True Love Perfects the Being of the Person and Develops His Existence

Potentiality . . . that is proper to the person is actualized most fully through love (the word “actualize” comes from the Latin actus: act, perfection).  The person finds in love the greatest fullness of his being, of his objective existence.  (L&R 2^nd Edition, p 66)

In Love and Responsibility, Bishop Wojtyla analyzes love metaphysically to illumine the connection between love and being.  This is part of his focus on man’s telos and his relationship to love.  Of course, “love” has many meanings, which Wojtyla clarifies through his development of the concepts of “fondness”, “desire”, and “benevolence”.  This development is in the elucidation of the good present in the other person: fondness due to the existence of good in the other person; desire for receiving the good in the other; and, benevolent actions that will the good for the other.

True love brings the loved one into a more mature, fuller life.  But what does that look like?  I think it means that one is able to fulfill more and more the two great commandments of love, as repeated by Jesus in the Gospels.  If “action” follows from “being”, then maturation in love allows one to more freely will the true good of the other.  In a sense this is reminiscent of meeting the needs as per Maslow—physical, emotional, and spiritual.  It also means constant metanoite that allows me to relate to the other as a person, allowing me to recognize and will what is good.

And, also, to stay in relationship with the other, providing them with the means to give and receive love.  While this might seem easy, the temptation to use the good of the other only as a means to an end then negates the personhood of the other, withdrawing from them (and myself!) the opportunity to love.  In the end, we depend on relationship with other human persons for our existence, as shown in Genesis 2 when neither the presence of God or the animals was sufficient.  It is not good for man to be alone, for he needs others to love.

Ethics, Telos, and Theosis

One of things I learned from Karol Wojtyla’s habilitation thesis the need in Christian ethics to address anthropology, agency, and telos.  The last is intriguing, since it makes explicit the formal cause of the Christian—deification and theosis.  In Person and Act he makes this developmental frame clearer in that a loving act causes the person to become more good (and, thus, to “become” more), more like God.

I found this frame in The Ethics of Beauty in a different way:

Our [the Orthodox] anthropology of soul-healing is inseparable from our account of creation.  Since so few know the second, the first can easily go astray without our noticing.

    Creation results from God’s self-emptying over the face of non-being.  God appears, He shines out, as Beauty.  This Beauty is so compelling that not even non-being can resist falling in love with it.  Overcome with eros, non-being renounces itself, repents of its chaos and self-absorption, and arises into being.  As it does so, it “learns” to behave as the one it loves behaves—full of self-emptying Goodness for everything around it.  Thus, everything that exists is marked by a cruciform love—for God, as eros, and for all creation, as agape.  In these two movements, rocks, stones, stars, planets, animals, electrons—all of it—becomes what it is, becomes true. (Ethics of Beauty, page 78)

While there is much to think about here, my point is that the telos of ethics is inseparable from “becoming”—that is, deification and theosis.  And this increase in “being”, if that is possible, is paradoxically dependent upon the cruciform kenosis that is an essential part of love, of each act of love.  Each act of love reveals, increases our being as well as our acts of love.

This reminds me of the sacramentality of marriage (Part II of Catechism of Human Love) in the Theology of the Body.  John Paul II subdivides this sacramentality into the mystery (sacrament) of creation and the mystery (sacrament) of redemption.  The acts of spousal love in marriage furthers creation (yes, not as a static concept) for both the spouses as well as overflowing into the creation of children.  I write this because I think it is simplistic yet easy to understand the mystery of creation of marriage as only procreation.  This has implications for those who wish to marry yet deny themselves to their spouse through the use of contraception, in that such a practice blocks or diminishes their own deification as well as that of their spouse.

Reflections on the Catechesis on Human Love

This is the first of a series of reflections on the “Catechesis on Human Love” (aka CHL), known more popularly as the “Theology of the Body” (aka “TOB”).  That title is from one of the first editions of the TOB (Personal communication from Emma Girton of JPII CUA) and the one I will use as I prefer the emphasis on “Human Love”.

That emphasis on human love is found throughout the work of Karol Wojtyla (aka “Pope John Paul II” or “JPII”).  This focus especially developed during his second placement as a priest at Saint Florian’s parish, just north of the “Old Town” of Krakow:

“It is this [marital] vocation to love that naturally allows us to draw close to the young. As a priest I realized this very early. I felt almost an inner call in this direction. It is necessary to prepare young people for marriage, it is necessary to teach them love. Love is not something that is learned, yet there is nothing else as important to learn! As a young priest I learned to love human love. This has been one of the fundamental themes of my priesthood.” (Pope John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1994), 122-123).

While the CHL was written many decades after his time at Saint Florian’s, “teaching them to love” continued as a major theme of JPII’s pontificate.