theology of the body, philosophy of the flesh

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit.”

This sentence of 22 words from the Gospel of John contains much of the norms and spiritual structure of sex as taught by the Catholic Church.

These words that John’s Gospel attributes to Jesus, uses the natural generative cycle of the earth—which is also the figure of human generation and fertility—and makes it the figure of divine love as made visible in the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Here are some of those implicit norms, with the relevant words italicized for emphasis.

Complimentarity

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth…”

Grain and earth, or seed and soil are complimentary. They are orientated toward each other for the purpose of bearing fruit. The seed is obviously the male principle, and the earth or soil is female. In the book of Job, for example, it says “naked I came forth from Mother’s womb, and naked I shall go back again.” This shows the connection in the human mind between the earth and women.

Unity

“Unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth…”

The unity is first of all physical, with the grain falling into the earth and becoming one with the soil. Because the grain and the earth are already naturally complimentary the unity is a biological or natural unity first. In human sexuality, there is the possibility of a spiritual unity building on this biological unity. But there must be the biological or natural unity first.

Fruitfulness

“…but if it dies it bears much fruit.”

The fruit is not automatic, but the result of a process with a specific structure and requirements. Unless the grain falls into the earth, unless it dies, unless it does these things, it does not bear fruit.

Kenosis

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies…”

The spiritual meaning of death in Christianity is love. Death becomes the image of loss of Self that happens in charity. It is not the annihilation of the self as in eastern religions, but the gift of the self for another. It is what is called charity. It is exemplified by the gift of Christ in emptying himself and becoming man to suffer and die in solidarity with the fallen human race.

Making love, being analogous to the self-emptying of God, should also be a dying.

Relationality

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone…”

The act of sex should be part of a positive and objective relationship, not something in which the persons remains alone, either through deliberate isolation or through the refusal to make the gift of self that making love should symbolize. Sex which is driven too much by lust is an act where the participants remain alone. Making love only happens when the act reflects a true kenosis, achieving a spiritual connection rather than a mutual aloneness.

This true and objective spiritual connection is fairly difficult to achieve.

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For our cultural contraceptive mentality, where fertility is divorced from sex and no longer seen as an essential aspect of it, sex ends after intercourse ends.

But in reality, the nature and significance of sex reaches far beyond the individual act of intercourse. And only by seeing it in relation to everything it affects as a whole, does one really see what its true nature is.

We might say, then, that sex ends with the conception of a child. This brings fertility back in the picture, making an essential connection between sex and children. And this is correct, but we can go further.

Perhaps sex is really complete after the newly conceived baby is born. And there is some truth to this as well. Nothing shatters the myth of casual sex then holding a newborn infant in your arms. It’s in that moment, holding tiny new life in your hands after the ordeal of labor, that one knows that sex is definitely not casual. On the contrary, it is the stuff of life and death.

And still we could keep going. For now the love of a man and a woman has a face in a third person. Now a family exists. The child will now learn what it means to love and forgive and be human primarily from his parents, whose love conceived him and now nourishes and educates him (could it really mean nothing that a child is raised by a man and woman, as opposed to two men or two women?).

The child will grow up and perhaps have children of his own, teaching them in turn what it means to love and forgive and be human, perpetuating goodness, virtue and human dignity to new generations.

Does sex ever really end? It seamlessly opens out  into the future, bearing fruit long after two intentional lovers collapse in each others arms.

If we respect its nature, sex moves like a spiral galaxy; its arms slowly opening up, unfolding and embracing the universe. Now the idea of sex being something that only affects the people who play with it looks to be as much a myth as the idea of casual sex. Our culture’s sterile sexuality is more like a black hole, that collapses into itself, taking everything—even light itself—with it.  The cult of sterile sex begins and ends with “me”. It is anti-social, anti-relational, and anti-future.

But the spiral galaxy grows out, not in; it unfolds, not collapses; it holds countless young stars within its arms, not sucking all light into its darkness; it is generous, not selfish; it is birth and growth, not death.

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“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)

‘”For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church’. (Ephesians 5:31-32)

John and Paul are covering the same ground here. But St. Paul makes explicit the human sexual element with the Genesis allusion of becoming “one flesh”.

In John there is no explicit human sexual element, but instead the invoking of the fertility of the earth. But the two are very closely connected. Human and natural generation are analogically related to each other and symbolically inseparable. Nature’s power of generation is the figure of human generation. Hence, Paul’s “one flesh” is analogous to John’s “grain of wheat”.

When a man and woman become one flesh, the seed falls into the earth and dies, and so bears fruit, etc.

Paul connects the mystery of becoming “one flesh” directly to the mystery of Christ and the Church.

In John, Jesus does not directly mention his passion, death, and resurrection, but this passage is clearly alluding to these impending events.

So Paul and John seem to be in agreement here, that the great mystery of Christ’s relationship to the Church is imaged by the great cosmic mystery—of which man in his sexual nature is a part—of the generation of life.

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Just because a wire is plugged into a socket, doesn’t mean there’s a connection.

If there is no electricity, there’s no connection; nothing to connect an individual thing, into the universal grid.

But if there is an electrical current flowing between them, they are connected to each other and connected with the grid.

The coupling of the male and female is not enough to establish unity. The electricity must be there, effecting a true and objective unity.

Fertility is electric. It’s what makes sex what it is. It’s the magic.

And it’s what connects two individuals to each other, and to the objective, universal purpose of the Creator.

The fertile nature of sex is a necessary component to being plugged in to one’s lover, to Nature, and to Nature’s God.

