And this living of the
Scriptures is palpable in his presence and the way he speaks about the Word of
God.
Thus, when Christ tells the Pharisees,
“from the beginning it was not so” in distinction from the Law of Moses, he is
also signaling that a return to the beginning is possible in a way that has not
before been available to man. By rejecting the Pharisees’ question and pointing
to the beginning, Christ is helping us to see that through him man can regain his original disposition in front of
God, the world, and his fellow man.
This, I must emphasize, is more than a
moral or juridical issue: Christ is not simply an example to us, showing us we
can live more holy lives, nor does he inject us with some spiritual strength so
that we finally have the endurance to stay with our spouses. Rather, this is on
the level of being, on the ontological level. Christ is the beginning—John’s Gospel does not start the way it does
accidentally. Man is created in Christ’s image and likeness. Therefore, the
incarnation of the Son brings the beginning back to us: it is a re-creation of
man, again in Christ’s image, again in his likeness. Christ has the authority
to speak of such things to the Pharisees because he is the authority, the Word made flesh, who makes it possible for
all of man to again become Adam, albeit in a way greater than even the first
Adam could have ever imagined.
This comes, however, with implications
for our lives. Hardness of heart is no longer an excuse. The beginning has been
given to us again, in a way we could not anticipate. Therefore, John Paul II
helps us to see, we must reject all frameworks other than that of Christ
himself, and live in the authority of the Word once more. This is man’s true
beginning, and it is one he never leaves behind.
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Throwback Thursday
 |
| "Wedding 011a" by Walter is licensed under CC by 2.0. |
"Authentic married love is caught up into divine love and is governed and enriched by Christ's redeeming power and the saving activity of the Church, so that this love may lead the spouses to God with powerful effect and may aid and strengthen them in sublime office of being a father or a mother. For this reason Christian spouses have a special sacrament by which they are fortified and receive a kind of consecration in the duties and dignity of their state. By virtue of this sacrament, as spouses fulfill their conjugal and family obligation, they are penetrated with the spirit of Christ, which suffuses their whole lives with faith, hope and charity. Thus they increasingly advance the perfection of their own personalities, as well as their mutual sanctification, and hence contribute jointly to the glory of God."
-- Gaudium et Spes #48 ("The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World," Second Vatican Council)
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
What is sexual difference, Part I
Define Your Terms
,
EMacke
,
Gender
,
Gift
,
Love
,
Sexual difference
,
Trinity
No comments
:
Two years ago when the Supreme Court
heard oral arguments for a pair of cases regarding the redefinition of
marriage, I attended a March for Marriage held in Washington, DC. Although many people were energized by
standing with thousands of supporters of marriage (“marriage without
adjectives,” as Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse likes to say), I left the rally
rather discouraged.
People representing both sides of
the debate were present. People on
both sides represented their beliefs through chants and slogans written on
cardboard. In a culture accustomed
to expressing profound and mundane thoughts in 140 characters, perhaps this
seemed normal to most people.
I felt trapped in front of the
Supreme Court building, physically because of the chaos, but even more so,
trapped by misunderstood vocabulary and the limitations of sound bites and
slogans. The truth of marriage
cannot be expressed in the confines we have been handed. The truth is a delicate set of
paradoxes.
Chief among the words that must be
defined before a true conversation related to so many hot-button issues today can
take place is that of sexual difference.
“Gender” is viewed as something fluid that we define for ourselves. Commonly, sex is considered whatever
reproductive organs I happen to have, and gender is viewed either as a social
construct related to those reproductive organs or as the sex that I feel like
or that to which I align myself.
 |
| By St. Petersburg College Library [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
Is there an inherent meaning in
gender or sexual difference? Does
it matter how we define it, how we understand it, how we talk about it? Could an adequate view of sexual
difference be key to assisting us on our quest to discover the meaning of being
human?
To define sexual difference, we must
plunge deeply into our origin as human persons. This is a question that cannot be answered
superficially. Rather, we must go
to the heart of who we are in order to discover why we are created male and
female. Consequently, to
answer the question, “What is gender or sexual difference?” we really have to
start with the question, “Who is God?”
