3. What God tells us about the body, or what the body tells us about God?
This one is more of a clarification than a problem.
For a long time, Theology was considered a science, and it was considered as supremely one. And as a science, it had its own principles, which also set the method for the science (since every science’s proper method will depend on what its principles are). The principles of theology are found in Revelation. Philosophy can tell us a little bit about God, insofar as He is first Mover, Pure Act, etc. But the knowledge of God in Himself is something that only God could grant through Revelation.
However, what God reveals is not restricted to His own inner Life and other things that cannot be known by reason. God has also revealed many things that are knowable by reason, and also many things that seem to be particular historical facts, which are normally not the province of scientific (i.e., universal) knowledge. This is because what makes something part of theology is not the fact that it had to be revealed, but the fact that it is revealed. St. Thomas says it thus:
Sacred doctrine is one science. The unity of a faculty or habit is to be gauged by its object, not indeed, in its material aspect, but as regards the precise formality under which it is an object. For example, man, ass, stone agree in the one precise formality of being colored; and color is the formal object of sight. Therefore, because Sacred Scripture considers things precisely under the formality of being divinely revealed, whatever has been divinely revealed possesses the one precise formality of the object of this science; and therefore is included under sacred doctrine as under one science…
Similarly, objects which are the subject-matter of different philosophical sciences can yet be treated of by this one single sacred science under one aspect precisely so far as they can be included in revelation. So that in this way, sacred doctrine bears, as it were, the stamp of the divine science which is one and simple, yet extends to everything (ST, q. 1, a. 3, co. and ad 2).
So can theology be about the body? Undoubtedly yes. It is not at all an oxymoron. Scripture contains many things about the body.
But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord: and the Lord for the body. Now God hath raised up the Lord and will raise us up also by his power. Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid! Or know you not that he who is joined to a harlot is made one body? For they shall be, saith he, two in one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Fly fornication. Every sin that a man doth is without the body: but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. Or know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God: and you are not your own? For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body (1 Cor. 6: 13-20)
There is certainly room, then, for a theology of the body.
However, it is generally my impression that TOB advocates are less interested in what God has revealed about the body, and more interested in what the body can tell us about God. This, strictly speaking, is not properly theology. It is, at best, a kind of philosophy, examining what one particular creature can tell us about the first cause. Such an approach is not merely an ailment of TOB; it is quite fashionable today with all our “aspect theologies”. We have feminist theology, Hispanic theology, black theology, I think we even have gay and lesbian theology; theology of the corporation, theology of cooperation, theology of liberation, theology of the web, etc… It would be desirable at some point to see once again a theology of God. We can’t just choose a point of view and see where its coloring of our thought leads us with regard to the subject of the science.
That being said, however, one thing remains true: the conclusions of the philosophical disciplines are included in Theology insofar as they are necessary to understand what is revealed. Hence, if the body does tell us something about God, it could be included in theology. Nevertheless, in itself, it remains properly a philosophical inquiry, just as Aristotle’s examination of habits, for instance, is properly a philosophical investigation, and yet, since it is necessary for understanding the supernatural moral life (e.g., the infused moral virtues), it is taken up into theology. But there is a difference between this and the mere choice of a “coloring” we are going to give to our theological thought. The study of God deserves no agenda.
2 Comments
15 July 2009 at 3:50 pm
Again – do you have at least an example of either who these people are or an example argument of going from the human body to knowledge of God? This just seems to be very general and so imply either that JPII thought these things or at least implied these things in his work. Otherwise the problem is not with TOB as such but with certain interpreters of TOB.
15 July 2009 at 10:51 pm
I should make clear that:
a. For the purposes of these posts, I do not restrict the definition of TOB to the TOB of JPII (though he is certainly the pioneer, and…)
b. That I think JPII shows the best example of how to use TOB well. For instance, the majority of his work is true Theology, i.e., by looking to what the book of Genesis says about the original state, about man’s original solitude, etc. he is certainly trying to find what God tells us about the body, taking his invitation from our Lord Himself, who condemned divorce, saying, “In the beginning, it was not so.”
With these in mind, I also meant this post as a clarification, not as a real problem, as I said at the beginning. Indeed, a certain amount of what the body can tell us about God is useful in Theology, as will be eminently clear in my next post. But I wanted to clarify that this is not the definition of a true Theology of the Body. Such a clarification was needed, I think, because, whether it is anybody’s fault or not, many people do tend to see it as a study of what the differentiation of the sexes, for instance, tells us about God. This is helpful, but the real Theology is finding what God has said about the body, for which I find St. Paul’s citation above an excellent example.
The whole aim of these posts is expressing my concerns and cautions, not saying the whole thing is a dud.