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Linking Experience, Reason, and Faith

By Annie Vining MTh, President TOBET

Linking Experience, Reason, and Faith is a reflection given to around 30 students at the University of Texas in Dallas TX on November 7, 2004.

© 2004

The pope's project is to link experience to reason and then both of these to faith
  1. Subjective Experience
    1. the value of the person: (aka the human person has the highest value/dignity)
      1. because we are the only things on earth capable of reason, of progress
      2. because we are the only things capable of free will, of non-dominance by our instincts
    2. I experience that I am capable of understanding (or else you would not have come to this talk)
    3. I experience that I am free, that no one can choose/desire/want/ will for me.
      1. I am responsible for the things I choose to do, not anyone else
  2. Objective Reality (see "reason" in preliminary note)
    1. Love is the greatest realization of the potential inherent in man (aka man can only find himself in a sincere giving on himself)
      1. it is the focusing of the reason and will on the highest good: a person, since love can only exist between persons (all other uses of the word love notwithstanding)
      2. if it is to be the best kind of love (which is the absolute fullest realization of man's potential), it must be done in the best way, a way that fits the value of the person
      3. this will be in a way that respects the freedom of the person: thus the personalistic norm that a person is never to be used as a tool to my own personal goals
    2. Marriage is the fulfillment of love between persons in its deepest form
  3. Marriage is an image of God on earth (faith, above)
    1. God is love
      1. In the Trinity the divine persons give themselves eternally to one another
      2. The Holy Spirit is the "fruit" of the love between the Father and Son
    2. Man is the image of God (as love)
      1. And he is a unity of body and soul
      2. Thus the body bears the image of God in it (and thus it deserves respect or it "has dignity")
      3. Particularly in his sexuality which is the aspect of him that makes him most able to love as God loves: to be an image of God as a Trinity of love
      4. Through the complimentary sexes, humankind is able to give their entire self to their spouse, communing with them so much as to become one "flesh" and in a way that is fruitful
      5. Everyone feels the desire to "know" and be known… It is the desire to love and be loved in return. This is a confirmation of being made in the image of God and a drive toward fulfilling this image
      6. When we fulfill the image in which we were made, we find happiness
    3. Jesus is the image of the invisible God
        For this reason, Jesus also "fully reveals man to himself and makes his supreme calling known." Vat II
      1. We see this most of all on the cross, the high point of revelation
      2. On the cross, Jesus shows us true love by giving His body in a full, free, faithful, and fruitful way
      3. This means that if we are to find happiness, we too must find a way to give ourselves in a way that is full, free, faithful, and fruitful
    4. Marriage as the fullest expression of the gift of self inscribed in the body: the nuptial meaning of the body
      1. It is a sacramental participation in the true Love of God shown by Jesus on the cross
      2. It images God/Jesus most of all in a sexual gift of self that is full, free, faithful, and fruitful. In fact, "Sexual desire is the desire to love as God loves." –Pope JPII
      3. The pope includes in "marriage" that gift of self by which a person offers their sexuality to God alone in the religious life or priesthood
    5. Religious life is another way to fulfill the nuptial meaning of the body
      1. Rather than stuffing sexual energy, they direct it to building the kingdom of God: teaching/baptizing
      2. They give themselves fully, freely, faithfully, and fruitfully in a non-genital way like Jesus did on the cross
    6. How these ideas apply to singles
      1. Singles can learn from celibates about directing sexual energy so that it makes one more like God (even though not yet fully)
      2. When it comes to dating, you can follow the TOB by remembering that the point of dating is to discern who you should marry
      3. A good question to ask is: Am I interested in entering into the kind of nuptial (and redeeming) love shown by Jesus on the cross with this person? Are they interested in it?
      4. A good thing to remember is that along the way you should always be progressing from what is good to what is better (following Jesus, the Way to the Truth). If we are always seeking to show love to a person, we will never make them worse off for having dated us.
      5. True love respects the other body/person as an image of God, a body/person designed for eternal happiness in heaven: it does not divorce the person from the body in order to use that body as an object for its own pleasure. This is why lust is the opposite of love.
      6. When dating, the body should be an aspect of the person that is shared according to the level of the relationship: this can be applied in an infinite number of good directions (i.e. when my fiancé and I helped to give birth to a man into eternal life on the first Divine Mercy Sunday) within certain lower limits/boundaries
    7. Some boundaries for relationships-"defining the relationship"
      1. We must keep in mind that the relationship will not be "full" until marriage and therefore neither should the expression of love through the body. This is why God desires us to reserve the genital expression of love for marriage. Anything else will not make us happy because it will not be in harmony with the image in which we were created.
      2. The idea behind all of the Church’s teachings regarding our sexuality is that it should image Christ’s gift on the cross, so we don’t give our bodies fully (sex) until we have given our entire selves fully; by giving the rest of our life to another person in marriage
      3. Addictions (sex, alcohol, drugs, etc) or cohabitation, lack of self control show the opposite of Christ’s freedom to give
      4. We can also see why the lack of faithfulness in divorce makes this image into its opposite
      5. thus we can see that the lack of (for example) fruitfulness in masturbation, oral/anal sex, homosexual sex, and contracepted sex make this image into its opposite
  4. Conclusion
    1. Sexual desire is a "vector of aspiration" propelling us toward heaven
    2. When we can channel our desire in the right direction, it will lead us to the greatest happiness possible, not only in heaven but also here on earth
    3. It will make us the fullest person we can possibly be


Annie Vining can be contacted at avining@tobet.org

The Theology of the Body Evangelization Team can be reached at info@tobet.org
 

© 2005
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