More on the theology of the body

As I mentioned last time,  the body of 'man' ('adam', or mankind) itself bears witness to its meaning by being both male and female. As Pope John Paul II pointed out, man bears the image of God not only in his humanity but also in the communion of persons as lived out in marriage. Marriage, then, has the purpose of making visible the image of God, both in the communion of love between husband and wife and in the natural creativity, bearing children, that flows from that communion.

This then is how the body 'speaks' to us. As there is an inherent meaning in our body, there is also a 'language' that speaks to us. When lived out in the image of God, it speaks truth. When lived out in rebellion to God, it speaks lies. In that way adultery and fornication attack the image of God.  In his reflections on this, the Pope noted that for the husband/wife bond to live out God's image it must be done in accord with what was taught in Genesis and re-iterated by Jesus: 'for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh'..This involved the complete gift of self to another, irrevocably.  It is not a complete gift if it is given to many others. That does not constitute 'cleaving' to the one. It is also permanent and irrevocable. Anything less is not a complete gift of self. Therefore the Bible says, 'what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.' God intends monogamy for life. Polygamy, adultery, and fornication all desecrate marriage, and in so doing desecrate the image of God in man. Homosexuality also desecrates God's image since it denies the meaning of the body as male and female and renders impossible the pro-creativity that reflects God.

 Both heterosexual sin and homosexual sin share a propensity to ignore the meaning of the body by reducing the object of desire into an object.  It is not possible to seek to live out God's image in our bodies, to make a complete gift of self, and to make the sanctification of our spouse as our goal and also to view them as an object for our own gratification.  To live out the meaning of the body demands a high view of the integrity and value of the person to whom we make the gift of self. It also demands a high view of how the body itself was created as male and female. Sexual sin, both of the heterosexual and homosexual variety, degrades this meaning, which the pope calls 'the spousal meaning of the body'.  You cannot live out God's image by using persons as objects.

This is one of the reasons that I refer to pornography as a lie. It treats people as objects, which is itself a lie even if they consent to such use. It also denies the very meaning of the body which can only be fulfilled in the monogamous, irrevocable gift of self within marriage, thereby telling another lie.

In their book The Meaning of Marriage, Tim and Kathy Keller raise this question: 'How can we claim that long term singleness is a good condition in light of the previous chapter's argument that males and females are in some ways incomplete without the other?" Good question, in light of the meaning of the body. We shall talk about that next time.

The meaning of our body

At Christmas I mentioned how the incarnation of Christ connects biology with theology, and gives witness to the fact that our bodies were created to bear the image of God. Christ is Himself the ultimate example of how He uses the body to make visible what is invisible, the spiritual and divine.

I have been reading lately in Pope John Paul II's transcribed talks about what he called the 'theology of the body'. In that teaching he goes back to Genesis based on Jesus teaching about marriage. Jesus also goes back to Genesis (see Matthew 19). In Genesis 1:26 it says that God created man (Hebrew 'adam) in his image, male ('is) and female ('issa). That is, the complete man was the combination of male and female. One of them alone was incomplete. The pope concludes that man carries the image of God not just in his humanity but also in the communion of persons in the union of male and female. Just as there is an intimate communion in the Trinity, so is there to be intimate communion in man by the union of male and female. Just as the love of God in the Trinity is naturally creative, resulting in man, so is the union in marriage to be naturally pro-creative, resulting in children. Just as the love of God in the Trinity is expressed in the giving of self, as Christ showed in giving Himself, so marriage is intended to bear God's image by the gift of self to each other. He concludes that this meaning of communion is carried to us not only by the Word, but by the body itself. As Adam recognized when he first saw Eve in chapter 2 of Genesis, he immediately recognized that she was intended to complete him. This message was clear from the body itself. So the pope concludes that the body itself has a meaning, and that meaning he calls 'spousal', 'the spousal meaning of the body'.  This also supports the very Biblical notion that we are a communion of body/soul, we are not just souls that happen to have a body temporarily. Just as Christ in His resurrected body shows how the body will be integral to our being in eternity, our bodies are integral to what it means to be persons, and integral to living out God's image on earth.

So then this means that marriage has a clear meaning. That meaning is not to make us happy, to give us companionship, or to provide self-actualization. Those are all aimed at individuals and the freedom and fulfillment of individuals, making self-actualization of the individual the highest good. This instead means that marriage is intended as a way to live out the image of God. The pope goes on to point out that it is possible to do this without marriage, as Jesus did, but that is not the norm. The norm is for marriage to be a way to live out, in the body, the complete/full image of God. And the work of marriage is sanctification.

I think he is right. In our focus on falling in love and happiness in marriage we have turned it into a self-centered thing rather than a self-giving thing. Jesus taught that to save your life you must lose it. Where should we look to learn what it looks like to give yourself away on a daily basis? We should grow up learning that in the home, observing it in marriage. If we hope to teach our failing culture the true meaning of marriage, we must re-learn it in the church first.