Just wanted to note that I found a fun new site and put it as a link! : It's from the Catholic Educator's Resource, under Current Issues, their collection of orthodox articles on Feminism. It was the find of my day yesterday! :)
A Dis-embodied Theology of the Body?
I found this article intriguing and quite worth the consideration for the sake of objectivity:John Paul II on love, sex & pleasureLuke Timothy Johnson
Papal teaching on human sexuality has received some positive reviews recently. A number of these have appeared in the journal First Things. In "Contraception: A Symposium" (December 1998), Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., declares that Pope Paul VI has a lock on the title of prophet because, in Humanae vitae, he was right. In the same issue, Janet E. Smith thinks that people who regard the papacy’s condemnation of contraception to be based on the "artificial" methods employed simply have not acquainted themselves with the richness of papal teaching. In particular, she says, "those who appreciate precise and profound philosophical reasoning should read Karol Wojtyla’s Love and Responsibility," while offering a strong recommendation also for "the extensive deliberations of Pope John Paul II." Even more recently, Jennifer J. Popiel ("Necessary Connections? Catholicism, Feminism, and Contraception," America, November 27, 1999) states that "unlike many women, I find the church’s doctrinal statements on contraception and reproduction to be clear and compelling," and argues that Natural Family Planning is fully compatible with feminism, since "only when we control our bodies will we truly control our lives."
George Weigel joins this chorus of praise in his biography of John Paul II, Witness to Hope (Cliff Street Books, 1999). Under the heading, "A New Galileo Crisis," Weigel traces the pope’s systematic response to the "pastoral and catechetical failure" of Humanae vitae in a series of 130 fifteen-minute conferences at papal audiences beginning on September 5, 1979 and concluding on November 28, 1984. The conferences were grouped into four clusters: "The Original Unity of Man and Woman," "Blessed Are the Pure of Heart," "The Theology of Marriage and Celibacy," and "Reflections on Humanae vitae." These talks were brought together under the title Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan (Pauline Books and Media, 1997).
Weigel himself considers John Paul II’s work to be a "theological time bomb" that may take almost a century to appreciate fully, or even assimilate. It "may prove to be the decisive moment in exorcising the Manichaean demon and its deprecation of human sexuality from Catholic moral theology," because the pope takes "embodiedness" so seriously. Weigel considers these conferences to have "ramifications for all of theology," and wonders why so few contemporary theologians have taken up the challenge posed by the pope. He is surprised as well that so few priests preach these themes and only a "microscopic" portion of Catholics seem even aware of this great accomplishment, which he considers to be "a critical moment not only in Catholic theology, but in the history of modern thought." Weigel provides three possible reasons for this neglect: the density of the pope’s material, the media’s preoccupation with controversy rather than substance, and the fact that John Paul II is himself a figure of controversy. It will take time to appreciate him and his magnificent contribution.
Is Weigel right? Have the rest of us missed out on a theological advance of singular importance? Can the claims made for the pope’s Theology of the Body be sustained under examination? Recently, I devoted considerable time (and as much consciousness as I could muster) to reading through the 423 pages of the collected conferences, and I have reached a conclusion far different from Weigel’s. For all its length, earnestness, and good intentions, John Paul II’s work, far from being a breakthrough for modern thought, represents a mode of theology that has little to say to ordinary people because it shows so little awareness of ordinary life.
I want to make clear that I am here responding to the theological adequacy of papal teaching. I do not dispute the fact that in some respects papal positions can legitimately be called prophetic. Certainly, John Paul II’s call for a "culture of life" in the name of the gospel, against the complex "conspiracy of death" so pervasive in the contemporary world, deserves respect. Likewise, the pope’s attention to the "person" and to "continence" stand as prophetic in a time of sexualized identity and rationalized permissiveness. It is small wonder that those worried about moral confusion in matters sexual would want to accept all the papal teachings, since some of them are incontestably correct.
But I want to ask whether we ought to make some distinctions even where the pope does not, whether while approving some of his positions we can also challenge others. Weigel is correct in noting that these conferences are dense and difficult to read-what must they have been like to hear? But Weigel fails to note how mind-numbingly repetitious they are. He does not seem to notice that the pope only asserts and never demonstrates, and that he minimizes the flat internal contradictions among the conferences. For example, on October 1, 1980, the pope declares that a husband cannot be guilty of "lust in his heart" for his wife, but a week later, in the conference of October 8, he states confidently that even husbands can sin in this fashion. But beyond such relatively minor deficiencies (how many theological writings are not dense, repetitious, and inconsistent?), the pope’s Theology of the Body is fundamentally inadequate to the question it takes up. It is inadequate not in the obvious way that all theology is necessarily inadequate to its subject, and therefore should exhibit intellectual modesty, but in the sense that it simply does not engage what most ought to be engaged in a theology of the body. Because of its theological insufficiency, the pope’s teaching does not adequately respond to the anxieties of those who seek a Christian understanding of the body and of human sexuality and practical guidance for life as sexually active adults.
