THE THEOLOGY OF THE BODY IN PAUL’S LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

 A Memoir Presented in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Bachelor’s Degree in Theology (B.Th) BY OBI, STANLEY KENECHI

INTRODUCTION

The recognition of God’s diligent effort in molding man out of dust as recorded in the second account of Creation, “God shaped man from the soil of the ground” (Gen 2:7), becomes a backbone in studying the human body in the perspective of its relationship to God. Everything he created was good. The utmost recognition, appreciation and acceptance of the “body” as a reality of salvation became manifest in incarnation-“the Word was made flesh” (John 1:14). Thus, the human body made a special entrance into theology, and became the science of divinity for its subject.[1]

Accordingly, the human body as it appears expresses the grandiose nature of God. The human body is an expression of the image of God-noting the marvelous mysteries embedded in the make-up of man especially through internal structures.

The human body does not only mean the unlived-in matter but an embodied soul which makes the theology of the body to aspire its realization. Thus, the concept of the theology of the body focuses on the whole aspect of man as it pertains to his ontology and his functionality-worldly function, epistemological function, ascetic function and function of possession.

It is on this ground that this work tends to explore Paul’s teachings on the body as deposited in his letter to the Corinthians. The current views on the body continue to cripple the divine composition of man and his divine destiny. With a keen interest into the movement of the contemporary views and culture till today, the facts of degradations are seriously observed in man’s relationship to God. There are an over twist of the character of human beings emphasizing its utilitarian demands-pleasure and power.

This presentation is to be approached from exegetical point of view, also bringing into view, philosophical and sociological implications of sticking to Pauline view.

CHAPTER ONE

LITERATURE REVIEW

With Christ resurrection, the human body regained its positive meaning which has been recognized through the time of Genesis before the fall. The body is no more regarded as evil but as an essential part of resurrection in the entire human person. The reading into Luke 16:19-31 becomes an evident proof of this character. Jesus parabolic story of the rich man and Lazarus is essential in establishing the fact that the human body is crucial at the time of resurrection.

To give a critical review of Pauline theology of the body in Corinthian, one is challenged by different aspects of the body treated in the letter. Authors, in the course of analyzing Paul, have done it in different scopes. For instance, Paul treated the aspects of his theology of the body in these segments:

a.       Wrong sexual exploitation against the human body (1 Cor 5:1-5)

b.      The human body and its purpose: its dignity (1 Cor 6:13-20)

c.       Non-association of the person who misuses his body (1 Cor 5:9-13)

d.      On the relationship between the food and the body (1 Cor 8:4-13, 1 Cor 10:23-33)

e.       The human body as a sign of the Church-sacramentality of human body (1 Cor 12:12-30)

f.       The body as the temple of God (2 Cor 6:16-18)

g.      The eschatology of human body (1 Cor 15:35-53)

Therefore, it is in line with these obvious topics that I will review in this topic under discussion.

1.1              ON HUMAN BODY IN PAULINE CORPUS

Paul employed both psychological and theological concepts in describing the human body. The first meaning of body is concretely existing human being; in some contexts it again appears to be nearly synonymous with self, but “body” and “soul”, both used for “self” have different emphases. The body is the totality rather than the conscious self, and the corporal constituent of human life never disappears from sight. The body can be described as synonymous with flesh. Also, the flesh can be distinguished as a quality of the body in its concrete existence; by union with Christ the flesh is put to death permanently, but the body will rise to a new life.[2]

1.1.1        THE HUMAN BODY, PURPOSE AND SIN AGAINST IT

As captured in a work “The Church’s Bible” edited by Robert Louis Wilken, the sin of incest goes contrary to the theological composition of human body. Origen as quoted in the work above suggested that the flesh should be destroyed so that his spirit might be saved. This destruction of the flesh does not mean destruction of the body but instead he tries to emphasize the pedagogical purpose of God’s punishment, with the aim of bringing the person to repentance,[3] referring to the whole person. While Paul corrects the Corinthians, he emphasizes the body.

Paul spoke about human body as constantly in struggle with the spirit. John Paul II in the book The Theology of the body noted that there are disposition of forces formed in man with original sin, in which every historical man participates. In this disposition formed within man, the body opposes the spirit and easily prevails over it.”[4] John Paul recognizes the usage of “flesh” by Paul to denote the apt inclinations of man towards the worldly lust and activities. The flesh indicates both the exterior man and man who is “interiorly” subjected to the world.[5] Paul’s tendencies to demean the flesh especially as seen in Rom 8:5-10, Gal 5:17 could be traced back to the “beginning”-that is the first sin from which life according to the flesh originated. It created in man the constant disposition to live only for the flesh, which death is its product. He sees the flesh as the source of death, although can be redeemed by the paschal mystery of Christ. Paul says, “he who raised Christ Jesus from death will give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you (Rom 8:11).

It becomes obvious that Paul did not equate the body as evil. The body is a visible manifestation of the spirit. Thus, one is holy both in the body and in the spirit. The body is created to manifest the spirit of God, but the body demeans itself to the inclinations of the flesh (appetitus concupiscibilis), thus, the “spirit” is brought low. Man as a body, is called to holiness of life. (Rom 12:1). The purpose of human body is to be united in God, thus, Paul’s’ deep insight found in his theology of the body brought to bare how man is to conduct his body in holiness and in honour (1 Thess 4:4). The sins against the body (the works of the flesh) are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, reveling (Gal 5:19-21)

1.1.2        THE DIGNITY OF HUMAN BODY, AS BEING THE TEMPLE OF GOD

Pauline theology of the body noted to a great extent the purpose of human body. The human body is for God and therefore, Navarre Bible quoting the declaration concerning sexual ethics, “The Apostle points out specifically Christian motive for practicing chastity … because fornicator offends against Christ who has redeemed him with his blood and of whom he is a member, and against the Holy Spirit who he is the temple.”[6]

For Paul, the argument of food and stomach relationship is not parallel to that of the body and fornication, the body is not even necessarily oriented to marriage. The body occupies a higher plane: “the body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body”. The body is God’s specific ownership. We belong to God and the responsibility and the stewardship of the body rest on us, therefore, an account is imperative on the use of the body-“to glorify God in your body”. (1 Cor 6:20).

Leon Morris identified that the body is not destined for destruction. Interpreting Pauline rejection of the parallel between food and the stomach with body and fornication, Morris agrees with Paul that food and Stomach are transient while the body is not destroyed, thus it is transformed and glorified.[7] He further noted the different senses of the usage of the term “body” by some translations, sarx translates flesh expressed by Paul as man in his inclinations and weakness, his sin and his fallen nature, while soma which translates body is the whole personality, man as a person meant for God.[8]

To emphasis the dignity of human body, Morris appeals to resurrection as a character which brought the human body to its former glory. That the Father raised the Son from dead, and did not simply cause his soul to persist through bodily dissolution, shows something of the dignity of the body.[9] Bodily life enshrines permanent values. Thus, the body is not to be taken lightly. Morris further echoed with Paul that the dignity of the body also lies on the fact that it is a member of Christ’s body, thus sexual vice is so abhorrent since the members of Christ are taken away from the proper service of Christ and made members of a prostitute.

Also, the body assumes its importance and dignity being the temple of the Holy Spirit. Wherever we go we are the bearers of the Holy Spirit, the temple in which God is pleased to dwell.[10] This therefore rules out those conducts that is inappropriate to the temple of the Holy Spirit whom you have received from God. The Spirit with man is the gift of God, not as a result of some man-induced experience.

Morris also concurred with Paul in establishing that the body’s dignity is essential for we are bought at a price paid at the Calvary-a worthy price of Christ blood. The imagery presented by Paul is that of redemption (sacral manumission). By this process a slave would save the price of his freedom, pay it into the temple treasury of a god, and then be purchased by the deity. Here, Paul does not imply the redemption of sacral manumission but a real price of death of the Saviour. The result is to bring us into the sphere of our freedom.

Augustine in elucidating on the human body as being member of Christ noted that Christ is our head because he became man for our sake. He himself is the saviour of our body. If therefore, our Lord had taken on only a human soul, only our souls would be members of him, but he has taken a body, by which he became head since we consist of soul and body; therefore, our bodies are also members of him. Fornication is thus, a distortion to this membership. Augustine reminds us to “have mercy on Christ in yourself, recognize Christ in yourself.”

1.1.3        THE HUMAN BODY AS A PICTURE OF THE CHURCH (THE BODY OF CHRIST)

John Paul presented Paul’s ecclesiology in such a manner of linking the Church with the body of Christ. This he further explicated through the mystery of human body: “God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them as he chose…. But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body (1 Cor 12:18, 22-25). Paul’s description with the human body is a realistic description, intermingled with the realism of conferring on it a deeply evangelical Christian value.[11] It is not just a scientific description but an entire man who expresses himself through that body. JohnPaul description superimposes harmony and mutual dependence between the parts of the body. Those parts which seem to be inferior, weak and unpresentable were giving greater honour that there may be no discord in the body. Such discord is an expression of man’s state after original sin.[12] With Christ redemption, harmony is restored to the body such that even the inferior ones are very profitable for the efficient workings of the whole. This is the same with the Church which is the body of Christ. We are gifts to the body of the Christ no matter how unpresentable we are.

Leon Morris appropriated Paul’s thought in a significant manner. The Church is not democratic, but a body. It takes many different parts to make up a body. The members (parts) are obviously of the same mechanisms. There are diversities among the members, but these diversities and differences are essential for the unity of the body. The Church (body of Christ) is analogized with human body. Diversity is no accidental attribute of the body of Christ,[13] so no member is to be equated with the body. The lowly members are taken with great honour with encouragement from lowly to lofty position. This explains Christ’s option for the poor, the down trodden, and the prisoners as he recounts in his mission program of Luke 4:18. The image and mechanism of Christ is clearly depicted in the mechanism of the human body.

Mckenzie noted the identification of the body with the body of Christ. Although the body is mortal, God confers life upon          it through his indwelling spirit (Rom 8:11); and the adoption of sons is the redemption of the body. One who suffers for Christ bears the marks of Jesus in his body (Gal 6:17). The body will be transformed from its lowly condition to the glorious condition of the risen body of Christ. The body of the Christian, which shares the experience of Christ’s death and resurrection, must share the fullness of his glory.[14]

1.2              ON GREEK TERMS OF BODY IN PAULINE CORPUS

Paul used two words in describing the external components of man. These words are used in different senses. The Greek word sarx was mostly used by Paul to express man in his weakness, his sin and his fallen state. It denotes mere human nature, the earthly nature of man apart from divine influence and therefore prone to sin and opposed to God. Paul used soma to denote the whole personality. As Morris thought it out, sarx stands for man in the solidarity of creation, in his distance from God, soma stands for man, in the solidarity of creation, as made for God.[15]

It is important to note that the OT has no word for body other than basar which means flesh that is the muscular tissue of the body. In the NT, it carries on the terminology of the OT, though Greek has a more exact word, σομα (soma), for body. The NT often uses the Greek word σαρξ (sarx) as a Hebraism for body.[16]

Pauline usage of these two terms is imperative to our present studies. The body in Pauline’s writing becomes an important psychological and theological concept. The first meaning of the body is a concretely existing human being. The body is the totality and corporal constituent of human life. Sexual sins dishonour the body. The body can be described as synonymous with flesh (Rom 8:13), but the flesh is normally distinguished rather as a quality of the body in its concrete existence; by union with Christ. The flesh is put to death permanently, but the body will rise to a new life. The body, unlike the flesh is the object of transformation and not of death. The old man is crucified with Christ. One notices here the identification of the body with the body of Christ.[17] Rudolf Bultmann explained that “for Paul, the only human existence is somatic existence; but the use of soma as ‘form’ or ‘shape’ is unpauline.”[18]  So for Paul, soma does not mean “body form” or just “body” but the whole person.[19]

The flesh as used in Paul is the subject of illness (2 Cor 12:7, Gal 4:13), of suffering (1 Pet 4:1), of circumcision (Rom 2:28). The suffering of the flesh is transitory and religious sign which exists only in the flesh, and has no lasting reality. The flesh is also the subject of the sexual orgies. Flesh designates human nature as a principle of generation. To live in the flesh is to live in the present life, subject to weakness and mortality.

CHAPTER TWO

PAUL’S CONCEPT OF THE BODY IN 1 & 2 CORINTHIANS

Pauline view on the body was critical in the sense of his dual use of soma and sarx to describe man. As was described previously the body as soma was used by Paul as the physical expression of man in his masculinity and femininity. In the sphere of original justice and holiness which man is created, the body is exceptionally good and holy. The consequences of the fall of man as described in Genesis 3 and in Paul were an obvious intrusion of sin, concupiscence and death. Man’s expression of the spirit was badly wounded, such that his will became weakened and his intellect darkened. The sarx of Paul was a recognition of this obvious thorn on the body which does not allow it to express well the brightness of the spirit.