A comprehensive answer is impossible in about 1000 words, but what
follows is a brief summary.
Jesus’ disciple John tells us that
God is love. Yes, God loves, but even more so God is Love. Love is who He is.
Love requires three – the lover, the beloved and the love which they
share. Love, however, is not three
separate actions. The giving and
receiving in love are united as one.
One person cannot be love because love requires
three. The three Persons of the
Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – are Love in their unity and giving and
receiving. The Father pours
Himself out as a gift to the Son.
The Son receives the Father and in return gives Himself to the Father. Their love is so powerful that it is a third Person – the Holy
Spirit.
God is so generous within Himself
that in this superabundance of love, He created the world. Adam and Eve, as all of us, were
created to receive everything as a gift – their own lives, each other, the
world around them, their relationship with God. There was no reason to grasp or to take. All that they needed had already been
given. But in that moment of
encounter with the serpent, Eve decided to not trust the goodness and love of
God. By grasping at the gift
rather than receiving it, our original parents testified to their doubt that
God would really provide for all that they needed and desired. Rather than trust the Fatherhood of
God, Adam and Eve took matters into their own hands. Rather than value the gift of being creatures, they sought
to become the creator of their own destiny and identity.
Thousands of years
later, we are making the same mistake today. Instead of receiving our lives, our identity, our
femininity/masculinity as a gift from God, we have attempted to take and to
fashion ourselves. But in order to
be a man or a woman, in order to be a person, we first must receive.
A large portion of
feminist sentiments over the years have been driven by a perceived negativity
of receptivity. Aristotle, for example,
identified woman with passivity (matter) and man with activity (form). Act was considered perfection, leaving
women to be perceived as a sort of deformed male – completely passive. This was the reining philosophical
interpretation of gender for centuries.
However, as time went on and receptivity became associated with
weakness, ignorance and inferiority, women desired to shed the title. If receptivity really is about
weakness, ignorance and inferiority, then women would be justified in their
desire to find a different role.
But somewhere in our history, we were invited to change our perception
of receptivity as not purely passive, and therefore, not inferior.
In the Incarnation,
being both fully God and fully man, Christ revealed God to us. The great mystery of the Trinity
entered our radar because of Jesus Christ. He spoke throughout the Gospels about his oneness with the
Father and His call to send the Holy Spirit. The three Persons of the Trinity are each fully God, and yet
they are not cookie-cutter images.
They are unique Persons, all one God. Consequently, there is an order within the Trinity.
Since God is a Communion of Persons
in love, and love requires both giving and receiving, there is an order of
these two actions in God as well.
In Philippians 2, we see that Christ is the one who receives from the
Father. Love is initiated by the
Father, without Him being greater than the Son or the Holy Spirit. If all three are “equally” God, and yet
there is a giving and receiving within the Trinity, then receptivity in God
cannot be less than giving.
Before the revelation
of Jesus Christ, no one could conceive of receptivity as being a good in the
same way as giving. If giving is
equated with power, then only the giver could have the “goodness” of being in
control. St. Thomas Aquinas saw
the receptivity of Christ, and knowing that Jesus is not less than the Father,
drew the conclusion that Christ’s receptivity had to be equal to the Father’s
giving. For many years, these
conclusions about the equality of receptivity stayed in the realm of
Trinitarian theology. In the 20th
century, the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, meditated upon the “perfection”
of receptivity in creatures as well.
It’s important to note
that in terms of Creator-to-creature, both men and women receive. Each human person receives his life as
a gift from God. Each of us
receives the opportunity to respond to the love of God that has existed
eternally.
When we discover that receptivity is
not a disadvantage and that all of creation is on the receiving end of the
gift, we begin to realize that women hold a privileged position of representing
the good of receptivity to the world.
Giving and receiving are not about power, but about service and love.