If the pope had only made casual or passing comments on the subject in a homily, then a critical response would be unfair. But everything suggests that John Paul II intended these conferences to be read as a "theology of the body" in the fullest sense of the term "theology." The pope uses academic terms like phenomenology and hermeneutics, refers to contemporary thinkers, provides copious notes, and in the very commitment to the subject over a period of five years in 130 conferences, indicates that he wants his comments to be given serious attention. It is perhaps appropriate to offer a number of observations concerning things that someone far removed from the corridors of doctrinal declaration, but not unschooled theologically, and certainly not disembodied, might want to see yet does not find in John Paul II’s discourses.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS
A starting place is the title itself, which, while perhaps not chosen by the author, legitimately derives from his frequent reference to a "theology of the body" and his constant focus on "human love in the divine plan." Surely, though, an adequate theology of the body must encompass far more than human love, even if that were comprehensively treated! The pope cites 1 Corinthians 6:18 approvingly: "Flee fornication. Every sin a person commits is apart from the body. But the one who fornicates sins in his own body." But Paul’s rhetorical emphasis cannot be taken as sober description. Do not the sins of gluttony and drunkenness and sloth have as much to do with the body as fornication, and are not all the forms of avarice also dispositions of the body? Reducing a theology of the body to a consideration of sexuality falsifies the topic from the beginning. Of course, an adequate theological phenomenology of the body as the primordial mystery/symbol of human freedom and bondage must include every aspect of sexuality. But it must also embrace all the other ways in which human embodiedness both enables and limits human freedom through disposition of material possessions, through relationships to the environment, through artistic creativity, and through suffering-both sinful and sanctifying. The pope’s title provides the first example of the way in which a grander-or to use his word "vast"-conceptual framework serves to camouflage a distressingly narrow view of things.
The pope’s subtitle is "Human Love in the Divine Plan," but no real sense of human love as actually experienced emerges in these reflections. The topic of human love in all its dimensions has been wonderfully explored in the world’s literature, but none of its grandeur or giddiness appears in these talks, which remain at a level of abstraction far removed from novels and newspapers with their stories of people like us (though not so attractive). John Paul II thinks of himself as doing "phenomenology," but seems never to look at actual human experience. Instead, he dwells on the nuances of words in biblical narratives and declarations, while fantasizing an ethereal and all-encompassing mode of mutual self-donation between man and woman that lacks any of the messy, clumsy, awkward, charming, casual, and, yes, silly aspects of love in the flesh. Carnality, it is good to remember, is at least as much a matter of humor as of solemnity. In the pope’s formulations, human sexuality is observed by telescope from a distant planet. Solemn pronouncements are made on the basis of textual exegesis rather than living experience. The effect is something like that of a sunset painted by the unsighted.
The objection may be made: isn’t it proper to base theology in Scripture, and isn’t John Paul II correct to have devoted himself so sedulously to the analysis of biblical texts, rather than the slippery and shoddy stuff of experience? Well, that depends on how seriously one takes the Catholic tradition concerning the work of God’s Holy Spirit in the world. If we believe-and I think we have this right-that revelation is not exclusively biblical but occurs in the continuing experience of God in the structures of human freedom (see Dei verbum, 2.8), then an occasional glance toward human experience as actually lived may be appropriate, even for the magisterium.
As for the pope’s way of reading Scripture, the grade is mixed. Certainly he is careful with the texts. Nor does he misrepresent those aspects of the text he discusses in any major way-although he leaves the impression that Matthew’s "blessed are the pure of heart" (5:8) refers to chastity, when in fact he knows very well that the beatitude does not have that restricted sense. Even more questionable are the ways John Paul II selects and extrapolates from specific texts without sufficient grounding or explanation. First, he scarcely treats all the biblical evidence pertinent to the subject. His discourses center on a handful of admittedly important passages, with obligatory nods at other texts that might have rewarded far closer analysis, such as the Song of Songs (three conferences) and the Book of Tobit (one). Other important texts are given scant or no attention. A far richer understanding of Paul would have resulted, for example, from a more sustained and robust reading of 1 Corinthians 7, which truly does reveal the mutuality and reciprocity-and complexity-of married love.
Second, John Paul II does not deal with some of the difficulties presented by the texts he does select. For instance, he manages to use Matthew 19:3-9, on the question of marriage’s indissolubility, without ever adverting to the clause allowing divorce on the grounds of porneia (sexual morality) in both Matthew 5:32 and 19:9. What does that exceptive clause suggest about the distance between the ideal "in the beginning" evoked by Jesus, and the hard realities of actual marriages faced by the Matthean (and every subsequent) church?
