Theological Tidbits

When God created Adam and Eve, they were naked and they were not ashamed (Gen 2:25). After sin, “they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons” (Gen 3:7). Obviously, their experience of nakedness had changed as a result of sin. “This passage…speaks of the mutual shame of the man and the woman as a symptom of the fall” (Pope St. John Paul II). Shame exists when one holds a particular value system and—in spite of what is believed—acts contrary to it. Before sin, Adam and Eve were naked and were not ashamed because they acted according to what they believed. However, after sin, they were naked and they were ashamed because they were engaged in an activity contrary to their value system—i.e., they experienced lust. They believed, as they had before sin, that each one of them was of incredible worth and value. They accepted the personalistic norm that the only proper and adequate attitude towards other persons is love. However, after sin, their bodies no longer always responded properly to their choices to love one another. Instead, their bodily desires sometimes influenced their minds and wills to use each other as a source of pleasure. The tendency to use one another was contrary to their own value system and was the cause of their shame.

God did not create our bodies to influence our minds and wills unduly. Rather, God intended our bodies to express our persons. God could hardly have created us as enfleshed spirits and expected our bodies to express our persons—and be reflections of His own acts—without making the spiritual powers in the human person primary. The bodily desires and emotions should not be as powerful as they are. They should not be able to influence our minds and wills as they do because with their influence it is almost impossible for our bodies to express our persons. For example, as images of God, we are called to love in and through the familial and worker communions of persons in imitation of the divine communion of Persons. Love is a choice—founded on the truth—of at least two persons to give themselves totally to one another. These choices should then be expressed in and through their bodies. However, if their bodies do not respond to their choices and even unduly influence their choices, it is impossible for them to express love in and through their bodies. In other words, it is impossible for them to love as human beings. We appear to be the most pathetic of creatures because it is almost impossible for us to do what we are created to do: to express God-like acts in and through our bodies. We all experience this lack of wholeness or integration. We know our situation—but we do not know how it came to be. The story of the creation and the fall in Genesis explains why we are the way we are.

Often our love is not expressed because our bodily desires influence our spiritual powers—our minds and wills—that enable us to love. In this case, we do not choose to love. Rather, we act unlovingly because we allow our bodily desires to unduly influence our minds and wills. However, despite the powerful influence we sometimes permit our bodies to have over our minds and wills, the human body is not somehow separate from the human person. The body does not have a mind and a will of its own in opposition to, as it were, the “real” human person “inside”. If we have eaten too much, we have decided to eat too much. If we have become angry, we have decided to become angry. Our bodily desires have influenced our minds and wills—and we have “changed our minds”. We have decided not to love. Therefore, we are still responsible for our own acts. Our bodies have not decided—nor can they decide—to do anything “on their own”.

Human persons are incredible beings. We are called to love as God loves and to express love in and through our bodies. Love is a choice—i.e., a will-act, founded on the truth known by the mind, of at least two persons to give themselves to one another. It is absolutely necessary for the spiritual faculties of mind and will to “orchestrate” our various bodily capacities—e.g., emotions, so that we can express love in and through our bodies.

Often, this “orchestration” of the bodily powers does not succeed. “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Rom 7:15). If we have a favorite food—e.g., chocolate, we might decide not to eat more than a certain amount. Yet, in the end, almost to our own amazement, we often find that we have eaten more than we had planned. In this case, our bodies do not express the proper love of self. In our dealings with others, we sometimes make a firm resolution that we will not allow others to anger us. Yet we find ourselves becoming angry. In this case, our bodies do not express the proper love for others. The choices we make in our wills founded on the truths we know are not always carried out. Rather, we alter and change them.

The two communions of persons—of the family and of workers—that God invites us to enter are each imitations of the union of the three Persons in God. Each member of the two human communions makes a choice founded on a knowledge of the value and dignity of each of the other members. Each member makes a choice to give himself totally to each of the other members. In other words, each member makes a permanent and limitless self-gift to the other members. By choosing to form these communions, human beings imitate the Trinity.

The invitations by God to enter into the familial communions of persons continue to be offered to us despite our rejection of God through original sin. As one of the nuptial blessings in the wedding ritual has it, marriage is “the one blessing that was not forfeited by original sin or washed away in the flood.” The communion of persons of all workers also was not forfeited. However, both these communions were almost destroyed by sin—because the human race was radically altered by sin, but they are restored in and through Christ.

The Catholic view of work and the union of all workers points towards solutions to a number of problems. If all people work and will the self-fulfillment of every worker in and through work, then the struggle between labor and capital, or between unions and management, should lessen. Both union members and managers are workers. Further, if work is for man, and not man for work, then the struggle in so many “two-career” families should also disappear. It is not the job that is important; it is people. Families should not quarrel over whose job is more important. It is unthinkable to value a particular job over spouse and children. Finally, the union of all people in the worker communion of persons could and should be the basis for peace in the world. If everyone realizes each person’s dignity and loves all other people, one would think that war would be inconceivable.

Through the tasks accomplished in working, we share in God’s creative activity as well as in His dominion over the world. When we work, we fashion things from the created order that God has given to us. After we have made these things, we legitimately govern them. Through work, we do what God does. Therefore, through work, we become more and more like God. We fulfill ourselves as images of God. Work, then, is truly for man. It is a means for us to become more and more the beings we are—i.e., images of the Creator. We are not made for work—i.e., work does not take precedence over a person. Rather, God invited us to work so that we might become more and more like Him. As Pope St. John Paul II has written, “In the first place work is ‘for man’ and not man ‘for work’. In the final analysis it is always man who is the purpose of work” (Laborem Exercens, no. 6). If we work primarily to fulfill ourselves as images of God, then every worker should work first and foremost to shape himself more and more into an image of God. A worker should not work primarily for money, for fame, or for success, but rather to fulfill himself. Of course, it is only in working, in accomplishing some task together with co-workers, that one has the opportunity to become more God-like. Since workers are called to love one another, they are called to will the self-fulfillment of one another. Workers then will the specific task or job as the means to an end—i.e., as the means of fulfilling themselves and their co-workers. Further, as the worker comes to know more and more people, he or she realizes that everybody works. Therefore, each worker wills the self-fulfillment of all workers—i.e., the entire human race. In other words, in and through a specific task—e.g., building cars, a worker chooses to unite himself in love not only with those building cars with him, but with every other worker—i.e., every other human being. The task accomplished through work is not the primary goal or end product of work. The self-fulfillment of all workers is the most important goal of all work.