Pauline theology of the body is sometimes seen from the perspective of man’s moral conduct, especially as he is a man inclined to death. In Pauline doctrine of sin, the role that is ascribed to the body (soma) is of special importance.[20] In the sense where body denotes the tangible and visible organism by which various members are to be distinguished, the flesh is frequently synonymous with the body, insofar as flesh sometimes denotes only the material corporeality of man.[21] Flesh has man in his weakness, transitoriness. Paul speaks in the body as what represent the image of man as he was created by God, was intended for God and would be saved from death by God. Paul speaks in 1 Cor 15;

Flesh and body cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and on the other, that man will be raised according to his physical existence. Not as though, the human body, as it now is, were not die and perish. This body belongs to the transitory, to the flesh. It is , however another, a spiritual body, that will be raised. Flesh is not spoken of in the same sense i.e, that there will be a spiritual flesh. “Resurrection of the flesh” not only does not occur in Paul but for him is a scarcely conceivable terminology. “Flesh” in Paul is distinctive of the temporal and earthly character of human existence; “body” can also denote the future and heavenly.[22]                 

The anthropology of Paul in his letter to the Corinthians was to describe man not only in the body but a spirit-oriented man. Through the concupiscience of the body, man is very much depleted in the soul. The world is a steady environment of the body. It is the area by which the body operates to express man’s relation to God. The world may be the horizon of human life, yet man puts his stamp upon it and determines it.[23]          Paul, just as he does not embark upon abstract discussion of being of God, he also makes no theoretical pronouncements about man. In all these pronouncements, he designates, not just part of man but the whole man in different aspects.[24]

One of the most aspects of man discussed by Paul is the “body” (soma). It has most comprehensive and theologically importance. For Paul, the body has its normal meaning: bodily presence (1 Cor 5:3; 2 Cor 10:10), bodily suffering and pain (1 Cor 9:27; 2 Cor 4:10); or it may refer to sexual intercourse (1 Cor 6:15; 7:4) or weakening and decay of physical force. Paul also knew the common classical metaphor of the one body and its members (1 Cor 12:12ff). It is to be noted firmly that Paul did not just regard the body and corporeality as a just one part of man, as the prison of the soul or the body as the inferior and earthly part. For Paul, ‘body’ is man as he actually is. Man does not have a body, he is a body.[25] Paul said to the Corinthians-“your bodies belong to Christ” (1 Cor 6:15), “you are the body of Christ” (1 Cor 12:17)

Nevertheless, Paul sometimes speaks “dualistically” of being present in the body. This is meant to characterize man’s involvement in time and history, a limitation from which death is only way to be delivered (2 Cor 5:1-10). The Christian body together with its members is released to serve the ends of righteousness and appointed to life as it is created by the Lord and owned by him.

2.1       EXEGESIS OF FEW PASSAGES IN PAULINE LETTER TO CORINTHIANS

The question of sexual immorality is treated by Paul as one factor that disintegrates the gift of bodiliness. In Chapter 5 of 1 Corinthians, Paul began with an expression of hot indignation at the moral depths to which he believes the community has fallen.[26] The term holos can have a local meaning, “everywhere” just used for transitional purposes to enter new topic[27] or to show something that happened in actuality. The term porneia literally means “prostitution” or “harlotry”, from a root meaning “to sell”.[28] Interpreter’s Bible noted it to mean an extramarital intercourse of any kind.[29]

Having introduced this chapter, verse 5 is to be considered for us to understand more Pauline use of the term sarx. Almost the commentaries already quoted admitted that the consideration of that passage is very difficult in understanding. Paul wrote “you are to hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” (1 Cor 5:5). Many implications seems inaccurate when considering it from the perspectives of excommunication, or physical death, or handing him over to the Roman authority or literally condemning him to Satan. The author of the anchor bible favours “extirpation” as the punishment existing at that period for those guilty of such sin. Extirpation means that they were cut off from human life by the hand of God. This would mean premature death. Destruction of the flesh, then, would refer to premature death. Under such circumstances the man would have some time to come to repentance, and so his spirit would finally be saved.[30] The interpretation of Jerome Murphy-O’ Connor is much better and he explained, Satan would mean “a personalized evil force related by Paul exclusively to believers. Then, destruction of the flesh: “the negative goal of the man’s expulsion from the community is the extinction of his false orientation, not necessarily by death or sickness, so that it will positively design to promote an authentic orientation toward God. O’Connor went on to establish that action of Satan is also productive of good as found in 2 Cor 12:7. [31]

From the later interpretation of O’Connor, it is very clear the sarx is the concupiscence or the tendency towards sin which is believed that it could be purged, keeping the body and soul fit for the day of the Lord.

Another text to consider is 1 Cor 6:12-20. Paul began with an affirmation of the Corinthians “All things are lawful for me” but in applying it, Paul restricted it by saying “All things are lawful for” but I will not be dominated by anything. This is a way to begin the question of standards conducts which is against the body. “Body”, here means the whole man as discussed previously.

The work will concentrate on the statement “the body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power”. The interpreter’s bible assumes that the body is not something transient, but will raise it from the dead.[32] The second maxim “Food is for stomach and the stomach is for food” is placed side by side with human body which transforms to glorified body. Mary Jerome Obiorah holds on this that “body is the relational concreteness of a person. Inspite of the presence of instinct, the body of a Christian is not for fornication, it is for the Lord.”[33] The rhythm of the text shows some reciprocity between Christ’s body and the body of a Christian. Soma is always physical but if our bodies are to be raised, God must attach importance to actions performed in and through the body.[34] One should note that man is not an immortal soul imprisoned in material substance till death. Paul writes not from the Greek point of view, but from the Hebraic, according to which the person is looked upon as a psychosomatic entity. And the whole person belongs to the Lord.[35]

2.2       THE PURPOSE AND DIGNITY OF THE BODY

The body has one and singular purpose: according to St. Paul, “it belongs to God” (1 Cor 6:13), and it is on this plain that its dignity is strongly based. Paul was very firm in establishing the purpose of the body which forms membership of Christ. As already established, ‘soma’-body has an implication of the whole man. The man constitutes the body of Christ and forms its allegiance to Christ who is her bride-groom. It is on this that the church is presented by Paul as an image of a bride. Paul employed the concept of the Church as the bride of Christ in order to reproach fornication found in the city of Corinth. When Paul said “one body with prostitutes”(1 Cor 6:16), he is talking about the Church as a bride of Christ who should not give up her loyalty and affection to another thing. Fornication means ideally an idolatrous action since one disregard one’s own body and the unity with the bride groom and gives himself up to a prostitute. When the body unites, the spirit also unites. Paul emphasizes that we are Christ (1 Cor 3:21-23).

The background and circumstances of Pauline’s theology of the body as found in Corinthians are influenced by the city’s high immoralities which extended from 4^th Century BC till the time of Paul and beyond. The so called sacred prostitution where through use of Aphrodite’s priestesses, her client sought to invoke the goddess’ seeming power-or to ward off her malevolence which like sex could become obsessive and destructive.[36]

Paul also regarded one who is guilty of gluttony as a sin against his body. This is because such sins as gluttony affect the temporary state of the body considered as a merely physical organism. This merely physical organism has a very deep and genuine theological significance to the person of man. The “body” embodies the spirit.[37] The whole man has been redeemed by Christ. He has bought us with a price and therefore we are for him.

Paul began explicating on the purpose and dignity of the body by refuting the libertines who argued that sexual gratification is simply the satisfaction of a natural appetite, as permissible as eating and drinking. Paul refutes the fallacy by appealing to the dignity and role of the Christian’s body in the divine economy of salvation. Through our baptism, the Christian was incorporated into Christ, so that his body is a member of Christ. Therefore, the wrong use of the body defies this membership; it profanes the union established by faith and baptism between Christ and the body of Christian.[38] This union is destined to be perpetual for “God has raised up the Lord and will raise us up also by his power.” (1 Cor 6:14). The evil of fornication consists in setting up a personal, bodily relationship that is opposed to the Christian’s relationship to Christ.[39]

The idea of Paul that a fornicator sins against his own body is an immediate derivation of any Christian who does not live to the standard of recognizing that his body is for God. In such situation, there is a downplay of the dignity of the body. Here, dignity means the sense of something’s true worth and excellence. Man, through the body is the realization of the divine plan of God. Augustine’s analysis is very clear on this, that our membership with Christ is at the body, of which Christ is our head. In any desire to despise our body, we despise Christ the head and therefore, we devalue the redemptive work of Christ. Paul emphasizes fornication as a danger to the “body” because it contradicts the theological purpose of man which was recounted in the creation theology. Theologically, man is dignified in the body because he was created with intelligence and freewill, and well be redeemed at the last day.

2.3       THE BODY AS THE SIGN OF THE CHURCH

Pauline metaphor of the body to combat schism as found in Corinth was very obvious. The comparison of political societies with the organism of the human body is as old as the world. To the plebeians who complained that the Senate decreed to itself all honours and arrogated to itself all privileges, Menenius Agrippa pointed out that the stomach, that voracious and idle organ, for which all the other members labored arduously, is not the least necessary for the public good.[40] No matter how many members and no matter how different they are one from another, there is just one body, just as there is only one spirit working in all the members.[41] Baptism is the source of unity among Christ’s faithful.

In sacramental theology, it is highlighted that Christ is the sacrament of God. He makes God present. This is visibly seen in the statements of Jesus, “to have seen me seen me is to have seen the father” (John 14:9). His presence inaugurates his father’s presence. On the other hand, the Church is the sacrament of Christ, because through the instituted sacraments, the Church makes Christ present to the world. Paul’s theology in 1 Cor 12:12-30 has a deeper theological meaning of the body as the sacrament of the Church. This is because through the functionality of the body, the action of the Church is defined and illustrated. God created man in his image and likeness, thus, creating in man a spiritual link to the Church. The body, in that case presents the unity in diversity as workable principles of the Church. The metaphor by Paul is not an ordinary or mere illustration of his view but a theological explanation into how the Church finds his identity as the bride and body of Christ. John Paul’s theology of the body has this to say on this close link of human body presenting the Church’s interior existence.

The Pauline description of the human body corresponds to the reality which constitutes it, so it is a realistic description…conferring on it a deeply evangelical, Christian value. It is not a question of the body but of man, who expresses himself through that body.[42]

It is this sense that body becomes the theological sign of the Church. This means that the structure, life and activities of the body best describes the mission, structure, life and activities of the Church.

The body is a complex metaphor.[43] In the conclusion of this metaphor, Paul says: “now you are the body of Christ (soma Christou) and individually members of it (1 Cor 12:27). This strikes a note saying that an individual body is the body of Christ, both in his person, gifts, talent and charism. This explains the reason why the whole body suffers if one member suffers. This theology of body of St. Paul tries to emphasize that the Church is both one and many, united amidst the diversity of the individuals. This theological implication of the body owes from the deification of human body as an image of God. This means that human body is a symbolic reality of God’s reign. It is from the symbolic perspective that Paul says that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. A gaze upon human body is a ready reminder of the mystery of salvation.

Another implication drawn by Paul in his theology of the body as a sign of the mystery of the Church can be seen in his letter to the Church at Ephesus. (5:21-33). The mystery of Christ bridal relationship with Church as her head is closely related to the sacramental union of the body of a man and the woman.

Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Saviour. Just as the Church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word…husband should love their wives as they do their own bodies….[44]

This therefore means that one bodily reality of a couple is one body of Christ. The Holy Spirit is the soul of the mystical body. As the soul by its presence ennobles the human body, vivifies it by its contact and moves it by its activity, so does the Holy Spirit animate the mystical body of Christ.[45] It is the action that assures the body’s symbolic appreciation of the Church.

2.4       THE BODY AS THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

As Paul advances in his arguments against the sin against the body, his fifth argument is very obvious “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” This means that Christian has no right to give it to another. Fornication partakes of the malice of sacrilege.[46] Matthew Henry’s commentary elucidated more on the proper notion of a temple as a place where God dwells, and sacred to his use, by his own claim and his creature’s surrender.[47] The human body best describes such temple, meaning that we are not our own. We are yielded up to God, and possessed by and for God. Otherwise, we fall victim of robbing God in the worst sense. The temple of the Holy Ghost must be kept holy. Our bodies must be kept as whose they are, and fit for his use and residence.[48]

To say “our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit” means that Holy Spirit dwells in us as in his temple. This temple is sometimes the entire Church, sometimes a Christian community, and sometimes the individual soul. This shows that the body of a Christian represents the whole Church because of the presence of Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is love. The love with which God loves us is manifested by the gift of the Spirit, and at the same time by an outpouring of sanctifying grace which is an effect of the Spirit present in us. This outpouring is not transitory; it is inherent, and it continues inseparably united with the Holy Spirit who is its source. The outpouring is necessarily finite because it is received in a finite being; therefore, it is susceptible of indefinite increase.[49] Wherever we go we are the bearers of the Holy Spirit, the temples in which God is pleased to dwell.[50] Therefore, such conducts which do not befit the temple of God are ruled out.