Third, for all of his philosophical sophistication, John Paul II seems unaware of the dangers of deriving ontological conclusions from selected ancient narrative texts. He inveighs against the "hermeneutics of suspicion," but the remedy is not an uncritical reading that moves directly from the ancient story to an essential human condition. He focuses on the Yahwist creation account in Genesis 2, because that is the account cited by Jesus in his dispute with the Pharisees concerning divorce (Matt. 19:5), and, I suspect, because its narrative texture-not to mention its human feel-allows for the sort of phenomenological reflection he enjoys. But as the pope certainly understands, this creation account must also be joined to that in Genesis 1 if an adequate appreciation of what Jesus meant by "from the beginning" (Matt. 19:8) is to be gained. If Genesis 1-which has God creating humans in God’s image as male and female-had been employed more vigorously, certain emphases would be better balanced. John Paul II wants, for example, to have the term "man" mean both male and female. But the Genesis 2 account pushes him virtually to equate "man" with "male," with the unhappy result that males experience both the original solitude the pope wants to make distinctively human as well as the dominion over creation expressed by the naming of animals. Females inevitably appear as "helpers" and as complementary to the already rather complete humanity found in the male. Small wonder that in virtually none of his further reflections on sexuality do women appear as moral agents: Men can have lust in the hearts but not women; men can struggle with concupiscence but apparently women do not; men can exploit their wives sexually but women can’t exploit their husbands sexually.
Such tight focus on male and female in the biblical account also leaves out all the interesting ways in which human sexuality refuses to be contained within those standard gender designations, not only biologically but also psychologically and spiritually. What appears in the guise of description serves prescription: human love and sexuality can appear in only one approved form, with every other way of being either sexual or loving left out altogether. Is it not important at least to acknowledge that a significant portion of humans-even if we take a ludicrously low percentage, at least tens of millions-are homosexual? Are they left outside God’s plan if they are not part of the biblical story? Would not an adequate phenomenology of human sexuality, so concerned with "persons," after all, rather than statistics, take with great seriousness this part of the human family, who are also called to be loving, and in many fashions to create and foster the work and joy of creation?
Even within this normative framework, out of all the things that might be taken up and discussed within married love and the vocation of parenting, John Paul II’s conferences finally come down to a concentration on "the transmission of life." By the time he reaches his explicit discussion of Humanae vitae, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that every earlier textual choice and phenomenological reflection has been geared to a defense of Paul VI’s encyclical. However, there is virtually nothing in this defense that is strengthened by the conferences preceding it.
WHAT THE POPE LEAVES OUT
John Paul II is certainly to be appreciated for trying to place the knotty and disputed questions concerning procreation into a more comprehensive theology of the body. But there are a number of things lacking in these conferences and in the various declarations of the pope’s apologists. I will simply list some obvious ones without development.
Most important, I would like to see a greater intellectual modesty, not only concerning the "facts" of revelation but also with the "facts" of human embodiedness. In everything having to do with the body, we are in the realm of what Gabriel Marcel called mystery. The body does not present a series of problems that we can solve by detached analysis. The body rather is mystery in two significant ways. First, we don’t understand everything about the body, particularly our own body. The means by which we reveal ourselves to others and unite lovingly with others is not unambiguous. The body reveals itself to thought but also conceals itself from our minds. Second, we cannot detach ourselves from our bodies as though they were simply what we "have" rather than also what we "are." We are deeply implicated and cannot distance ourselves from the body without self-distortion. Our bodies are not only to be schooled by our minds and wills; they also instruct and discipline us in often humbling ways. Should not a genuine "theology of the body" begin with a posture of receptive attention to and learning from our bodies? Human bodies are part of God’s image and the means through which absolutely everything we can learn about God must come to us.
In this regard, I find much of contemporary talk about "controlling our bodies" exactly contrary to such humility, whether such language derives from technocrats seeking to engineer reproductive processes or from naturalists who seek the same control through continence. I am not suggesting that a lack of continence or temperance is a desirable goal. But self-control is not the entire point of sexual love; celibacy is not the goal of marriage! And it may help to remember, in all this talk of controlling the body, that Dante assigned a deeper place in hell to the cold and the cruel than to the lustful. It can be argued, especially from the evidence of this century, that more evil has been visited upon us by various Stalins of sexless self-control than by the (quickly exhausted) epicures of the erotic. Recognition of the ways in which we suffer, rather than steer, our bodies is a beginning of wisdom.
Along these lines, I would welcome from the pope some appreciation for the goodness of sexual pleasure-any bodily pleasure, come to think of it! Pleasure is, after all, God’s gift also. A sadly neglected text is 1 Timothy 6:17, where God supplies us all things richly for our enjoyment. Sexual passion, in papal teaching, appears mainly as an obstacle to authentic love. Many of us have experienced sexual passion as both humbling and liberating, a way in which our bodies know quicker and better than our minds, choose better and faster than our reluctant wills, even get us to where God apparently wants us in a way our minds never could. Along the same lines, papal teaching might find a good word to say about the sweetness of sexual love-also, I think, God’s gift. Amid all the talk of self-donation and mutuality, we should also remember, "plus, it feels good." Come to think of it, why not devote some meditation to the astonishing triumph of sexual fidelity in marriage? Faithfulness, when it is genuine, is the result of a delicate and attentive creativity between partners, and not simply the automatic product of "self-control." In short, a more adequate theology of the body would at least acknowledge the positive ways in which the body gifts us by "controlling" us.