At the same time, not
only do men both give and receive, but women do as well. We are not two halves that make a
whole, nor are we a positive and a negative number that balance each other in
the end. Yet, just as there is an
order within the Trinity that does not cancel the equality of each Person being
fully God, similarly there is an order within our human interactions that
allows us to give and receive love in image of the One who created us.
Back to our question, “Who is God?” There are three major points to
emphasize as we seek a definition of sexual difference.
·
1) He
is relational. The three
persons of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – are always in
relation. In fact, without their
relationship, they would not be the Trinity – three Persons, One God. Their relationship is more than just a
friendship: God is love. Within God Himself, there is the Lover, the Beloved, and the
Love that they share.
·
2) He
has unity and difference. God is three Persons who
are “as great as” the others and are completely united. At the same time, however, the three
Persons are different. They are
able to share in eternal love because they are both different and perfectly
united.
·
3) Within
the Trinity, there is both giving and receiving. If there was only giving, God couldn’t be love. If there was only receiving, God
couldn’t be love. It is only
because both giving and receiving are present in perfect abundance in God, that
God is love. We might think of
receiving as something that weak people do, but God invites us to see
otherwise.
The fact that we are created by God
– as is the entire world in which we live – allows us to see something of God
around us. In all that He creates,
God leaves His “Trinitarian stamp.”
There is an inner logic to every person and to the whole world that is
rooted in the Trinity. The more we
come to understand who God is, the more we are able to see who we are and why
we are present in the world – and why we exist as male and female.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
TOB: What is a gift?
We continue here our explorations into
St. John Paul II’s series of Wednesday Catecheses, which eventually became known
as Man and Woman He Created Them: a Theology of the Body (TOB, for short). To see other
posts on this topic, click here.
It is no secret that John Paul II was
both involved in and influenced by the Second Vatican Council. Though his attendance
at the Council was occasionally spotty, due to the then Cardinal Wojtyła’s passport being revoked by the Communist
government in Poland, he participated in many of the planning committees through
written interventions and the like. When he was elected to the papacy, it is
clear that the late pope took seriously the task of propagating and
interpreting the teachings of Vatican II. The documents appear often in his writing,
and even if there are no direct references, there is usually some reflection on
a theme that emerged from the ecumenical council.
One theme that is interwoven
throughout John Paul II’s writing is that of gift. One of the most-quoted lines
by the saint is from Gaudium et spes (GS) 24:
The likeness [between the communion of men and the communion of the Persons of the Trinity] reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself, except through a sincere gift of himself.
Looking back through his writings,
it becomes clear that this line is special to John Paul II. It’s included in
almost every one of his encyclicals, and much of his other writing as well. TOB
is of course no exception here. And “gift” carries here some meaning both
beyond and below, as it were, the presenting of another person with a token. It
has more depth as it is used by the Council Fathers in GS and in John Paul II’s work,
including TOB. Let’s try and unpack that a bit.
In the Wednesday Catecheses, the
first place gift appears is not with respect to man giving himself to woman, or
vice versa, but with respect to God giving man the gift of creation. This language
is radical, even if it may seem trite to us today.
**Reader beware:
generalizations and simplifications in the next couple of paragraphs, though I
think none of it false. It just needs more nuance after further discussion.**
Pre-Christian philosophical man had two
choices (more or less) when it came to understanding the divine: either there was
a god or gods who were very close to man, creating man because he somehow needed
him—man’s sacrifices, man’s offerings were some source of power or pleasure,
for example—or there was a god who was absolutely indifferent to the world, who
created unknowingly or didn’t care at all. There were attempts to bridge the
gap between these two pictures of divinity with the image of an indifferent god,
a demi-urge, subordinate to the supreme being..
This demi-urge was responsible for making the world and consequently in some sense, needed his creatures. In
the end, even this alternative takes us back to the perennial philosophical
seesaw of the necessity of the world to God or the absolute indifference of God
to the world.
Can we say that God needs his
creatures, or that creation was necessary? We cannot. To do so would be to put God
at the mercy of his creatures, and ultimately would make him just a more
powerful version of ourselves. But can we say that God is indifferent to us?
