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.