As with pleasure so with pain. A theology of the body ought to recognize the ways in which human sexual existence is difficult: how arduous and ambiguous a process it is for any of us to become mature sexually; how unstable and shifting are our patterns of sexual identity; how unpredictable and vagrant are our desire and craving, as well as our revulsion and resistance; how little support there is for covenanted love in our world; how much the stresses of life together-and apart-bear upon our sexual expression. John Paul II and his apologists seem to think that concupiscence is our biggest challenge. How many of us would welcome a dose of concupiscence, when the grinding realities of sickness and need have drained the body of all its sap and sweetness, just as a reminder of being sentient! I would welcome the honest acknowledgment that for many who are married the pleasure and comfort of sexual love are most needed precisely when least available, not because of fertility rhythms, but because of sickness and anxiety and separation and loss. For that matter, a theology of the body ought to speak not only of an "original solitude" that is supposedly cured by marriage, but also of the "continuing solitude" of those both married and single, whose vocation is not celibacy yet whose erotic desires find, for these and many other reasons, no legitimate or sanctified expression, and, in these papal conferences, neither recognition nor concern.
The pope does not examine these and many other aspects of the body and of "human love in the divine plan." Instead, the theology of the body is reduced to sexuality, and sexuality to "the transmission of life." The descent to biologism is unavoidable. What is needed is a more generous appreciation of the way sexual energy pervades our interpersonal relations and creativity-including the life of prayer!-and a fuller understanding of covenanted love as life-giving and sustaining in multiple modes of parenting, community building, and world enhancement.
REVISITING ’HUMANAE VITAE’
John Paul II’s conferences and the recent articles I have quoted have meant to defend the correctness of Humanae vitae, but paradoxically they remind readers with any historical memory how flawed that instrument was, and how badly it is in need of a fundamental revisiting. George Weigel calls it a "pastoral and catechetical failure," as though the encyclical’s deficiencies were merely those of tone or effective communication. John Paul II’s biblical reflections, in fact, appear as nothing less than a major effort to ground Humanae vitae in something more than natural law; an implicit recognition of the argumentative inadequacy of Paul VI’s encyclical. As my earlier comments indicate, I would judge his success as slight. It would be a weary business to take up the entire encyclical again, but it is important at least to note five major deficiencies that require a genuinely theological response rather than enthusiastic or reluctant apology.
In these comments, I will speak of "artificial birth control" only in terms of using a condom, diaphragm, or other mechanical device, mainly because I have considerable unease concerning chemical interventions and their implications for women’s long-term health.
First, the encyclical represents a reversion to an act-centered morality, ignoring the important maturation of moral theology in the period leading up to and following Vatican II, which emphasized a person’s fundamental dispositions as more defining of moral character than isolated acts. I am far from suggesting that specific acts are not morally significant. But specific acts must also be placed within the context of a person’s character as revealed in consistent patterns of response. The difference is critical when the encyclical and John Paul II insist that it is not enough for married couples to be open to new life; rather, every act of intercourse must also be open, so that the use of a contraceptive in any single act in effect cancels the entire disposition of openness. But this is simply nonsense. I do not cancel my commitment to breathing when I hold my breath for a moment or when I go under anesthesia. Likewise, there is an important distinction to be maintained between basic moral dispositions and single actions. The woman who kills in self-defense (or in defense of her children) does not become a murderer. The focus on each act of intercourse rather than on the overall dispositions of married couples is morally distorting.
Second, the arguments of Paul VI and John Paul II sacrifice logic to moral brinkmanship. When Paul VI equated artificial birth control and abortion, he not only defied science but also provoked the opposite result of the one he intended. He wanted to elevate the moral seriousness of birth control but ended by trivializing the moral horror of abortion. Similarly, from one side of the mouth, John Paul II recognizes two ends of sexual love, unitive intimacy and procreation. But from the other side of his mouth he declares that if procreation is blocked, not only that end has been canceled but also the unitive end as well. He has thereby, despite his protestations to the contrary, simply reduced the two ends to one. This can be shown clearly by applying the logic in reverse, by insisting that sexual intercourse that is not a manifestation of intimacy or unity also cancels the procreative end of the act.