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The metaphor of “bearing fruit” indicates something different than the mere production of something. “Production” is a manufacturing metaphor, but “fruit” is a metaphor taken from the world of living things.

Life has been traditionally defined as anything having a principle of growth, motion, and reproduction originating from within itself. That “vital force” is intrinsic, it comes from within, not from outside from some extrinsic force. It is from this unique kind of growth and movement found in the plant world that we get the metaphor “organic”. Something grows organically if it grows naturally from within, if it assimilates things into itself and where everything new that comes about is related to what came before.

When living things like plants and flowers bloom, we call it fruit.

But the way we bring things into being through our technology is much different. It is not organic. The process is something we have put together, it is not found within the materials that we use. It’s not the nature of silicon to act as a circuit board, we have to make it function that way. It is the nature of a cherry tree to grow cherries.

Life, and therefore fruit, is after all our technological progress, still a mystery. Even more mysterious is the nature of love, which involves freedom, knowledge, and choice. Love doesn’t produce things, it doesn’t make things, it bears fruit. “Love is diffusive of itself” the philosophers say.

Which metaphor is closest to the way the natural family comes into existence, the metaphor of fruit or the metaphor of manufacturing, technology, and production? Today, we can take the genetic material from two unrelated people, hire a surrogate mother, and give the resulting baby via adoption to gay men or women, and call that a family. Someday in the future, I’m sure we will have the technology to “grow” babies in artificial wombs. Then the government itself could regulate the population and could be called with even greater literalness a nanny state, raising its own children under the watchful eye of government employed “parents”, and this too would probably be called a family.

But how would this compare to the natural family? Is the manner in which these families come about organic? How does the unity of the natural family compare with the unity of a family thrown together through law and technology?

Would these families be equal, or would one be the mockery of the other?

Can technology reproduce the natural family? Can the natural family be “produced”?

Can technology replicate an act of love by human beings?

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Many think that the Catholic church only allows sex for the purpose of procreation. But actually, it could be argued that the Church is against the use of sex solely for procreation.

Having sex just to get pregnant can be just as utilitarian as having sex soley for pleasure. And utilitarian actions suffer from the grave danger of using another person. One can be used as an object of breeding just as well as an object of pleasure.

One can feel just as used when pregnancy becomes the all consuming object of one’s sex life, as when gratification becomes the all consuming object of one’s sex life.

If it’s true that the unitive and procreative dimensions of sexuality are inseparable; if it’s true that the unitive should not be separated from the procreative (contraception); and if it’s true that the procreative should not be separated from the unitive (IVF), then doesn’t it follow that we should never intend procreation alone and separate from the unitive? Is there such a thing as trying too hard to get pregnant?

But, what then is the object of sex if we are not to isolate the pleasure nor to isolate procreation?

I think the answer is that love is the object of sex. The Church is for making love. It’s because the Church is for making love that it says no to contraception, and no to lust and license, and no to producing children outside the protective womb of love.  But sexual love is indeed inseparable from procreation. Procreation may not be the object of sex, but children are the natural fruit of making love. Try an take the fruit of this love out of the equation, and you cancel out the love itself.

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According to Christian revelation, God is love. Love is identical with God’s nature. It is said that in God alone, is his nature identical with his existence. Since God’s nature is love itself, his existence is love and love is his existence. There is no distinction between his nature, his existence, and love. But if God alone is the very nature of love, then every created thing can not be love; no other creature can have a nature that is identical with love itself; they can love, but they can not be love. 

But angels and men, and any other creatures out there that are rational, are made to love and for love.  It is the nature of rational creatures to love, but love is not the nature of rational creatures. Love is not the very essence of their being, as with God. Since love is not the nature of creatures, they must perform acts of love in ways that are not identical with their being.

For human beings there is a further implication. If we are to show love, if we are to give love, not only will those action not be identical with our being, but they must be actions that are communicated through our bodies. We have no other way to communicate our being than through our bodies and through material things in general.

This means that for human beings, there is no action that simply is love. There are only actions that have some other more immediate goals and purposes. From these actions which are other-than-love, we must turn them into acts of love. If we are to love at all, we have no choice but to assume these acts into love, and turn them into symbols of love.

If we are going to show love, we have to use the raw material at our disposal. That material is supplied by our bodies, the biological necessities of our animal existence, etc. And so in most cases, it will involve giving food to those that are hungry, and drink to those that are thirsty, and clothing to those who are naked. These are actions that Christ told us are done to him when they are done to "the least of the brethren".

The primary purpose of food is to nourish. But in some cases, the giving of food takes on a further importance, it becomes the medium for someone to show love and concern to another person. It becomes an expression of love.

Does not every act of human love have this characteristic? We can’t love except in and through the limitations of being living, physical beings with bodies.

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My initial plan for NP was that it would be a place where I would only publish polished articles with some great eye candy; and that the overall look and feel of the site would be sort of fantasy-ish, pointing to the mystery and the transcendent in human love and sexuality.

That’s what I still intend it to be eventually. But I’ve realized that I need to work through my ideas more before I can create that kind of content. So, for a while anyway, I will be posting shorter, less polished, less coherent, and more spontaneous entries (but at least they will be more often–probably). Some of them may even be the ramblings of a mad man, but oh well. I still have a few older articles that are relevant that I will publish here too.

From this chaos of ideas and reflections, I hope to organize my thinking better and build them up into some really awesome articles.

So thats the program for the next little while. If you have any thoughts about this, shoot me an email!

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