Paul’s view regarding the Spirit is highlighted in his assumption that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Leon Morris articulated this by saying that,

The temple is the place where God dwells; that is its distinguishing characteristic. Now the one who dwells in this temple is the Holy Spirit, who is thus seen to be divine. This comes out also in the expression, whom you have received from God. The Spirit within man is the gift of God, not the result of some man-induced experience. And because the temple is God’s and because the believer is that temple it follows that the believer is God’s.[51]

2.5       SINS AGAINST THE BODY

Paul identified two ways of sins, the sin outside the body and the sin against the body. Paul, after describing the evil of uniting our bodies to that of a prostitute, he went further to describe two ways by which one go contrary to the demands of his Christian calling. Paul says that “every other sins are outside the body, but fornication (probably related sins) is against the body itself. Paul wished to heighten the grave consequences of the sin of fornication and of its likes. Augustine commented that “it seems that the blessed apostle, through who Christ was speaking, wished to make evil of fornication greater than other sins. These others, although they are committed through the body, do not bind and subjugate the human soul to fleshly lust as the overpowering force of sexual desire does.”[52] The author of Matthew’s Commentary opines that

 It is not so much an abuse of the body as of somewhat else, as of wine by the drunkard, food by the glutton, &co. Nor does it give the power of the body to another person. Nor does it so much tend to the reproach of the body and render it vile. This sin is in a peculiar manner styled uncleanness, pollution, because no sin has so much external turpitude in it, especially in a Christian. He sins against his own body; he defiles it, he degrades it, making it one with the body of that vile creature with whom he sins. He casts vile reproach on what he, Redeemer, has dignifies to the last degree by taking it into union with himself.[53]

Augustine explained further that it is only the sexual act that makes the soul mingle with the body, fastening the one to the other with a kind of glue. The result is that the person engaged in such vice has a mind submerged and drowned in carnal lust and can think of or intend nothing else.[54]

Paul has an extended form of fornication which does not only mean sexual act. This meaning owes from “being in one body with the prostitute”. As traditional Jews have it, fornication is an obvious cleaving to the world (worshipping other gods more than the one God). Whenever the Israelites mingle themselves with other nation, the bible noted that they develop certain tendencies to worship their god, thus, forming one body with that deity. It is proper to say that they sin against their body, thus devoting and giving over to universal fleshly lust. They are slave of that god and alienated from the creator. Augustine captured this in commenting Paul through the lens of Psalm 73:27. He says we see the fornication of the human soul in an extended sense, which means not cleaving to God but cleaving to the world, “whenever someone does not cleave to God but cleaves to the world, loving and lusting after temporal things, it is proper to say that he sins against his own body; that is, he is devoted and given over to universal fleshly lust.[55]

Paul in his anthropology, describes man as composite of body and soul (spirit). For him, other sins harm the soul alone, the person who commits immorality wrongs his body along with his soul, corrupting and weakening it and destroying its natural and lively vigor. This means that the sin of fornication and impurity harm the totality of man and his desire of divine action. Gregory of Nyssa, while reading Paul assumes that other sins outside the body do not corrupt the body’s nature, they do not bring ignominy upon its members, nor does it completely defile the flesh. On the other hand, the person who engages in impure activity sins against his own body yet remains unharmed, and disgraces his own body’s majesty.

Furthermore, Paul’s absolute condemnation of impurity against the body owes from its high capacity to oppose precisely the virtue of force of which man keeps his body in holiness and honour.[56] Such sins profane the body. They deprive the man’s or woman’s body of the honour due to it because of the dignity of the person. Also sin against the body is a profanation of the temple. For John Paul II, the temple is not only the human spirit, but also the supernatural reality constituted by the indwelling and the continual presence of the Holy Spirit in man. Paul rebuke with strong repudiation to those who are caught up in this immorality, “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons--  not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral (1 Corinthians 5:9-11).

2.6       THE DESTINY OF HUMAN BODY

The human body is a reality destined for redemption. For Paul, we were bought with a price, thus we are for God. The ultimate destiny of human body according to Paul is an obvious transformation from its weakness, its corruptible, and its natural form to incorruptible, glorious, powerful and spiritual state. (1 Cor. 15: 42-44).  St. Paul said that “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” This reward of bestowing life to our mortal bodies is for those who conduct their bodies in honour and holiness. Pauline view about the resurrection of the body was in controversy with the Christians in Corinth who are under the influence of Hellenistic or Gnostic thought. For the Gnostics, the body is the tomb or prison of the soul and redemption consists in liberation from this prison. For Paul, redemption, the state of salvation, is only completed by resurrection in the new body.[57] The destiny of the body which is found in its resurrection has its ultimate relevance in Christ’s resurrection. For Paul, there is no human existence apart from the bodily existence, and so reflection on life after death must include the question of bodily life after death. The question of how this resurrection would be is the question of what sort of body the resurrection body will be.[58] The corruption of the body would have been a contradiction to the mission of Christ. This is because his resurrection in the body was an assurance that we too are to resurrect in our own body (Rom 8:11). The goodness of the body and its consequent reward will be accounted for in the bodily form such that one’s earthly goodness will be rewarded in the same body used for the goodness. On the other hand, the earthly wickedness of a person will be rewarded in the same body by which he was evil, and thus, they will recognize how much their wickedness. The parable of Lazarus and the rich man is obvious to this fact. (Luke 16:19-31).

John Paul II recounted with Paul that the redemption of the body is an object of hope. For him, this hope has been implanted in the human heart in some sense immediately after the first sin. The redemption of the body has its anthropological dimensions: it is the redemption of man. The destiny of the body as Paul treated could be viewed from the perspective of a steady reward bestowed on the body which conducted itself with honour and holiness or the other way. This could be the reason why Paul exhorts us to shun fornication as a sin against one’s own body. The redemption of the body expresses itself not only in the resurrection as a victory over death. It also presents the words of Christ addressed to “historical man.”[59]

In his doctrine on resurrection and final destiny of human body (1 Cor 15:33-49), Paul deals with two associated questions: what is the resurrected body like? What reason is there to think that such a body really exists? These questions are very important in order to clear an existing problem surrounding the concept of resurrection in Judaism. Thus, if nothing can be said about the risen body, it is pointless to talk about resurrection.[60] Paul used the form of plant to describe resurrection to the comprehension of our human intellect, thus, the plant that emerges has a body different from the seed that was buried. The form of the plant body is determined by God, and no one could guess his intention from the form of the seed body. With this, Paul tries to answer the first question by simply transforming four negative qualities of the present body into positive qualities.

From verse 44, Paul began to answer the second question of how do we know that there is in fact a resurrection body? Pauline use of psyche as in OT nephesh is what gives life to animals, to the human body or it is the actual ‘life’ of the body, its living soul. The term can also mean any human being. As it gives only natural life, it is less important than pneuma by which a human life is divinized by a process that begins through the gift of the Spirit, and is completed after death. Christians thought of immortality more in terms of the restoration of the whole person, involving a resurrection of the body effected by the Spirit or divine principle which God withdrew from human beings because of sins, but restored to all who are united to the risen Christ, who is the heavenly man and life-giving Spirit. The ‘body’ is no longer psychikon but pneumatikon, it is incorruptible, immortal, glorious and no longer subject to the laws of matter, it does not even answer the description of matter.[61]

CHAPTER THREE

ATTITUDES TOWARDS HUMAN BODY IN THE CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

Our society has witnessed several forms of approach to humanity in its bodily form. While these attitudes are positive, many others are negative especially towards degrading the integrity and the dignity of man who lives in his body. In the words of Izunwa, “contemporary consciousness finds it fashionable in one of its extreme forms of religiosity to display some nonchalant and very profane attitudes towards the body.”[62] The positivity of human body owes from the dignity of man which lies in its being made in the image and likeness of God. As was discussed above, Paul echoes, “the body is for Lord and he raise us up by his power” (1 Cor 6:13-14).

3.1       THE DIGNITY OF MAN AS AN UNDERLYING PRINCIPLE OF POSITIVE NOTION OF HUMAN BODY

Merton understands this dignity of man who is expressed in his bodily form. It is our capacity for perfect freedom and for pure love that constitute God’s image in us.[63] The council Fathers recalled vividly that man  is created in the image of God, he is capable of knowing and loving his creator, and was appointed by Him as master of all earthly creatures that he might subdue them and use them for God’s glory.[64] It is therefore worthy to note that bodily life is a gift of God, but yet it is given to men not at will but in stewardship. It must be placed in the service of God and neighbour. [65] Since our bodily life is entrusted to mankind by God’s creative designs, it means that life is precious and must be defended and preserved.

The fact of having dominion over other creation authenticates man’s dignity. The task of stewardship of man in his bodily form is linked with the aspect of imago that is most recent in both Protestant and Catholic circles: it is most often characterised “created co-creator”.[66] The psalmist says that man is made little less than God and thus, has crown him with glory and honour. Therefore, notwithstanding the influence of sin to human nature, man through his body in its masculinity and femininity is called from the beginning to become the manifestation of the spirit.[67] This is because the character of Christ’s mission has reconciled us with the father, for he has called us from the kingdom of darkness to light. The human body was created with, and retains the attributes of goodness and sanctity, attributes which it shares with its creator-God.[68] Bodily life is, therefore, a good intrinsic to the human person, not something extrinsic and valuable only as a means to other human goods.

3.2       BASIS FOR THE NEGATIVE PERSPECTIVES

On the contrary, the negative approaches and attitudes towards human body have flooded this very century of our existence. The question of man has been neglected, man becomes wolf to man. Accordingly, Ford Cleverly comments “I have heard of men and women... professing not to care about what happens to the body at death”.[69] This negative attitude of people suggests scepticism about eternal life, denies the immortality of the body. Their idea exposes their betrayal of the constitutive value and dignity of human body. For once the supernatural relevance of the body is compromised, its spacio-temporal assessment and evaluation will go retrograde, simply put, the excellence with which the body is treated or adorned in any culture can be measured in terms of the spiritual value which such a culture attaches to the body. As against Christian anthropology, the human body is only seen from its temporality, thus, no great relevance or weight is attached to it. It is such people that Paul called fools, “ If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Cor 15:32),   those who urges and deceive people to live according to their instincts, for the body has no value beyond the earthly life.

The period of enlightenment and modernism is generally influenced by revolutions in industry, science, philosophy, politics and society. Thus, these revolutions swept away the medieval world-view and ushered in our modern western a humanistic approach of thinking. The thinking of man became man centered, geared towards and for man.  The most aspect of these revolutions is a total destruction of an order already in existence and a new order is built. Man also sought to “self manipulation”. For Rahner, Self manipulation means that today man is changing himself.[70] This changing of himself is not something totally absent from his dignity. His freedom and his intelligence constantly urge him for a better self. According to Christian anthropology man really is the being who manipulates himself, thus he is free in relation to God to do what he wills with himself, freely able to align himself towards his own ultimate goal. Man across centuries, has dealt a negative blow into this freedom by an utter manipulation of self by destruction of the self. This destruction of self has theological, social and moral implications. Theological in the sense that it robs human body the divine attributes of its existence. It disrupts the order in the society arising from the principles of natural law and thereby making man susceptible to evil action. The scholarly exploration of the contemporary times in the area of science is a much concern to human body. There is a great tendency of misuse of the human body in experiments which promotes total degradation of man as a person. The society of this century borrows information from these scientific principles in order to influence the legal system of the time. Therefore, negative orientation towards the human body arises from the great downplay of the dignity of man and man’s misappropriation of his dominionship through misused freedom, will and intellect.