Third, the position of the popes and their apologists continues to reveal the pervasive sexism that becomes ever more obvious within official Catholicism. I have touched above on the way John Paul II’s reading of Scripture tends to reduce the moral agency of women within the marriage covenant and sexual relationships. This becomes glaringly obvious in the argument that artificial birth control is wrong because it tends to "instrumentalize" women for men’s pleasure by making the woman a passive object of passion rather than a partner in mutuality. Yet the argument makes more experiential sense in reverse. Few things sound more objectifying than the arguments of the natural family planners, whose focus remains tightly fixed on biological processes rather than on emotional and spiritual communication through the body. The view that "openness to life" is served with moral integrity by avoiding intercourse during fertile periods (arguably times of greatest female pleasure in making love) and is not served (and becomes morally reprehensible) by the mutual agreement to use a condom or diaphragm, would be laughable if it did not have such tragic consequences. And what could be more objectifying of women than speaking as though birth control were something that only served male concupiscence? How about women’s moral agency in the realm of sexual relations? Don’t all of us living in the real world of bodies know that women have plenty of reasons of their own to be relieved of worries about pregnancy for a time and to be freed for sexual enjoyment purely for the sake of intimacy and even celebration?
Fourth, the absolute prohibition of artificial birth control becomes increasingly scandalous in the face of massive medical realities. One might want to make an argument that distributing condoms to teenagers as a part of sex education is mistaken, but that argument, I think, has to do with misgivings concerning sex education-and a general culture of permissiveness-as a whole. But what about couples who can no longer have sexual relations because one of them has innocently been infected by hiv, and not to use a condom means also to infect the other with a potentially lethal virus? When does "openness to life" in every act become a cover for "death-dealing"? Given the fact that in Africa aids affects tens of millions of men, women, and children (very many of them Christian), is the refusal to allow the use of condoms (leaving aside other medical interventions and the changing of sexual mores) coming dangerously close to assisting in genocide? These are matters demanding the most careful consideration by the church, and the deepest compassion. It is difficult to avoid the sense that the failed logic supposedly marshaled in the defense of life is having just the opposite result. If the political enslavement of millions of Asians and Europeans led the papacy to combat the Soviet system in the name of compassion, and if the enslavement and murder of millions of Jews led the papacy to renounce the anti-Semitism of the Christian tradition in the name of compassion, should not compassion also lead at the very least to an examination of logic, when millions of Africans are enslaved and killed by a sexual pandemic?
Fifth, and finally, shouldn’t Humanae vitae be revisited rather than simply defended for the same reasons that it was a "pastoral and catechetical" failure the first time around? It failed to convince most of its readers not least because its readers knew that Paul VI spoke in the face of the recommendations of his own birth-control commission. The encyclical was, as Weigel calls it, a "new Galileo crisis," not simply because it pitted papal authority against science, but also because the papacy was wrong both substantively and formally. It generated an unprecedented crisis for papal authority precisely because it was authority exercised not only apart from but also in opposition to the process of discernment. Sad to say, John Paul’s theology of the body, for all its attention to Scripture, reveals the same deep disinterest in the ways the experience of married people, and especially women (guided by the Holy Spirit, as we devoutly pray) might inform theology and the decision-making process of the church. If papal teaching showed signs of attentiveness to such experience, and a willingness to learn from God’s work in the world as well as God’s word in the tradition, its pronouncements would be received with greater enthusiasm. A theology of the body ought at least to have feet that touch the ground.
Since God is the Living One who continuously presses upon us at every moment of creation, calling us to obedience and inviting us to a painful yet joyous quest of wisdom, theology must be inductive rather than deductive. Our reading of Scripture not only shapes our perceptions of the world, but is in turn shaped by our experiences of God in the fabric of our human freedom and in the cosmic play of God’s freedom. Theology that takes the self-disclosure of God in human experience with the same seriousness as it does God’s revelation in Scripture does not turn its back on tradition but recognizes that tradition must constantly be renewed by the powerful leading of the Spirit if it is not to become a form of falsehood. Theology so understood is a demanding and delicate conversation that, like sexual love itself, requires patience as well as passion. If we are to reach a better theology of human love and sexuality, then we must, in all humility, be willing to learn from the bodies and the stories of those whose response to God and to God’s world involves sexual love. That, at least, is a starting point.
Original Unity of Man and Woman (summery of THEO 436 notes)
In John Paul's discourses entitled "The Original Unity of Man and Woman," he discusses three proposed original states of humankind, before the fall:
First "The Original Solitude," second, "The Original Unity of Man and Woman," and third, "Original Nakedness."
The Original Unity is the state pursued following the state of Original Solitude, for it is in Adam's (and more broadly humanity's) self-realization of an imminent state of aloneness which then leads to the seeking of unity.
The unity of man and woman is premised on mutuality, reciprocity, and complementarity.
Complementarity presupposes identity (common human nature), duality (one nature embodied in two ways) and unity/communion (ie, the purpose of duality is an orientation towards/capacity for communion). Hence, there is seen equality and difference. The communion of man and woman breaks down as a result of inequality.
The nature of this communion was, according to John Paul, interpersonal communion, that is, a union of persons realized through reciprocal gift of self and reciprocal receiving of the gift of the other (ie, imago Dei).