That he created the world arbitrarily, through some sort of spasmodic will? . .
. This doesn’t seem quite right either, especially in a Christian worldview.
This is, after all, the Father who sent his Son for us, and the Son who
suffered and died for us. There is a lot at stake there for a God who is simply
indifferent to his creation.
So how do we cut through this
dialectic of need and arbitrary will in God? By trying to understand the logic of
gift. Let’s think about this a bit: one never truly needs to give a gift, one
just wants to. But when you decide to give a gift, you’re not simply indifferent
to what happens to it after you’ve given it away, nor are you indifferent to how
the person receives it. But you do give it in all freedom, meaning there are no
claims or qualifications on how the person is to use it; rather, you hope that they
enjoy it, receive it well, and use it well. True gifts are not perfunctory things.
This all points to there being such
a thing as a logic of gift. In a way, when I give a gift, I’m giving part of
myself. I’ve put thought into it, time and/or money, etc., so this thing is not
entirely different from myself, and yet, here I am, giving it away freely to
another person, to do with it what they will. Indeed, I don’t diminish myself in
giving a gift, even if it is part of me. In fact, the opposite is likely true.
The gift in some sense unites the giver and the receiver: the giver is really
giving part of himself, while the receiver really receives it into himself.
 |
| "Creation of Adam" is in the Public Domain. |
So too with creation. The logic of
creation is gift: God is entirely free to give, and we, in some sense, are
entirely free to either receive it well, or to reject it. It is there for us,
so that it may serve us, and we may serve it. And God is not entirely
indifferent to whether we choose to receive or reject His gift.
But just as a gift tells something
about the one who gives it, so too can creation tell us about our Creator. If
the logic of creation is gift, then that logic in an analogical sense is also
within our Creator. Now, if a gift really does unite the giver and receiver, we
might be able to say that the logic of gift looks a bit like communion, and
that this logic could be carried up—again, analogically—into God. And of course
we already know this to be true: the Trinity is a communion of life and love. The
point then is that the logic of creation is not outside of or extrinsic to the logic
of the life of the Trinity. The Creator is not foreign to his creation.
But the stakes of this gift, the gift of creation, are raised higher
than any gift we could possibly give or receive because in the gift of creation,
not only is the gift given, but the receiver is given too. That is to say, man
is created, and he is created as the receiver of the gift of creation. Thus,
the logic of gift is written into him as well, into his very being, his very
body. Therefore, the logic that enables (so to speak) creation in the first
place, a logic of gift and communion that already exists in the Trinity, can be
seen in the flesh of man himself.
But what does this mean for man’s existence
and his existence-as-embodied creature? First, it seems to me that gratitude is
then the disposition of our existence, and that gratitude always directs us to
another—we’re always directed out of ourselves, and again, our bodies help us to
see this. This gratitude is not, however, simply how we react to God, rather,
as an existential disposition, it means that that is how we’re disposed to
everyone and everything. If creation is a gift, if my very existence is a gift,
along with the existence of everything else, gratitude has to be how we first look
at the world.
But(!) look at the radicality of this:
it immediately communicates a different way of relating to the rest of the created
world, God and each other. Gratitude is not bitter: one doesn’t view a gift in light
of one’s own neediness—that is, we don’t hold it against the giver that he sees
something we need or desire and then gives it to us. In this logic of gift and reciprocal
gratitude—in this logic of communion—our embodiment and corresponding finitude is
not something about which we should be ashamed; it is rather the space to allow
a gift to be given in the first place. The limitedness of my body is not a curse
I must master or overcome, but precisely the place at which I am open to generosity.
Gift, then, indicates an entire way
of understanding and responding to God, the world, my own body, and everything
in between. We were created as gifts to ourselves and to each other, in the
image and likeness of the Trinity, an image and likeness to which our corporeal
form is not incidental. To give oneself, as John Paul II highlights often in his
quoting of GS
24, allows one to enter into the logic and life of God himself.
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)
Posts