3.3       POSITIVE ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE HUMAN BODY VIS-A-VIS THEIR JUSTIFICATION

The obvious positive attitude towards the human body is recognition that life is sacred, life is precious. It is an ultimate gift from God, thus, the Catechism of the Catholic Church enjoins us to take care for this precious gifts of life and physical health. Our care for the precious gift of life and health should take “into account the needs of others and the common good”. Therefore, the life of the body is not an absolute value for which we are to sacrifice every other thing. Nor should we make an idol of physical perfection since “selective preference of the strong over the weak... can lead to the perversion of human relationships”[71]

Gaudium et spes of Vatican II states:

Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as a good and to hold it in honour since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day.[72]

The obligation to regard our body as a good and to hold it in honour requires that “A person must not do anything to purposely harm the body or its functions.”[73] And so the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations...performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.[74]

3.3.1    MAN’S AWARENESS OF THE STUDY OF HIMSELF

The most positive aspect of man’s attitudes towards his body is the sense of being aware of the reason of his existence. It follows then to say that the proper study of mankind is man. Man should care to know himself and his bodily function, thus, how can anyone know man who is ignorant of himself? The knowledge of his earthly frame is not the knowledge of man; nor the natural history that marks the external diversities of various branches of the human family; not the science of his mental faculties and their operations; nor those other sciences that investigate by parts the several elements that enter into his composition. When these sciences are pursued with loyalty to the facts, and the mind of the investigator is free from imaginative theories, they confirm the essential unity of the human race, notwithstanding accidental differences that only mark the diversities within the species. Those partial studies of the components of human nature will not teach us the profounder things that belong to our humanity. This tendency may constitute a lost in the dignity of man.[75] While this study of man from environment is good, the one science in which man is comprehensively and completely known is the science of God. This is because God alone knows with a complete knowledge how he has made man, and for what end he has made man. Therefore, a simple-hearted man who lives humbly in the light of divine revelation has a more profound and exalted knowledge of himself than all these sciences could teach him. For the true man is rightly within us, and can neither be reached by the scalpel of the anatomist or investigator of our mental operations or by the observer’s of man’s social conduct.[76]

In the study of himself, man must know that he is composed of a spiritual soul and a material body, the body is the organ of the soul and the soul is the vital form of the body. The body of man is the immediate subject of his soul. Also, one is to be aware that the body shares the same object with the soul which is made for God. Man is therefore made with a great capacity for eternal truth and for eternal things, has an appetite implanted in his soul for unlimited good. Man must know that God made the earth for man. He made it for the first stage of human life, and as a place of probation for a higher and nobler life in another sphere of existence. The earth with its surrounding sphere supplies him with his body, his habitation, his nourishment, his instruction, his pleasure and his trials. Also, man is made for God.[77]

3.3.2    CATHOLIC PHILOSPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

The Catholic anthropology describes the human body with awesome and magnificent qualifications. The physical endowments in man confirms his principle functionality, both existential ones (temporal) and eternal ones. Battista Mondin was the person who gave a brief phenomenological analysis of the body and its functions. The body for him has a positive relevance in itself, its environment and its destiny. Therefore, one contemplates the power and brain behind the existence of man. Mondin describes the human body as a marvellous spectacle, perhaps not always in its external structure.[78] His own view echoes out Pauline concept of human body as belonging to Christ.

He went further to say:

Man visibly surpasses and transcends all the animals. Gifted with a body which is not specialised at the moment of birth, man succeeds little by little in specializing his body in various ways, thus making himself capable of performing the most disparate activities. Man is able to manage his body, train it and render it capable of performing movements of admirable perfections. It suffices to see what musicians succeed in doing with their hands, acrobats with their feet, hand and head, dancers and ballerinas with their feet, artists with their fingers.[79]

The superiority of the body lies in his coordination of both the internal and external aspects of himself. Therefore the body is seen in the physical form, but is able to coordinate the spiritual realities and things beyond his existence. As it pertains his external world, the man has made a considerable numbers of achievements through medicine, surgery, orthopaedic care etc. To care for his own body, man constructs hospitals nursing homes and clinics, to make himself more robust and beautiful he creates an infinity of sporting equipment.

Also his vertical position is worth commenting on, such that this is position that gives man mastery over his own movements, and allows him a agility and elegance  which no other animal possesses. The erect position is symbolic in meaning and also is a physiological necessity for man so much so that this position cannot be changed until death. The body possesses some functions which allows it to accomplish both the material function and spiritual functions. They are worldly functions, epistemological function, function of possession, ascetic function and spiritual function. The most important fact about these functions is that it transcends animal-like mode of existence.

For Christian philosophical anthropology, man (body) is not a mere animal. One cannot just say that “man is an animal”. This phrase tends to strip man of his spiritual desires. Not to call man an animal is to affirm that his first substantial principle is not animalistic tendencies but spiritual tendencies. And rationality is not the distinctive qualification of the animal but the spiritual part of man. It is because man is a spiritual being that he is a rational being. When the almighty made man, He did not rank him with animals, he completed the animal kingdom and then closed the period of animal. He then opened another period, in which he did not say, as he did in the successive creations of animal world, “let the earth produce the rational animal”, but he introduced a new and more solemn form of creation in the words: “Let us make man”[80]

3.3.3    NATURAL LAW

The positive attitude of human body is found in the concept of natural law. In the traditional sense, natural moral law is that law of human conduct which arises from human nature as ordered to its ultimate natural end and which is recognised by the natural light of reason.[81] This is to say that the subjective medium of cognition is reason alone. The objective ground in which the moral law is recognised and from which it is derived is, on the one hand, man’s natural ultimate end and, on the other, human nature not elevated by grace.[82] The human nature as source of objective morality is blurred and needs clarifications. The solution is provided by the criterion of man’s ultimate end. Therefore, the combination of human nature and man’s ultimate end provide objective source for the cognition of moral law. With some flaws in the traditional concept of natural law, it was revised to be that law of human conduct which arises from the full reality of human nature as ordered to its ultimate end and which is recognized by means of reason, independent of positive Christian revelation.[83]

The natural law is seen as a command of practical reason. Unlike the speculative reasoning, in the practical order, “good” is the first thing that falls under the apprehensions of the practical reason, which is directed to action. The first principle in the practical reason is one founded on the notion of the good namely, that good is that which all things seek after, or, the good is to be done and evil to be avoided.[84] This principle underlies it universal application. The contents of this ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are imperative to man’s practical reason. The question of what is good and worthy of man’s desire? The most general and basic answer to this is given by the following principles, which are equally evident to all people:

Maintain and promote your bodily life. Maintain and promote social coexistence. Duties of state of life (and parental duties in particular) are to be answered. Lawful authority (and parents in particular) must be obeyed. What you do not wish others to do to you, do not do to them (“the golden rule”). Leave to everyone and give to everyone what is his. Contracts must be honoured.[85]

The true respect of human body is at the dictates of the natural law which involves “thou shall not kill”. This owes from the first principle of doing good and avoiding evil. As the secondary principles demand, it is a steady inference from the application of the primary common or general principles based on the first principle. The tertiary principle is obviously inferred from primary and secondary principle. Although, it is more complicated, but it reflects the fact of doing good and avoiding evil. Through the light of reason, man has from the demands of natural law to respect the human body. In a nutshell, the natural law is valid for all people in all societies. Its principles can be understood by reason, even without faith. For example, dishonouring parents, murder, theft, adultery, and lying are recognised by practically all human societies as being contrary to what is good for human life. The Decalogue has an imprint of the main principles of the natural law. Therefore, from the principles of natural law, human body is dignified and should be adequately taken care of in such a way that it reflects a body hoping to be resurrected at the last day.

3.3.4    CATHOLIC THEOLOGY

Throughout her inception, Catholic tenets have considered the body as the highest earthly good of man. Christianity itself cannot be understood apart from an appreciation of the body. It is a myth that the Catholic Church teaches as it does about sexuality because it devalues sex. The Church teaches as it does because it values human sexuality so highly. And in valuing sexuality, it necessarily values the body.[86] His existence on earth depends to an extent man’s material life. Theology of the body teaches that the body expresses the person. That means that our physical bodies reveal the invisible dimension of ourselves-our virtues, our spiritual lives, our attitudes of love and charity, our struggles with sin. As the visible body reveals the invisible person, what we do with our bodies profoundly affects our souls.[87] That is why the implications of living a promiscuous lifestyle is atrocious, because people involving in sexual act reveal their whole invisible self.

Also, catholic position on the body affirms the goodness of sexuality. In the sense that the sexual union between husband and wife signals the union of the trinity, it is not just a physical act. When a man and his wife give themselves to each other in marital union, they are not supposed to give just their bodies, but their whole selves-their minds, souls and hearts. It is the physical expression of their communion of persons which points to the trinity. In relation to the state of married life, the “body” embodies the call to a celibate living which also affirms the goodness of sexuality. It does not reject or diminish it. Celibacy actually affirms the goodness of the sexual act by sacrificing it for the sake of the kingdom. The very goodness of the sexual act is what makes its renunciation by the celibate so valuable.[88]

The human body presents or elicits the fact that human person is made in the image and likeness of God. In other words, the theology of the body answers the question “who am I”? The underlying principle about human body is that we are made in God’s image and likeness. We are called to give ourselves away in love, and it is expressed through the body. As against dualism which would be explained later, Christian theology exposes that human beings are bodily entities, not just souls temporarily inhabiting a body. It says the body reveals the person; it is the sign of the person; it is the person. You are your body. Living human body is a person whether it is consciously aware of itself as a subject or not. [89]

On the final analysis, the catholic theology has it that we live in our bodies; therefore, each of us is called to be a gift, a gift to one another and a gift to God. Human body articulates the Catholic sacramental worldview. This is because it gives us the correct way of looking at life, of seeing the divine order of creation, then living according to that. This is achieved by teaching that invisible realities are made visible through the physical world. Man as created by God points to transcendent realities, to realities beyond itself. Just as God reveals himself and the life of the Trinity through human person, so too does he reveal himself through all his creation. Catholic theology teaches us that human body is not something to dominate, appropriate, use and abuse. It is not something bad or unimportant. It is holy. It was made by God and points us back to God.[90]

Joseph Myers noted that the body points to the doctrine of creation, it points to the doctrine of the incarnation, the body points to the doctrine of our redemption by Christ, the body points to eschatology.[91] Myers explains further that the implication of human body is its influence in the sacraments. Thus, bodiliness also deeply affects how we worship and pray. God uses tangible, ‘fleshy’ things like bread and wine, oil and water as signs and symbols of his sacramental grace. He takes us most seriously as bodily beings in the Eucharist. By allowing us to receive his very Body and Blood, Jesus forges a one-flesh unity between himself and someone who receives him. Our bodies participate in our praying. God takes us seriously as bodily persons by himself becoming bodily. He sanctified all created reality in this way, enabling us to experience him in his creation and honour the divine artist in his art.[92]

3.4       NEGATIVE ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE HUMAN BODY AND THEIR CORRESPONDING REASONS

Contemporary consciousness finds it fashionable in one of its extreme forms of religiosity to display some nonchalant and very profane attitudes towards the body. This attitude suggests a sceptical conclusion about eternity and hence the immortality of the body.[93]  In their disregard and denigration of the human body, they owes that human body achieves no eternal state. This means that human body is to be used according to individual discretion. Our contemporary world has no respect to human body both as being created in the image of God and being created towards eternity. This lack of understanding of the dignity of human person stands at the background of this disintegration. St. Paul fought against such people who say ‘let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall be dead’. To such Gnostic and hedonist view, Paul condemns with the logic of glorified body. (cf. 1 Cor. 15: 34-38).

While some negative views held that the body is evil, others held the body should be employed for pleasures (the human body is seen as the chief source of pleasure). Others argue that they possess an intrinsic right to use their body as they wished. Others have it that the body is mortal and end in the grave. Their views and opinions are basically the consequences of the contemporary depraved conception of human body. As much as the dignity of man is disregarded and the meaningless of Christ’s victory over death is upheld, the body remains at a degraded and demean state. For such negative views, human body has only an earthly and temporal existence. Also, these negative influences are propelled by the conception that man is his own object, and that he is capable of giving content to himself. Against this conception, man is not the giver but the receiver of that good which gives happiness. With all these propositions, one feels that human nature is insulted and degraded from its exalted state. Our body is ranked with animals. These views are the root causes of the crimes and evil against the human body such as direct abortion, contraception, euthanasia, human experimentation, suicide, murder, drug abuse (and addiction), torture (physical and psychological), denial of health care, terrorism, child abuse, wars, kidnapping, sexual promiscuity, [94] human genetic engineering, embryonic stem cell research, sterilization of human subjects, reproductive technologies, pornography and human cloning. Let us briefly discuss on these negative views.

3.4.1    NEGATIVE FEMINIST VIEWS AND POSITIONS

The feminist attitude and theological reflection owes that God does not care what we do to our bodies. He only wants us to respect each other as persons. The implication to this assertion signals man’s total control of his own body. Thus, he chooses what to do with his body since it belong to him. To this, St. Paul says that “the body belongs to the Lord”.