The paradigm of this unity is marraige. This is the nature of Christ's relation to the Church. The ultimate paradigm of this is found in the Trinity.
Quasi Definition of Catholic/Marian Feminism
A while ago, hollyqdolly asked in response to 'My Protestant Bible Study Group...' What exactly Catholic/Marian Feminism was. I found a wonderful summarizing interview with Pia de Solenni [http://catholiceducation.org/articles/feminism/fe0022.html] where she discusses the different kinds of feminism and posted some useful parts here. [TRUE FEMINISM]"Woman is created in the image of God. Like man, she is created for the purpose of knowing, ultimately knowing God. True feminism, therefore, respects woman´s essential identity as an image of God. Where she differs from man, a true feminism understands that these differences are constructive and complementary. As a result of many feminist theories, woman begins to be considered an atomistic individual, an individual without relations to others. Yet, we see that every aspect of our life — for both men and women — we need others. Our happiness relates intimately to our relations with others because we come to know ourselves and others, including God, through these relations. The Christian tradition has shown us that the feminine vocation is lived out in countless ways — look at the women saints. You can't put it in a box and say that a woman should do x, y and z. True feminism concerns itself more with how a woman exists, rather than the jobs that she can do. Whatever she does, she does as a woman, not as a genderless creature. The same is obviously true for man. [DIFFERENT CATEGORIES OF FEMINISM]Feminism can be categorized in many different ways. I think it's easier to break it down into general groups based on how the individual man and woman are considered in relation to each other. Under each of these groups, you´ll find people who might not even agree on their views, but their essential understanding of man and woman is the same. That would give us about four basic categories. First, there's feminism of equality. This feminism maintains that women and men are absolute equals and exactly the same. The differences are conditioned by external factors. This tradition can be traced to Plato who considered the body to be nothing more than the container of the genderless soul. It's also the tradition found in the 18th-century feminism started by Mary Wollstonecraft. John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor developed this thought in the 19th century. It's also held weight into the 20th and 21st centuries, especially in theories of androgyny. Out of the feminism of equality arises feminism of difference. Within the feminism of difference, there are two major trends: polarity and complementarity. Polarity asserts that one sex is superior to the other. This trend includes thinkers like Mary Daly, Carol Gilligan and even Aristotle. Complementarity maintains that man and woman are different, but equal. John Paul II has most notably developed this thought. Anti-essentialist feminism grew out of mid-19th century existentialism and the increasing sensitivity/awareness of the differences between man and woman. It's similar to feminism of equality, but it takes the claims much further. Within this view, women are understood to be limited by society's imposition of stereotypical feminine roles and prohibited from freely living out their own existence and creating their own essence. They seek an existence which is free from the impositions of others, especially those of a male-dominated society. Deconstructivist feminism builds on all three groupings of feminist traditions. Besides saying as the anti-essentialists do — that essence is something created by experience, in the context of a community — deconstructivists maintain that things which are seen as true and somewhat absolute are, in fact, relative to the person. Most postmodern feminists are deconstructivists. As Christians, we recognize the inherent equality of all human beings, man and woman. The differences are constructive even if we don´t understand them. Remember that the differences existed before original sin. The tensions that arise from them, however, are due to original sin. Why should we settle for any system of thought that gives us anything less than being created in the image of God? [So Marian feminism is JPII's feminism, a feminism of difference based on complementality. Hope this helps :)]
The Julian Oratorio
Sunday Night I got to listen to the first public performance of the Julian Oratorio by Roger Mayor! (though it was recorded in 2002) I was very excited :) It was in Norwich Cathedral, and although it was only 6:30, because England's so far north, it was blacker than midnight (the sun sets at 4:30ish as of now, and gets darker the hours before). This was my first introduction to Norwich Cathedral - I hadn't been there yet. It's an Anglican Cathedral now, so I normally go to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, the Roman Catholic Church, built by the Duke of Norfolk in the 1800s. ( My friend who's a fan of Tudor History informed me that, for England, this is a more Catholic region because the Duke of Norfolk has always traditionally been from a Catholic family. Even during the Reformation, he had Catholic sympathies.)I'm looking forward to seeing the Cathedral in the daytime, because at night it was absolutely beautiful. On my path to the ladies' I was walking under the stone outer edges of the courtyard, and it was really cool. The Oratorio was a choral work (with instruments) that set the words of Julian of Norwich to music. The acoustics were wonderful and the music powerful. A lovely time was had by all :) (or me at least! hehe)
Thoughts on JPII and Virginal Superiority
