The first
thing I recognized in reading Johnson's article is that he simply hasn't
penetrated the Pope's project. For anyone familiar with the content
of the TB, Johnson's comments are like a slick stone skipping over the
surface of a deep lake but never "sinking in."
He boasts of having "devoted considerable time (and as much consciousness
as [he] could muster) to reading through the 423 pages of collected
conferences." Admittedly, that is a feat in itself. Few have taken
the time to wade through these dense addresses. So I give him credit
for that. But, in layman's terms, he just doesn't "get it."
The Need for A Paradigm Shift
The TB calls us to look deeply into our own hearts, to look past our
wounds and the scars of sin, past our disordered desires. If we're
able to do that we discover God's original plan for creating us as
male and female still "echoing" within us. By glimpsing
at that "original vision," we can almost taste the original
experience of bodily integrity and freedom - of nakedness without
shame. And we begin to sense a plan for our sexuality so grand, so
wondrous, that we can scarcely allow our hearts to take it in.
But getting "behind those fig leaves," so to speak, is difficult.
It demands a radical paradigm shift. It demands that we recognize
that the way men and women relate today - what we just consider "normal"
- is so often based on the loss of the original grace of our creation.
We don't like change. We don't like paradigm shifts. We like life
- even with its sufferings and disillusionments - as we know it, "Thank
you very much."
If someone approaches the TB without a willingness to let go of "life
as he or she knows it," that person will miss altogether the
revolution that the TB affords. Christ himself, in speaking of the
"one flesh" union of marriage, calls us back to God's original
plan (see Mt. 19, Mk 10). Christ came to restore us to the purity
of our origins (see CCC 2336). He came to preach good news to the
poor, give sight to the blind, and freedom to captives (Lk 4).
The tragedy is that - for lack of knowledge and experience of anything
else - we tend to "normalize" our poverty, our blindness,
and our enslavement. By doing so, we miss the good news of the gospel
altogether. Likewise, we miss the revolution of John Paul's TB altogether
if we normalize the common experience we have of our bodies and sexuality
in a fallen world.
If we are to understand the meaning of sexuality as God created it
to be, then we must penetrate the experiences of the first man and
woman before sin distorted their relationship. This is the gift of
the TB. John Paul, if we are willing to go with him, takes us behind
the fig leaves and enables us to behold God's original plan for sexuality
with unprecedented clarity and insight.
Of What Experience Are We Speaking?
One of Johnson's main criticisms of the TB is that John Paul remains
"at the level of abstraction" and "seems never to look
at actual human experience." I find this quite ironic since one
of the main criticisms leveled against the TB by modern Thomists is
that John Paul (despite the fact that his foundation remains Thomistic)
makes a far too explicit appeal to human experience. Go figure.
Johnson also states that "Solemn pronouncements are made on the
basis of textual exegesis rather than living experience." I find
this doubly ironic since the Pope has taken severe heat from various
biblical scholars for trying to link biblical revelation and human
experience.
John Paul states in his own defense, "In the interpretation of
the revelation about man, and especially about the body, we must,
for understandable reasons, refer to experience, since corporeal man
is perceived by us mainly by experience" (TB, Sep 26, 1979).
In the second footnote of this same address, John Paul insists that
we have a right to speak of the relationship between experience and
revelation. Without this we ponder only "abstract considerations
rather than man as a living subject."
But of what "human experience" are we speaking? Johnson
is speaking of the "messy, clumsy, awkward, charming, casual,
and yes, silly" experiences of the body and sexuality. That's
fine. We can all relate to those experiences and learn from them.
And I think Johnson is right to say that carnality "is at least
as much a matter of humor as of solemnity." (I'm reminded here
of the number of "pious Catholics" who have come to my talks
or listened to my tapes and been offended by my own earthy sense of
"body humor." My response? Loosen up a little.)
John Paul is speaking of experiences of the body and sexuality much
more profound than what we find at the surface. If we trace all those
"messy, clumsy, awkward" experiences of the body back to
their origins, we discover the extra-ordinary side of the ordinary
(see TB, Dec 12, 1979). But to get there, we must, in some way, cross
the threshold of our hereditary fallenness. Then, and only then, are
we able to assess what the project of the TB is all about.