In all these moral established evil against the body, the person involved claims that he is simply exercising a basic right of bodily integrity. This argument is directly mostly by pro-abortionist to achieve moral recognition of abortion especially from the point of view of women. If she does not choose to be pregnant, she should not be compelled to be so against her will. It is her body that is involved, and intimately so. Just as no one is compelled to donate an organ to another or submit to other invasive procedures on his or her own body for however noble a cause, why should women be so compelled just because they happen to become pregnant? The alternatives on this argument are either compulsory pregnancy or the right to terminate a pregnancy. Of these alternatives, the second alternative is obviously the right moral option, for that alone recognises the woman’s right to bodily integrity. [95]

As much, the crime of euthanasia has some foundation on this autonomy of life which is a claim of right. Singer puts it that “the most important aspect of having a right to life is that one can choose whether or not to invoke it.[96] Respect for this person’s integrity and autonomy requires one to honour his or her request to die.

3.4.2    DUALISTIC UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN PERSON

This view and understanding of the human person have repudiated the bodily nature of the human person, seeing a human being as a "ghost in the machine"—a spirit or mind lodged in a material body. Plato was the first to put up this principle, thus the human body is said to be a prison of the soul; having been weakened by its irrational part, the soul falls to the earth (ground) where it enters into the body.[97]

This is thinking of a person as simply a conscious subject aware of himself as a self and capable of relating to other selves. According to this, the body is just some kind of privileged instrument, not in itself integral to the being of the person. It is just the means by which we experience pleasure and other personal goods. This line of thinking presupposes that some members of human species are not persons. The unborn babies, embryos, patients in a coma, even elderly persons are among the lists of no person since they are not subjects aware of themselves as selves.

Myer describes dualism and its impact on today’s world with these following words;

From ancient Manichaeism to the "cogito ergo sum"—I think, therefore I am—of the seventeenth-century philosopher Rene Descartes, whose thought took scant notice of the human body, errors of this sort express what generically is called body-soul dualism. This alien anthropology, which takes a false view of the unique body-soul composite that is the human person, is incompatible with Christianity. Yet it persists. It is alive and well—and profoundly destructive—today.[98]

3.4.3    VIRTUALISATION OF OUR WORLD

This has a negative impact on how man views his own body. It blurs the line between what is real and what is not real. It allows for simulated presence to replace real presence, simulated bodies to replace real bodies, simulated gifts to replace real gifts. One way of this virtualization is through computerization of our entertainment. People use computer and technology a lot not as tools to perform tasks, but as means to escape the real world. That escape can be as simple as immersing themselves in the created worlds of others on TV, and video games worlds that present an alternative view of reality and change the way we think life should be. Or it can be as complex as web sites that allow you create your own 3-D virtual world. The consequence of this is a tremendous embodiment. This can lead us to see the body as unimportant, as simply one more artefact for manipulation. It can make us think that being entertained is the purpose of our life. And it can convince us that life is whatever we want it to be, that what is real and true is whatever we want to be real and true. This destroys both the dignity of the man (body) and spifflicate the conception that the body is precious, sacred, and holy. This will definitely lead to adulteration forms of human species which can be seen in scientific human engineering and experimentation.

3.4.4              SCIENTIFIC METHODOLOGY AND INFLUENCE

With the imperative injunction from the Genesis, man received the impetus to exert dominion over nature as co-creators with God. It is from this imperative that science derives its first principle. At the dawn of 17^th and 18^th century, there was a breakthrough in the science world as man continues to exert himself in different cosmological contexts most of which posed to be inimical to his survival. This is seen from the perspective of absolutizing science, which is obtained by a bold attempt to reduce every reality to the scientific measure and categories, not excluding life, values, morals, spirit, culture, and language. In the words of Paul Davis, “science may have alleviated the miseries of diseases and drudgery and provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment and convenience, but it has also spawned horrified weapons of mass destruction and seriously degraded the quality of life. The impact of science has been a mixed blessing.[99]

Most of its impacts have derogation to human person, counting from the joy of man’s work and labour which is replaced with machines to unguarded using human subjects for experiments. Most of these experiments relegate to the background, the static aspect of human person which defines man as man. This exploits by science could be seen and defined as disrespectful exercise of elective discrimination into human integrity and dignity.[100] Among these infamous and ethically unguarded scientific explorations are artificial insemination, use of sperm banks, in vitro fertilization, unguarded stem cell researches, abortion for extraction of collagen in view of commercial enterprise, use of infanticide and euthanasia as tools of social engineering. The summit of this exercise in genetic manipulation is perhaps cloning, that is asexual reproduction of genetically identical human persons. Alongside cloning are also exploits towards the realization of Man-Animal Chimera, Cyborg and Geronotology.[101]

All these scientific proposition are indications that man through his body has lost a great deal of competence. Science has seriously affected the bodily theology in a negative way such that the human body is taken just as a mass of tissue.

CHAPTER FOUR

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS ON THE TEACHINGS OF HUMAN BODY

After the resurrection of Christ, there was a new interpretation into the meaning of human body for the Christians. As against the foundational religion of Judaism, which has a tenet that in death the whole man loses his life in sheol (Ps 88), Christianity, under the influence of the later renewed Jewish view of the body and the re-interpretation of St. Paul, had a more transcendental approach about the human body. The body is not merely an object with which man is confronted, it is something which he himself is.[102]

From the inception of Christianity after Pentecost, the Christians believed that the body of a person is the person. They are unaffected by the seeming misconception that the body is evil or that the body is ontological different from the soul. The doctrines of creation, incarnation, redemption and eschatology were all foundational to theories of the body. Christian principles consider a great deal of sanctification of human body because Christ assumed our own body by taking flesh; “the Word made flesh”. Christianity understands that God created man in the body, “male and female, he created them”. Therefore, our body is a good gift of God and bodiliness is a blessing upon humanity. Also, the Christian understands that Jesus died in the body as the highest point of his mission, thus, saving humanity by his resurrection (in the body). Christianity understands as well that Christ will raise them who believe in him at the last day. God does not bestow bodily resurrection on human beings arbitrarily. If Jesus rose from the dead, then his body rose. From the first ages of the Bible to the last it is clear that the primary curse brought on us by sin is bodily death: To disobey God is to die. But our God is the God of the living (cf. Mtt 22.32, Mk 12.27, Luke 20.38), who opens graves and raises bodies. This resurrection of the body is part of the reintegration and restoration of all things in Christ, who "fills all in all" (Eph 1.23). And in the end, "death shall be no more" (Rev 21.4).[103]

In the course of the centuries in which the Church lived, there has been a development in the Church’s understanding of herself, thus, there is a development on how the Church understands the body and its implications to eternal life.

In a nutshell, Early Church fathers wrote on the role of the body and its relation to the soul, often elevating soul over body. But like the soul, it is also created by God in his image. This is considered important even today, as the existence of a soul is the basis for much Church teachings on the human body, in areas such as abortion. Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo applied these views in their teachings on the human body, virginity and celibacy. Thomas Aquinas developed a systematic view, which dominated Church teachings and ecumenical councils including Vatican II. All recent popes contributed from different angles to the theology of the body. Current issues include the dignity of the body in light of its divine origin and destination, its eventual resurrection; virginity, the Christian sacrament of marriage, and derived issues such as faithfulness and contraception. Official Church teaching on the subject was stated in the encyclical Deus caritas est (On Christian Love) from Pope Benedict XVI, promulgated on Christmas, December 25, 2005.

4.1       APOSTOLIC PERIOD

In the apostolic era, Paul’s contributions to the early Christian appreciation of the place of body in Christianity are very obvious. He employed two concepts; sarx and soma to develop his anthropology. Sarx translates the Hebrew bāsār. Paul uses it to highlight the creaturely, vulnerable and mortal nature of life especially as it stands under the judgment of God.[104] Its English equivalent is flesh and is not to be seen as the material part of the human person to be contrasted with an immaterial part. It is not a bodiliness we share in common with other animals in distinction to the soul we alone possess. It is rather a way of referring specifically to human reality and to the whole of it, particularly as it has become infected by sin and death and therefore in opposition to God.[105] The soma on the other hand neither refers to a corpse nor to the complement of a soul as the trues self or ego. As he illustrated in Cor 15, the resurrection of the body is understood to be God’s creative transformation of mortal bodiliness as such. It is God’s action upon the total person, not simply the on-going survival of some “immortality”. The point is precisely the fact that it is the whole of our lived, corruptible, mortal human lives which will really enter into the life of the resurrection. Death is really swallowed up by the Spirit of God, not simply avoided by an immortal soul. Paul is not talking about the resuscitation of corpses but a transformation so wondrous in nature that he does not try to describe it.

This transcendental implication of human body is the reason why Paul encourages Christians to offer up their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. He further says, “do not conform yourself to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect. (Rom 12:1-2). “Body” for Paul is equivalent to the whole person, the self. In such statement, Paul noted two basic truths of morality: the need for each and every Christian to offer his or her entire self to God, and the requirement that our minds, our way of thinking be renewed by the transforming power of God’s grace.[106]

4.2       PATRISTIC ERA (THE PERIOD OF THE CHURCH FATHERS)

Paul had great influence on the early Church fathers on human body. Also the influence of Hellenism is consequentially felt because of political and social system of the time. Adimike understands these influences as a kind of confluence.[107] For him, the early church was not radically monist in their appreciation of the human person, but at the same time she was not dualist.[108] The Church fathers held on to the biblical understanding of man as an embodied whole and a unity of body and soul, but with time, there was impart of dualism which competed for and got recognition within the Christian thought of the early Church.[109]

Human body occupies a central theme in the early Christian thoughts. Most of the major Christian doctrines were body based or related like doctrines of creation, incarnation, and resurrection of the body. All these made for an affirmation of the body.[110] The Fathers as the biblical heritage demands aspires to accord the body with great dignity and value in order to protect it from false instructions and teachings. Hence, “they affirm the goodness of the body unambiguously, sometimes quite extravagantly”.[111]

Some early Church fathers, like Origen were preoccupied with the body and its impediments. The theology of early Church fathers focused on the body in terms of its origin, condition before the fall of man, and destination and relation to the soul. Questions were raised as to whether the body may impede the soul in its attempt to be the image of God.[112] These questions, addressed by the ancient Church, are relevant to a modern theology of the body, because they relate to concerns and definitions on the beginning and nature of human life.[113]

With time, there were some shift, inclining more to Hellenism and consequently some difficulties set in. Numbers of reasons are responsible for this shift: the Hellenistic environment beguiled with by dualism, consciousness of martyrdom and the influence of Gnosticism.

Clement of Alexandria viewed the body as the inferior partner in the body-soul relationship. The body tends to be sinful. The soul has three advantages over the body: it gives unity and life to the body; allows the body to reason; and is oriented towards God, while the body is oriented towards food and sex. The body is the grave of the soul, but also its residence, home and its vehicle.[114] Clement believed that the first humans were innocent until they got trapped by the pleasures of the body. The first humans, by misusing their body, misused their free will and decided to sin.

Origen considers the human body a prison of the soul. Only the soul existed in paradise, according to Origen, the body was taken on by Adam and Eve; as they were cast out of paradise. The body tends to be oriented toward lust and sin. The body is important however, in the context of resurrection.[115] Origen believes that only the resurrection of the body makes any sense. According to Irenaeus, “the body, formed in the image of God, and the soul, which has adopted the Spirit of the Father, in harmony, make up the perfect human being.”[116] Adam, was indeed an image of God. Adam had supernatural life, immortality, super-natural sanctity and a closeness to God. Since he was free of the human need to sleep, he could see God without interruption. By giving in to temptation, he lost all these attributes.[117] The importance of Christ for the human body is the restoration of the original status before the fall. Those who accept Christ are redeemed and become children of God, regaining eternal life. However those who live only by their body and its needs will not share eternal life.[118]

God, according to Didymus, created the human being with body and soul, both good, until the fall by Adam and Eve. Didymus believed that the soul continues to be an image of God, while the body does not. The unity of body and soul is therefore for Didymus a degradation for the soul. Limited by the body, it cannot develop. Whenever something higher mixes with something lower, an inferior mix is the consequence according to Didymus.[119] The body has some functions for the soul. The body informs the soul of the sensual world around them. Didymus called the body the outer person and the soul the inner person. The outer person is perishable.[120] The inner person is eternal. For Gregory of Nazianzus, “The human body is the lower element of the human person. Through the body, man experiences his temporal existence. But Gregory also admired human beauty and the bodily abilities to dream, sleep and memorize.”