I was reading Theology of the Body, the series entited 'Virginity for the Sake of the Kingdom' in "Life According to the Spirit". I just had some reactions to certain things he talked about that I just wanted to put into words so I wouldn't forget, and could look back on later:p. 264 - ...continence for the kingdm of heaven in man's earthly life...[is] a king of exception to what is rather a general rule of this life...That such an exception contains within itself the anticipation of the exchatological life without marriage and proper to the "other world"...is not directly spoken of here by christ. It is a question indeed, not of continence in the kingdom of heaven, but of continence for the kingdome of heaven. The idea of virginity or of celibacy as an anticipation and eschatological sign...Are we all in union and communism with each other and God in heaven? But does that mean physicall too? With our glorified bodies?p. 267 - Such a human being [in heaven where people no longer marry], man and woman, indicates the eschatological virginity of the risen man. In him there will be revealed, I would say, the absolute an deternal nuptial meaning of the glorified body in union with God himself through the "face to face" vision of him, and glorified also through the union of a perfect intersubjectivity. But if that's the case, is risen man really a virgin? If every conjugal act is symbolic of the loving union and communion with God, then a perpetual union and communism is a perpetual state of consummation. A virgin to other humans but the perpetual lover of God. But that's not quite right...you'd be renouncing other people...p. 268 - The marriage of Mary and Joseph...conceals within itself, at the same time, the mystery of the perfect communion of the persons, of the man and hte woman in the conjugal pact, and also the mystery of that singular continence for the kingdom of heaven. This continence served, in the history of salvation, the most perfect fruitfulness of the Holy Spirit. But how is that a 'conjugal pact' if Mary was perpetually virginal? There was no union or consummation, definitely a church requirement. p. 269 - Such a continence must have impressed itself on [the disciples'] consiousness as a particular trait of likeneses to Christ, who had himself remained celibate "for the kingdom of heaven"...[which] attaches a particular meaning to that spiritual and supernatural fruitfulness of man which comes from the Holy Spirit...Why is it for the kingdom of heaven? How is it supernatural?p. 273 - From the context of the Gospel according to Matthew (MR 19:10-12), it can be seen sufficiently clearly that here it is not a question of diminishing hte value of matrimony in faor of continence, nor of lessening the value of one in comparison with the other. Instead, it is a question of breaking away from, with full awareness, that which in man, by the Creator's will, causes him to marry, and to move toward continence. How does this make continence seem like a good thing? Consciously going against what God created your bodies for to know and understand him? Perhaps there are two ways to understand the union and communion? Physical (husband and wife) and spiritual (continence)?p. 273-4 - By choosing continence for teh kingdom of heaven, man has the knowledge of being able in that way to fulfill himself differently and, in a certain way, more than through matrimoney, becoming a "true gift to others" (cf GS 24).Is it really more, or more in the spiritual way? It's still kind of then saying understanding in the physical way is then less, and while good, not as good - when they're both different, like men and women are different. p. 275 - In Christ's words recorded in Matthew (MT 19:11-12) we find a solid basis for admitting only this superiority, while we do not find any basis whatever for any disparagement of matrimony...Mt( 19: 11-12) - p. 262 - Replying to the disciples who said, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry", "Not all men can receive the precept, but only those to whom it is given For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who had made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He whoe is able to receive this, let him receive it. p. 275 - Certainly, he [Christ] said that this is an exceptional vocation, not a common one. In addition he affirmed that it is especially important and necessary to the kingdom of heaven. If we understand superiority to matrimony in this sense, we must admit that Christ set it out implicitly. However, he did not express it directly. Only Paul will say of those who choose matrimony taht they do "well". About those who are willing to live in voluntary continence, he will say that they do "better" (1 Cor 7:38).I still don't see how Christ recognized this as 'superiority'. He's definitely implying that it was exceptional, important and necessary. The Church's Tradition stems from the Pauline belief doesn't it? Virginity is especially importnat to the kingdom of heaven above and marraige is especially important for our beinge and understanding on earth below. Virginity may be superior in the spiritual sense, but not the physical. And what about the resurrection? At which resurrection of our glorified bodies we are in perpetual consummation with the Lord, or else there'd be no reason for our bodies at all glorified in heaven. Because of the physical resurrection, there must be some great merit for the physical understand of God that is not superceded by the spiritually virginal. Maybe? ?? ?? ??
Dover, Pennsylvania and Intelligent Design
Many people are so harsh towards Intelligent Design. I have been previously as well, and while I don’t necessary advocate it unequivocally quite yet, I do think it merits more examination as a scientific inclusion than is currently being given by those who simply see it as a way to preach religion in schools. I also see this as connected to our goals of examining society and women, and questioning academia’s ways of thinking.
For example, one could look at the Intelligent Design argument and advocate it as an extension of what science currently constitutes. At present, since the Scientific Revolution, anything that science by definition examines must be able to be proven or disproven, tested, measured in some way, and repeated in standard experiments. I do give merit to that type of scientific analysis – it has led to so many great discoveries and improvements for humanity.