The Main Problem
This is the main problem of Johnson's assessment of the TB. He never
crosses that threshold. He never makes the paradigm shift. He evaluates
what the Pope is saying while remaining clouded in his thinking by
an abnormal, fallen view of the body and sexuality which it seems
he prefers to normalize and justify.
How tragic that even a bright biblical scholar such as Johnson has
not let the gift of redemption fully inform and transform his view
of sexuality. What hope we have when we realize, as John Paul stresses,
that the heart is deeper than the distortions of lust, and Christ
"reactivate[s] that deeper heritage and give[s] it real power
in man's life" (TB, Oct 29, 1980).
Johnson poses the question: "Should not a genuine 'theology of
the body' begin with a posture of receptive attention to and learning
from our bodies?" John Paul would respond, "Absolutely."
But John Paul's point of departure for learning from our bodies is
God's revelation and the experience of man and woman before sin. Johnson's
point of departure is the experience of man and woman affected by
sin, and seemingly "stuck" with sin.
From this perspective it seems to Johnson that the Holy Father observes
human sexuality "by telescope from a distant planet." Locked
in his fallen view and unable to cross the threshold back to "the
beginning," Johnson can't relate to what the Pope is saying.
He hasn't tapped into those "echos" in his own heart of
the original experience of the body. Thus, the effect of John Paul's
analysis for Johnson "is something like that of a sunset painted
by the unsighted."
The irony here is uncanny. It is Johnson who is offering an analysis
and critique of something that he can't see. Johnson is, in fact,
the blind man telling the Pope, a man with sight, that he doesn't
know what he's talking about; Johnson can't see the original experience
of the body, but the Pope can and does. Thus, the effect of Johnson's
analysis of the TB is actually "something like that of a sunset
painted by the unsighted."
Cursory Reading
Johnson claims that the pope "minimizes the flat internal contradictions
among the conferences. For example," he says, "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."
However, Johnson entirely misreads what the Pope is saying on October
1, 1980. John Paul presents the typical interpretation of Christ's
words about lust in the Sermon on the Mount - that these words do
not apply to the way a man looks at his own wife. The Holy Father
even admits that this interpretation "has all the characteristics
of objective correctness and accuracy."
But he immediately adds that there remain "good grounds for doubt"
as to whether this interpretation is correct. In other words, contrary
to Johnson's claim, the Pope is not guilty of doublespeak from one
week to the next. On October 1, he is simply stating the interpretation
that he is going to refute on October 8. This should be evident to
any reader who is trying to understand the Pope's train of thought.
Johnson implies that there are several internal contradictions among
the audiences of the TB. I'd like to encourage him to give the TB
another reading - a fair reading - and ask him then if he would make
the same claim. I've read through the entirety of the TB probably
seven or eight times with intense examination and study, and, while
the audiences aren't without some weaknesses, I've never been struck
by any "flat internal contradictions."
Here's another example of what appears to be Johnson's cursory reading
of the audiences. Johnson criticizes John Paul for repeatedly using
the phrase "theology of the body" but not examining the
implications of embodiedness other than sexuality. Johnson then cites
a few examples of this lack in John Paul's project such as the disposition
of material possessions, our relationship to the environment, and
suffering.
Johnson is right to see the implications of a theology of the body
for these other areas of life. And had he paid more attention in his
reading of the audiences, he would have seen that John Paul is the
first to admit that. The Pope makes it entirely clear in his summary
comments of his final address that the scope of his project was simply
to reflect on the redemption of the body as it applies to the sacramentality
of marriage.
"In fact," the Holy Father stresses, "we must immediately
note that the term 'theology of the body' goes far beyond the content
of the reflections that were made. These reflections do not include
multiple problems which, with regard to their object, belong to the
theology of the body (as, for example, the problem of suffering and
death, so important in the biblical message). We must state this clearly,"
the Pope says (TB, Nov 28, 1984).
And it must be added that John Paul has spent the rest of his pontificate
applying his theology of the body to these other themes in his numerous
apostolic letters and encyclicals (see in particular his social encyclicals,
Laborem Exercens, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, and Centisimus Annus and
his apostolic letter on the Christian meaning of human suffering,
Salvifici Doloris).