To Ambrose of Milan, the body lives in a duality with the soul and must be subjugated. Control of the body is essential for Christian life. Total control is virginity. Virginity and perfect chastity consecrated to the service of God allows the body to become the image of God. Augustine is the father of many contemporary theological views on the body. He dwelled at length on the condition of the human body before and after the fall. He was convinced that the heavenly state consisted in complete control of mind over body, especially in the area of sexuality.[121] To illustrate this point, he notes, that some people can wiggle with their ears, nose or even hair, completely at their will. This condition of complete freedom and absence of lust existed for human sexuality too before the fall. The body must be controlled, and therefore Augustine like his teacher Ambrose considered virginity of the human body the superior way of Christ. He considered matrimony a triple blessing in light of its offspring, conjugal faith and being a sacrament: "In conjugal faith it is provided that there should be no carnal intercourse outside the marriage bond with another man or woman; with regard to offspring, that children should be begotten of love, tenderly cared for and educated in a religious atmosphere; finally, in its sacramental aspect that the marriage bond should not be broken

The Greek anthropology which started with Plato’s philosophy was prevalent in the period of the fathers. This platonic idea was so popular that it influenced the father’s views of the body. Plato, for instance, held that man is a union of matter (body) and form (soul). The human body is therefore the material part of human being. For Plato, the body and soul have separate origins: he believed that the human body is created by one of the celestial gods while the soul was created by Demiurge. The human body is, to a large extent, believed to be responsible for the existence of evil in man. The body is said to be a prison for the soul; having been weakened by its irrational part.[122]

On the other hand, because of persecutions faced at that early stage of Church’s life, the fathers and early Church authorities encouraged their members to give up their bodies. Tertullian wrote:

Come now, what think you of the flesh when for the faith... it is dragged into public and fights it out exposed to popular hatred,...when next even in daylight it is rent by every contrivance of torture, when at length it is destroyed by execution... yea, most blessed is it, and most glorious[123]

This encouragement for martyrdom has a great implication which is geared towards dualism. This option tries to see the body as what need to be overcome so that the spirit will realise itself. This idea of martyrdom as the most glorious thing a Christian had to do to express his faith in Christ seemed to oppose the earlier position of the fathers. The fact remains that the body has not occupied an absolute value.

The influence of Gnosticism was so great on the positions of the fathers, such that renewed interpretation became imminent. The teachings of Gnosticism are existence of supreme unknowable God among many gods, dualism between spirit (good) and body (bad), the necessity of a secret knowledge in order to be saved and evil located in the order of nature. According to our concern, they see the matter as evil, thus, they followed a path of asceticism that distorted the meaning of the body, sexuality and male-female relationships. They believed that the body is evil, thereby advocated for an extreme continence. They rejected marriage and considered sexual behaviour evil.

These great influences caught the patristic fathers off-guard that they staggered in their view about the place of embodiment in Christianity. Ehusani, commenting on this, writes:

Some Christian thinkers in the history of the Church however departed from the traditional Judeo-Christian conception of the human person as a ‘whole’. Greek anthropology and psychology which are notorious for their dualism, influenced a lot of Christian thinkers, resulting in a distortion of the true Christian vision of the human person... This resulted in a subtle denigration of the human body, coming in the wake of the development of a rigorous ascetism, and an other-worldly or “pie-in-the-sky theology....[124]

The council of Constantinople articulated the theology of the Church on human body and its link with the soul as a condemnation of Origenists (not Origen teachings in itself, but an exaggeration of Origen theological hypothesis) who proposed as firm doctrine that the pre-existing souls are inserted into bodies as a punishment for sin it committed. Human body is seen as degrading place of exile.[125] Also the council of Braga in 561 upholds in their condemnation of certain Manichaean sect in Spain states,

If anyone says that the formation of the human body is the work of the devil and the conception of children in their mother’s womb is brought about through the activity of the devil, and for this reason does not believe in the resurrection of the body, as Manes and Priscillian have said, anathema sit.[126]

4.3       MEDIEVAL PERIOD

The theology of the early middle Ages was dominated by the towering figure of Augustine of Hippo, who completed the fusion of the Pauline emphasis of sin and grace through faith with a Neoplatonic view of man that stressed the imprisonment of the soul in the body. This dualism led to an increasing asceticism in the life of the medieval church, which meant an attitude of indifference or even outright hostility toward the body. The official theology of the church concentrated on getting the soul of the believer into heaven, through the Sacraments, or at least on saving it from hell, as the doctrine of purgatory developed.[127]

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there arose a new appreciation for the body and for woman-man relationship.[128] During this period, there seem to be a balanced anthropology that properly harmonised the relationship between body and soul and man and woman.[129] Thomas Aquinas employed Aristotelian concepts in his discussion about the body. He rejected Platonic dualism and its disdain of the body, and accepted and popularised Aristotle’s theory of hylemorphism which stabilized body-soul unity. Although, Aquinas did not follow Aristotle in his logical conclusion that none can exist without the other and that the soul therefore perishes with the body at death.[130] Aquinas explanation is that the soul is the unica forma corporis, which would be a partial component of the whole along with it; the soul manifests and effectuates itself in the purely potential medium of material prima. The duality of body and soul is not to be understood as a merely ontic fact, but as an ontological actualisation; the body is wholly the body of the soul, while the soul is essentially embodied.[131] Hence, Aquinas rejected the body’s participation in imaging God. For according to him, man resembles God in the mind. One would notice a kind of jump that embraced more or less Platonism. He accepted Aristotle’s view on the inferiority of females to males. In his view, woman is subservient in procreation, providing only passive matter to be ‘formed’ by man’s seed.

The general council of Vienne was clear on this profound unity of the soul and body;

With the approval of the holy Council we reject as erroneous and contrary to the truth of the Catholic faith any doctrine or opinion which rashly asserts that the substance of the rational and intellectual soul is not truly and of itself (per se) the form of the human body, or which calls this into doubt. In order that the truth of the pure faith may be known to all, and the path to error barred, we define that from now on whoever presumes to assert, defend, or obstinately hold that the rational and intellectual soul is not of itself and essentially the form of the human body, is to be censured as heretic.[132]

Lapsley wrote about the medieval period, “If the health of the body was not forgotten, it was once again generally relegated to the status of a matter of relative indifference, which might as well be sacrificed to gain eternal bliss. This was the situation that obtained as Martin Luther grew toward manhood at the turn of the sixteenth century.”[133]

The medieval church did not understand what the New Testament meant by "flesh" and "spirit." In real Greek fashion she understood these terms to designate two parts of man — the higher and lower natures. Since things like body, work, eating and sexuality belonged to the "flesh," they were regarded as inferior functions, if not tainted with evil. On the other hand, prayers, fasting, celibacy and religious tasks were regarded as "spiritual" and therefore superior, if not meritorious.

Luther exploded this whole pietistic framework by returning to a more biblical view of man. He understood that "flesh" and "spirit" were not two parts of man but the whole man seen from two different aspects. All that man did in his natural state was "flesh," especially such "higher" things like praying, fasting, celibacy and religious devotions. And all that which man did under the control of the Spirit was "spiritual" even though it was corporeal activity such as working, eating, and performing family duties.

Subsequent Protestant theology, however, tended to make as great a dichotomy between salvation and body as the church did before the Reformation. Its overriding concern was to save the soul and get it into heaven. The Bible also talks about saving souls, but by this it means saving whole persons, not a part of the totus homo.

4.4       MODERN/ CONTEMPORARY PERIOD

Descartes founded the dualism of the modern times, which separated the soul and body as res extensa and res cogitans.[134] For him, thinking is the sum total of man’s consciousness and self-consciousness.[135] He says:

By the word “thought” I understand all that of which we are conscious as operating in us. And that is why not alone understanding, willing, imagining, but also feeling, are here the same thing as thought.[136]

Descartes construes or perceives the mind to be the self; one of the two substances made by God. As a substance, the mind or self is self-subsistent. It does not need anything outside itself to exist.  Matter, the other substance is characterised by extension. They necessarily fill space or rather they are space.[137] From the above, it is clear that Descartes posited two radically different substances, each with its own principle of motion, laws of change, etc. He brought in a kind of priority in his dualism. Thus, he identified the soul/mind as the essence of man.[138] He maintained that the soul is essential to human dignity in the way that differed substantially with that of the body. For him still, these two substances mind and body, interact, are intimately bound and exert mutual influence on one another, though the soul has the capacity of directing the body. He opines that at death, the soul separates form the body, because the body can no longer function as a unity within the context of its own laws. This new form of dualism affected a lot of things.

The Occasionalism of N. Malebranche and in Leibniz closes the unbridgeable gulf between the two fields, either by a constant intervention or by the basic institution of the harmonia praestabilita. Spinoza regards body and soul as merely two modes of existence of the same thing; as much as the psycho-physical parallelism of G. T. Fechner, who understands the body-soul relationship as the convex and concave sides of a spherical surface. And while spiritualism takes the body to be merely the appearance of the soul, which alone is real and true, materialistic monism maintains on the contrary that everything mental and spiritual is a bodily function.[139]

One could derive from its seeming influence that lived bodies have become real objects for experimentation of new discoveries to the extent that bodies are seen as comples of organs, energies to be exploited and explored. This is possible because Cartesian dualism severed the unity of body and soul considering them two separate realities. The contemporary issues on human body take from the previous misunderstanding as it regards the origin of human body and its mode of existence. There was a high unbiblical and philosophical super-spirituality which depreciates the body. Sometimes, one thinks that even the Church preoccupy itself always with the flight of the soul from material world, thus, concrete corporeal existence is disregarded. The concept of “salvation” became like the redemption of a part (soul) than the whole (man). Because of this trend, the contemporary disregards the body as having nothing to offer. They even employed the tool of science to accomplish this task. A distorted anthropology distorts the healthy, down to earth realism of God’s loving concern for the whole man. It tends to the notion that God does not care, or at least cares very little, for the body or the whole man as a totality. It is a dehumanizing view of man which fails to do justice to the biblical truth that it is the whole man whom God loves. The concept of “soul-salvation” which is not a “whole-salvation” can lead people to think that since God is not very concerned with the body; neither should they be too concerned about how they treat the body.

Pope Pius XII had much to contribute to the existing subjugating the human body as he treats two questions regarding the origin of the human person. Firstly, the question of human being’s origin through evolution and secondly, the question of monogenism or polygenism. (The question whether the human race must be conceived as descending from a single couple or can be considered to originate from several couples).[140] This offers us the fact that human being is created by God as a component of body and soul, descending from a single couple.

Vatican II offers us more insight in the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes;

Though made up of body and soul, human beings are one. Through their bodily condition they gather into themselves the elements of the material world: through them these reach their crown and raise their voice freely to praise the Creator. Human beings, therefore, may not despise their bodily life; rather, they are bound to regard their very body, which was created by God and is to be raised again on the last day, as good and honourable.... His very dignity therefore requires that he should glorify God in his body, and not allow it to serve the evil inclinations of his heart.

Human beings are not mistaken when they regard themselves as superior to material things.... By their capacity for interior life, they outstrip the whole universe of things. So, when they acknowledge themselves a spiritual and immortal soul, they are not the plaything of a deceptive fantasy resulting only from their physical and social conditions; rather they are getting at the very depth of reality.[141]

The magisterium of the Church has defined the unity of man, having recourse when doing so to the philosophical position of hylemorphism. As phenomenological considerations show, man is as a whole and essentially a bodily entity. He has a body and at the same time he is his body in a true sense. He can never distinguish himself adequately from his body; on the contrary, he is the particular man he is precisely on account of his body. (Principle of individuation).[142]

The doctrinal teachings of human body according to the modernity and even beyond have created much tension on how humanity should manage their life, such that they do not bring disintegration in their own dignity. This involves sexual order and respect for life.

The question of sexuality and respect of life have occupied the contemporary man. This involves the right order in the use of sex, on pre-marital intercourse, if enjoyment of sexual pleasure is legitimate, marital love, masturbation, Homosexuality, the necessity of sex education, responsible parenthood, transmission of human life, use of direct and indirect sterilization, artificial insemination, surrogate motherhood and artificial fertilization, when does life begins, abortion, pre-natal diagnosis and experimentation, euthanasia, drug abuse,  using disproportionate means of saving or prolonging life, dignity of patients, use of death penalty etc. The trend that disintegrates the proper understanding of human person drives towards the culture of death.

For proper direction of our period on the issue of life, the encyclical casti connubii exposes some certain abuses found in assuming Christian marriage. Pope Pius XI condemned outrightly the abuses of hedonism, trial marriage, marital infidelity and divorce. He condemned Onanism. The encyclical recognises the lawfulness of choosing the sterile period for intercourse. Sterilization is condemned in particular when it is imposed by civil authority for eugenic reasons. Destruction of unborn life is condemned as a grave crime.[143] Pope Pius XII followed the trend of his predecessor to establish in the allocution to midwives. He strongly reaffirms the Church’s condemnation of contraception and points out the need for self-control in marriage. He also condemned artificial insemination since it does not follow the divine plan of human generation.