However, it is this definition which by nature excludes a fundamental challenge of Darwinian evolution (note : Darwinian): that of the potentially irreducible complexity of aspects of creation and the emphasis on Chance. Intelligent Design posits that because certain things are irreducibly complex (meaning that they could not have evolved in isolation without other parts also existing), evolution itself could not have resulted in them – Another Power (like God) must have had a hand. In addition, a major Catholic argument against Darwinian evolution is his emphasis on chance – that all things occurred, including the development of human beings, because of a fortuitous survival of species best adapted to their environment and able to pass on their particular traits. The Catholic Church opposes this notion because it denies God’s infinite foresight and hindsight that exists out of time; a foresight that predestined humanity from the very beginning. “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Gen 1:31)
It seems to me that Intelligent Design has merit in a science classroom only if one extends the definition of science to take into account unobjective things – which currently isn’t too probable. Intelligent design is a critique and challenge to Darwinian evolution but it will not be allowed in the science classroom because it can only be asserted out of negation, and the inability to unequivocally prove certain aspects of evolution: 1. the irreducible complexity of certain aspects of creation (the human eye is an oft cited example, though there are others) and 2. the development of human creation as a special and unique, not chance, realization. It is a challenge because it takes into account that science can’t prove chance development, because it can’t see outside factors – factors which it, because of the exclusion of religion, refuses to consider.
Instead of an attempt to put religion into science, Intelligent Design can be considered as an attempt to expose the bias of agnosticism – a bias science consistently overlooks because of its fundamental tenants.
What does this then have to do with the feminine perspective in academia and subsequent implications? More than at first appears.
First off, it is a challenge to objective ‘unbiased’ determinants of scientific truths. Objectivity is important, but science doesn’t necessarily have to always be so. By considering that which one cannot prove, but is still a possibility, we are extending the realms of understanding in the scientific world – connecting it to other truths of other disciplines (disciplines only arbitrarily divided by human intervention, as everything in the world is part of a holistic unity).
This process is a most feminine process – seeing the interconnection of disciplines and ways of understanding, curtailing some of the deficiencies of one-sided pursuit. It is a way of thinking and analyzing science that is not as abstracted and dehumanized, nor as isolated and disconnected from the real and living truth. This could be extended to other areas of thinking – such as Theology and Philosophy, our cup of tea, which often suffers from a similar yet opposite problem – that of the theoretical and exclusion of the concrete. The implications of these changes have extraordinary (and also possibly dangerous) potential. This could lead to an academic climate more conducive to female ways of thinking and understanding – which in turn could lead to a more holistic, developed, humane, and connected world system.
All those in favour of Intelligent Design in Dover, Pennsylvania have not succeeded in their intentions this week. It's possible that what they were trying to do was wrong, or the scientific community was not and will never be ready for such a radical adjustment to their system of inquiry and understanding. Regardless, the defeat of Intelligent Design in Pennsylvania does not negate in my mind its considerable implications for the ways of academia and how this could affect the female sex.
Theology of Everything/Nuptial Meaning of Everything - An Extension of Biblical Anthropology??
The Theology of the Body dicusses the nuptial meaning of the body. It talks about the union and communion of persons and God through the spirit and the flesh, marriage and continence, and other such dichotomies. The body reveals God and is a symbol to help us understand Him and His World - our World. Why stop then at the body and sexuality?Biblical analogies abound. We have wonderful symbolic references in the Bible refering to our bodies (Christ as the head, the Church as body and organs, et al), jobs, nature, etc. -- the whole world-- Does this then point to a sort of "Nuptial Meaning/Theology of Everything?"At first I thought about was Mythology and Nature, etc. How the value of reoccuring archetypes in Christianity is not diminished because those archetypes are in used in other myths and religions; it's just a subconscious manifestation of what we all intrinsically know to be the truth or what we are searching for, because they in turn mean something about God. Then I got to more important matters: the real first thing I thought of (that I tossed aside to ponder a moment on mythology) was: Why do we have five toes? And why do they wiggle? What does that show? What about nail enamel? What's up with nail enamel? And nails too now that I think about it. Interesting...What does this world mean? And not just the Big Questions - Everyone focuses on those (and rightly so), but What about the everyday things? What about lily pads, drainpipes, contact lenses, pins and tacks, towels (ohhh, fuzzy :p ) 'To show the beauty and diversity of Creation' I'm sure is true, but there should be something more , that everyone kind of tosses aside as meaningless, or little, or not significant. But then we always hear it said that God is in all the little things - is that really only for our enjoyment and understanding of beauty? To spiritually connect with God? How can we look at these things and see a 'nuptial meaning'? A 'theology of the body'-type anthropomorphic implication? I am aware that this may get a little funky, a little questionable, a little...not good - people's interpretations of us having 5 toes turning into eugenic prejudicial tracts in complete disalignment with the Church. I think it might be possible, thought, to speculate on these things -- all these crazy things in our world - to gain further insight into an extension of biblical anthropology to understand a 'Theology of the World', as long as we remain rooted in Church teachings and accept the limitations of our own beings and experiences.What do you think?