The second Vatican Council after its explanation on marital love extended its gaze to deal with the problem of reconciling marital love with the respect of life. It clearly states the need for responsible parenthood. In planning the size of the family, dishonourable practices like abortion and infanticide are excluded. The morality of the means employed does not depend only on subjective motivation, but must be determined by objective standards, based on the nature of the human persons and of their actions. The council has deliberately refrained from making a definitive pronouncement on the morality of specific methods of birth regulation since the matter was being studied by a papal commission. The council upholds the values of life from the moment of conception. Abortion is considered an abominable crime.

The Humanae Vitae of Pope Paul VI, while insisting on the principles of second Vatican Council further said that “each and every marriage act must be open to transmission of life. Various means of birth-regulation are therefore excluded, notably those by which the working of the natural process of generation would be prevented. Contraception and direct sterilization are intrinsic disorder.[144] The widespread evil of abortion, the increasing permissive attitude towards it and the trend of its legalization have prompted the Sacred Congregation to recall the essential elements of the Church’s doctrine in the matter. This doctrine is primarily based on the value and respect due to human life in the light of reason and of faith. As life is the most basic value, procured abortion would never be justified by the intention of protecting any other value. The document also declares: “Never, under any pretext, may abortion be resorted to, either by a family or political authority, as a legitimate means of regulating births.” The document also extended its gaze in tackling the causes of abortion. The Congregation went further to clarify that the right to life extends to all, whether the aged, the sick or the unborn. The document clarifies the meaning of ‘right to die’ and explains the Christian meaning of suffering and death.

From this historical perspective, one notices the rough past of the body especially coming from the influence of Hellenism and heresies. The Pauline understanding of the body was easily thrown overboard even from the later fathers. The doctrine of the body and its practical implication was given theological touch from the time of Vatican II council, where the appreciation of the body is done in a revered, honoured, and venerated as a gift of God and will be raised up in the last day. It is at this juncture that the John Paul II theology of the body is imperative in our studies.

4.5       POPE JOHN PAUL II THEOLOGY OF THE BODY

The background of this work is within a sex-saturated society during which the crisis of Humanae Vitae was raging. He considered the prevailing sexual utilitarianism which emerged with the sexual revolution of the mid-twentieth century[145] a symptom of poor appreciation of an adequate Christian anthropology. He also discovered that the presentation of Church’s moral teaching using the old methodology has not done much good, rather it has made the people to loose confidence in the Church concerning moral issues especially as it pertains sexual love. The resultant effect of his disposition to lead the Church and indeed humanity to a well-spring of life, a fresh approach to the body person and to sexual morality[146] Renovating moral teachings of the Church, he reframed the moral question:;

Instead of asking: ‘How far can I go before I break the law’ we need to ask, “What does it mean to be human?” “What does it mean to love?” “Why did God make me male or female?” “Why did God create sex in the first place?”[147] He brought more insights into how we understand the mystery of the human body and sexuality.[148] He explains that the meaning of the body is to be a sign of the person and a gift and also a revelation of the nature of God and His plan for mankind. Central to his teaching is:

The body and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden since time immemorial in God, and thus be a sign of it.[149]

This is a very means of engaging the contemporary on the issue of life and providing more into solid anthropological foundation for the Church’s teaching on marriage, sexuality and family. He provided more ground in defence of Humanae Vitae.

4.5.1            STRUCTURE OF JOHN PAUL’S THEOLOGY OF THE BODY

The structure of his catechesis is simple, relying on the scripture; he located the vision of man. He used Descartes cogito ergo sum appropriately to shift ground of validity of though and existence from metaphysics to anthropology-from objective being to the subjective person. John Paul II appropriated the modern world’s emphasis on the subjective and married it to the objective truth of reality in handling the truth of the meaning of man and his vocation to love. The most part of John Paul’s “Theology of the body” is his appropriation and interpretation of Pauline anthropology and theology of body as it concerns my work.

4.5.2       READING OF PAULINE CONCEPT OF BODY IN JOHN PAUL’S THEOLOGY OF THE BODY

John Paul II used the passage of Gal 5:17 “The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh”, to explain the correct meaning of purity. He explained that Paul has in mind the tension existing within man, precisely in his heart. It is question of concupiscence or disposition of forces formed in man with original sin, in which every historical man participates.[150] It is such disposition; the body opposes the spirit and easily prevails over it.[151] The flesh indicates not only the “exterior” man, but also the man who is “interiorly” subjected to the “world”. The man who lives according to the flesh is ready only for what is of the world. He is the man of the senses, the man of the threefold lust.[152]

One should understand clearly that Paul did not identify ‘sinful flesh’ with the physical body. Flesh in Paul is not to be identified with sex (male or female) or with the physical body. It is man in his humanness with all the limitations, moral weakness, vulnerability, creatureliness, and mortality.[153] Therefore, John Paul prefers for the purity of man through living the life directed by the spirit which produces as its fruits, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self mastery. This virtue of purity consists in mastering and over-coming “lustful passions”. The task of purity emphasised by the author is not only abstaining from unchastity and from what leads to it, but at the same time, keeping one’s body and that of other, in ‘holiness and reverence’.

John Paul delved into Pauline description of human body in order to find adequate evaluation of man. This description is not about biology or human somatology, but it is a simple “pre-scienctific” description. Pauline description of the body is far from Manichaean contempt for the body and the various manifestations of a naturalistic “cult of the body”. In the human body there are “unpresentable members” not by reason of their somatic nature, but only and exclusively because in man himself there exists the shame that perceives some members of the body as “unpresentable” and leads to considering them as such.

Also, talking about purity of the body, John Paul quoted 1 Cor 6 as “ability” centered on the dignity of the body, which is the dignity of the person in relation to his or her own body, to the masculinity or femininity that shows itself in that body.[154] The sin of fornication is seen as sin against the body because they bring with themselves the “profaning” of the body: they deprive the woman’s or man’s body of the reverence that is its due because of the dignity of the person. The sin against the body is sin profaning the temple, membership of Christ and mocking Christ redemption of the body. Through redemption, every human being has received himself and his own body anew, as it were, from God. A new dignity is inscribed on the human body.[155]

4.5.3          OTHER AFFIRMATIONS OF JOHN PAUL IN HIS THEOLOGY

John Paul sees the body as a medium which the transcendent used in revealing himself. This is seen in the passage, “the word was made flesh”. The body was made a subject in theology especially owing to the mystery and reality of the incarnation.[156] John Paul observes that the human body “has been created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden from eternity in God and thus be a sign of it.”[157] It is for the theological nature of the human body that man cannot penetrate the ‘great mystery’ of the human body, although reason may help man to discover the workings of his own body as a biological organism. It is only to the extent we know what our bodies say theologically that we really know who we are and therefore, how we are to live.[158]

One recurring element in the discussions of John Paul II on the human body is his reference to the body and soul as united. According to him, “the spiritual and immortal soul is the principle of unity of the human being, whereby the human being exists as a whole-as a person.”[159] John Paul made an important speech in his Letter to Families:

It is typical of rationalism to make a contrast in man between spirit and body, between body and spirit. But man is a person in the unity of his body and his spirit. The body can never be reduced to mere matter: it is a spiritualized body, just as man's spirit is so closely united to the body that he can be described as an embodied spirit.  The human family is facing the challenge of a new Manichaeism, in which body and spirit are put in radical opposition; the body does not receive life from the spirit and the spirit does not give life to the body.[160]

This statement of John Paul II is a ready clarification into the personhood of a man as he faces serious challenges of the contemporary period’s outlook in materializing the body as a mere commodity of consumption. The imminent trends of abortion, artificial reproductive system and contraception among the families are the background of this statement. He urges the world to see man as a spiritualized body as much as he is intrinsically bound to his soul. There is no opposition and contraries in man. Man is man, who strives for transcendental accomplishments.

CHAPTER FIVE

EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION

It is to be noted that the issue of the body cuts through the perspective of man’s exterior and interior existence on earth, which leads him to the life hereafter. This subject has occupied man in every century and in every field of studies; philosophy, psychology, biology, theology, medicine, sociology, anthropology etc. This is because the concrete man centralized the worldly existence, such that without man, the existence of the world is an illusion for him.

The chapter will be in three sub-chapters; summary, evaluation and conclusion. This will help a researcher integrates the content of this work in a flash and open up for that person the appropriation of Paul as found in his letter to the Corinthians.

The derived moral and anthropological perspective of this work is on purpose in order to establish the fundamental right to life, liberty, security, freedom to live, love and respect of human body as both the veritable means and ends of human salvation. By this “the ends of human salvation”, it is supposed to mean that Jesus will resurrect our bodies into a glorified body at the last day. It is worthy to note that our concept of human body is always an embodied soul that is man in his entirety.

5.1       A SUMMARY OF THE WORK

In chapter one, there is a consideration of Pauline letter to the Corinthians by different authors. This was done from varied perspective of human body both as it concerns its ontology and its functionality. The most important aspect of the chapter is establishing the human body characterised by its dignity. Paschal mystery of Christ restored the ontological dignity to human body. Several Scriptural authors were essential in expressing this obvious reality of man and his body. Also, distinctions were made between Pauline usage of the concepts of sarx and soma. Man has body, but man is his body. The fact of the possession tends to explain “sarxic” man, but the perspective of man being his body explains “somatic” man. This will be dealt more in the evaluation. The human body was seen as a sign of the Church since Paul illustrated the functionality and the origin of the Church employing the image of the body.

Chapter two presents the Pauline theology of body in a very significant manner as he wrote to the Corinthian Church. This presentation by Paul embodies the seeming background and circumstances of his writing. One can also see his qualification of the cultural statements and maxims of their period. The verses 12 and 13 of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians functions as a hinge pulling together several points and themes that were discussed afterwards. These seeming Corinthian maxims are morally faulty because they tend to increase or propel one into moral evil against the body. Such maxims are: “All things are permissible for me” (1 Cor 6:12), “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food” (1 Cor 6:13).

Other aspects of the body were expounded by Paul which include the purpose and dignity of the body, the body as the sign of the Church, the body as the temple of God, sins against the body and the destiny of the body. His theology is summarised in this way; man, who is created in the body and soul, is created to be good, but the influence of the fall affected his bodily existence through his flesh. Christ’s action of redeeming man restored him even above his created state such that the body regains its transcendent character. Thus, it is the whole who is saved, therefore, glorify God in your body. (1 Cor 6:20).

Chapter three is a study into the attitudes towards the human body. Misunderstanding about the origin and destiny of human body contributed much for exaggerated and extremely negative attitudes towards the body. As against Pauline doctrinal and pastoral exhortations, these people see the body from the exploitative perspective. It is a tool for pleasure, for experimentation and for extracting power.

Positive views on human body specify the sacredness of life. Based on origin, functionality and destiny, human body was held to a high regard. Although, they contend themselves in moderation when they said that “the life of the body is not an absolute value for which we are to sacrifice every other thing”[161]

Chapter four discusses on the historical developments on the thoughts on human body. This quest went through apostolic period, till our contemporary times. One discovers that the patristic period in the course of their age was distracted and bent towards Hellenism. Gnosticism and martyrdom also contributed to this misconception. This distraction was not intentional since the fathers wished to appropriate the concepts that are conversant with people to explain the origin and destiny of human existence. The medieval continues with the misconstrued patristic thoughts in an exaggerated way. In the modern era, Descartes methods were notable in its effort to separate the soul and body in the concept of dualism. These two realities are two substances of their own, existing in their concrete world. Our times become an effect of these periods such that the human body has received the most degrading acts and opinions.

Chapter five concludes the work using the techniques of exegesis for onward and further understanding of the Pauline view of the body.

5.2       EVALUATION OF THE WORK

There is a call for objective understanding of the truths of human body, not as a merely ecclesiastical principle. The theology of the body has both the doctrinal and moral implications. It is from the doctrinal perspective, that on could act adequately or wrongly. Thus, the doctrinal perspective informs the moral perspective. The origin and the destiny of man and the link between the body and soul as a whole person stand central in the doctrinal part of the theology. One would observe that a wrong perception on the existence of man would affect man relationships with man and his environment. For instance, if one believes that the body is evil, this will definitely inform his absolute disregard of the body. Therefore, the body will be without any value. The starting point of holiness will be to conceive the body as a dignified reality created by God in his own image. St. Paul advices that anything done on the body is done against himself as a member of Christ’s body and against the temple of the Holy Spirit.

From the moral perspective, two conceptions are derivatives. Firstly, one assumes holiness in his body. Holiness of the body is assured. The holiness theme is not an abstract entity, it is a reality found enlived in human condition expressed in his body. Holiness entails healthy bodily relationship with God and our neighbour, in purity and love.  At the beginning of the moral section Paul makes a comprehensive statement as the basis for his teaching: I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourself to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect (Rom 12:1-2). This is a conscious and constant effort to understand the abuses and threats posed by the concupiscence. As a result of it, we do not always easily think, feel and will as we should; often we are drawn, sometimes strongly, to what is not good for us. Holiness is an answer to live a life upholding man’s dignity.

Secondly, the body is the context by which man expresses himself. The incarnate God wished to redeem man, he came in the body in order recognise the beauty and original state of the body. He sought to restore man in that state of purity in our deeds. Therefore, through divine grace and man’s effort, man can assume holiness.

Another implication to the moral perspective of theology of the body of Paul is the derivation of these concepts: sarxic man and somatic man. The term sarxic has a connotation of man who is conquered by his tendencies. They are so degraded that their bodily worth is disintegrated. St. Paul said:

 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.[162]

Somatic man is a full realization of body as an expression of man. Man at this level is very conscious of his existence with God. He fulfils the spiritual function of man. As much as he attains the physical existence in an adequate manner, he recognises that his soul shares in the body’s action. Therefore, he lives with peace, joy, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, and self-control

On the other hand, Pauline theology is very evident as expounded by the magisterium. There is an ultimate vocation to participate fully in the good of bodily health and life. Christian faith condemns any practice or thing that harms health or threatens life. We are to be good stewards of our life and health. Therefore, to take care of our health is part of the vocation of our stewardship. This does not exclude healthiness of the senses.

Our bodily conditions expressed or not expressed, affects how we worship and pray. This is clearly seen in the sacraments. In sacraments, God uses tangible, ‘fleshy’ things like bread, wine, oil and water as signs and symbols of his sacramental grace. By allowing us to receive his Body and Blood, Jesus forges a one-flesh unity between himself and someone who receives him.[163] This unity is both spiritual and physical. Also, in praying, our bodies participate in our praying.

 The most evil of crimes against holiness is precisely the practical denial of bodiliness. As already saw in the body of the work, the claims of homosexuality, euthanasia, abortion, techniques of research, reproduction techniques are a great menace to bodiliness of man. This tends to depersonalize the being of man as a mere existent, a blob of tissue or a mass of cells, or mere evolutionary figure.

As much as denying the body’s reality is  very dangerous, the unreal glorification of the body to excess is equally dangerous and should not be seen as a consequent positive effect of theology of the body. The absolutizing of the body at the expense of eternal virtues which could help the body to realize its end, is really dangerous for a Christians who aims at eternal life. The cult and culture of the body make it cause for stigma, marginalization, and severe loss of self-esteem to be ill, elderly, or merely less than super-glamorous according to somebody else's notions.

5.3       CONCLUSION

At the conclusion of this work, an authentic discovery of the lofty nature of human body brought by the redemptive power of Christ’s paschal mystery was conclusively made. With the initial state of man, he is helpless in his own mission of salvation. It behoves a divine to link our nature by assuming the body. With the incarnation, the human body stands once more above all creatures. Man regains his position, even a little lower than God (Psalm 8:5). He shares in the ministerial priesthood of Jesus with a function beyond the angels’. This dignity is magnificent and glorious.

The Christian evaluation of the body has no diminutive value. The Matthew’s account of the Gospel offered the possession of heaven from the perspective of exclusively a ‘body-service’: ‘I was hungry and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you received me in your home; I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me (Matt 25:35-37). This informed the body oriented virtues of the Church called “corporal works of mercy” as Church’s means of promoting bodily existence.[164] Thus, man has a vocation and authentic project of upholding to the teaching of the body as an eschatological reality

Paul understands the human body with the lens of man’s destiny when he describes the spiritual body in the transformation of man. To understand this spiritual body, one gazes on the appearance of Jesus in John 20:24-31. The body was Christ, but in glorified state. Also, the body has great to offer in the destiny of man. St. Paul advised, “Shun fornication” because it is a sin that destroy our aspirations for holiness of life.

Therefore, the human body must be treated with all the respect that it requires without falling prey to its worship.  We are required to take care of the body and avoid the contemporary effort to denigrate the body through their scientific adventures, murder, promiscuity, torture, oppression, slander, removal of necessary medical services, abortion, euthanasia etc. Denial of this ontological value, is the rejection of Paul fuller understanding that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19), we come to realize that although we have our body, it does  not belong to us and we are not free to do with it as we will; our bodies belongs to God and we must treat it as he demands-alive or dead we belong to God (Rom 14:7-8, 1 Cor 6:19-20).

The message of Paul to the world in his theology of the body; to return to the original state of man, his original sanctity, original innocence, original solitude, original shame, original love and original nakedness.[165] If we treat the body with respect, salvation will be assured us.

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[1] John Paul II, Man and Woman He created Them: A theology of the Body (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2006), 221

[2] John L. Mckenzie. Dictionary of the Bible (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc, 1965), 100.

[3] Robert L. Wilken (ed), Church’s Bible (Cambridge: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 2005), 66.

[4] John Paul, The Theology of the Body, (Boston: Pauline Books & media, 1997), 191

[5] Ibid.

[6] Jose M. Casciaro (Ed), Navarre Bible: Corinthians (Dublin: Four Court Press, 2003),  85.

[7] Leon Morris, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Leicester: Inter Varsity Press, 1999), 96.

[8] Ibid., 96.

[9] Ibid., 97

[10] Ibid., 99

[11] John Paul, The Theology of the Body, 202

[12] Ibid., 204

[13] Leon Morris, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, 171

[14] John L. Mckenzie, Dictionary of the Bible (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1965), 100-101

[15] Leon Morris, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, 96.

[16] Louis F. Hartman transl by A. Van Borns, Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Bible (New York: Mc GRA W-Hill Book Company, 1963), 1156.

[17] John L. Mckenzie, Dictionary of the Bible, 100-102

[18] Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament  Vol. One, (London: SCM press Ltd., 1952), 192

[19] Karl Peschke, Christian Ethics: Moral Theology in the light of Vatican II. Vol. II (Bangalore: St. Peter’s Pontifical Seminary, 2004), 251.

[20] Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology, (Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing, 1977), 115

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid., 116          

[23] Gunther Bornkamm transl. by D. M. G. Stalker, Paul (New York: Harper & Row Publisher, 1971), 129.

[24] Ibid.,130.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Nolan B. Harmon ed., The Interpreter’s Bible vol. 10 (New York: Abingdon Press, 1953), 59.

[27] William F. Orr and James Arthur Walther, The Anchor Bible Vol. 32 (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1976), 185.

[28] Ibid

[29] Nolan B. Harmon ed., The Interpreter’s Bible vol. 10, 60.

[30] William F. Orr and James Arthur Waltheer, The Anchor Bible Vol. 32, 189.

[31] Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “The First Letter To The Corinthians” in Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Roland Murphy (eds), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, (New Delhi: Rekha Printers Pvt Lmt, 1990), 803.

[32] Nolan B. Harmon ed., The Interpreter’s Bible vol. 10, 74.

[33] Obiorah Mary Jerome, Corpus Paulinum: Understanding Paul and His Letters (unpublished lecture note), 97-98.

[34] Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “The First Letter To The Corinthians” in Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Roland Murphy (eds), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, (New Delhi: Rekha Printers Pvt Lmt, 1990), 804.

[35] Nolan B. Harmon ed., The Interpreter’s Bible vol. 10, 74.

[36] Thomas W. Buckley, Apostle to the Nations: The Life and Letters of St. Paul (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul Press, 1981), 264.

[37] D. E. H. Whiteley, The Theology of St. Paul (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1964), 214.

[38]Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “The First Letter To The Corinthians” in Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Roland Murphy (eds), The Jerome Biblical Commentary, Vol. II(New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc. Englewood cliffs, 1968), 262

[39] Ibid.

[40] Ferdinand Prat transl by John L. Stoddard, The Theology of St. Paul, Vol. II (Westminister: The Newman Bookshop, 1927), 285.

[41]Robert K. Feaster (President and Pub), The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. X (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), 945.

[42] John Paul II, The Theology of the Body, 202

[43] Raymond F. Collins, The Power of Images in Paul (Minnesota: Liturgical Press Collegeville, 2008), 139.

[44]Ephesians 5:21-33, The New Revised Standard Version Bible, Catholic edition (Bangalore: Rekha Printers, 1999), 195.

[45]Ferdinand Prat transl by John L. Stoddard, The Theology of St. Paul, Vol. II, 300-302.

[46]Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “The First Letter To The Corinthians” in Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Roland Murphy (eds), The Jerome Biblical Commentary, Vol. II, 262.

[47] BibleWorks7 version 1.00.000, Bible works, Matthew Henry’s Commentary

[48] Ibid.

[49] Ferdinand Prat transl by John L. Stoddard, The Theology of St. Paul, Vol. II, 289.

[50] Leon Morris, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, 99

[51] Ibid., 100.

[52]Robert L. Wilken (ed), Church’s Bible, 100

[53] BibleWorks7 version 1.00.000, Bible works, Matthew Henry’s Commentary

[54] Robert L. Wilken (ed), Church’s Bible, 100.

[55] Ibid., 101.

[56] John Paul II, The Theology of the Body, 206.

[57]Jorg Splett, “Body” in Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi, Karl Rahner (ed), (New Delhi: Rekha Printers Pvt, 1975), 1448

[58] Schnelle Udo, Apostle Paul, His Life and Theology, (Michigan: Baker Publishing group, 2005), 467

[59] John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2006), 461.

[60] Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “The First Letter To The Corinthians” in Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Roland Murphy (eds), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, (New Delhi: Rekha Printers Pvt Lmt, 1990), 813.

[61] Commentary of 1 Cor. 15:44, The New Jerusalem Bible: Study Edition (New York: Darton Longman & Todd Ltd and Doubleday, 1985), 1911.

[62] Okechukwu Maurice Izunwa, Readings in Spirit, Body and Nature (Nimo: Rex Charles and Patrick Ltd., 2011), 144.

[63] Thomas Merton, The Seven Story Mountain (New York, 1970), 365

[64] Austin Flannery (ed.), Vatican Council II: The conciliar and post Conciliar Documents the Church in the Modern Word, Gaudium et Spes, 12 (New Delhi: Rekha Printers Pvt. Ltd, 2013), 803.

[65] Karl H. Peschke, Christian Ethics Vol II (New Delhi: Rekha Printers Pvt. Ltd., 2013), 252.

[66] Karl Rahner, Theological Investigation Vol. 9 (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), 205-225, 225-252.

[67] John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them, 306.

[68] The Catechism of the Catholic Church, (Nairobi: Pauline Publications, 1994), 1702.

[69]  D. W. C. Ford, Preaching through Life of Christ (Oxford: Mowbray, 1985), 94.

[70] Karl Rahner, Theological Investigation Vol. IX, 206.

[71] Gregory Nwachukwu, “Respect and Care for Health and Bodily Integrity” (Unpublished class work), 39

[72] Austin Flannery (ed.), Vatican Council II: The conciliar and post Conciliar Documents the Church in the Modern Word, Gaudium et Spes,14, pg. 804.

[73] William Saunders, “The immorality of Sterilization,” 2002, accessed 17. 01. 2017, http://catholiceducation.org/en/marriage-and-family/sexuality/the-immorality-of-sterilization.html.

[74] The Catechism of the Catholic Church,art. 2297, p. 488

[75] Bishop Ullathorne, The Endowments of Man (4^th ed), (London: Burns & Oates Limited, 1896), 1.

[76] Ibid., 2.

[77] Ibid., 29.

[78]  Battista Mondin, Philosophical Anthropology (Bangalore: Theological Publications, 1985), 231

[79] Ibid., 232.

[80] Bishop Ullathorne, The Endowments of Man, 9.

[81] Karl Peschke, Christian Ethics Vol. I (Bangalore: Rekha Printers Pvt. Ltd,, 2013), 97.

[82] Ibid.

[83] Ibid., 105.

[84] Victor Ifeanyi, Fundamental Moral Theology (Unpublished Work), 111.

[85] Karl Peschke, Christian Ethics Vol. I, 108.

[86] Joseph Myers, “Theological Reflection on the Human Body” accessed 3.5.2017, https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=4546

[87] Emily Stimpson, “7 Things You Need to Know about the Theology of the Body” accessed 24.04.2017, http://www.staycatholic.com/7_things_about_theology_of_body.htm

[88] Ibid.

[89] Ibid.

[90] Ibid.

[91] Joseph Myers, “Theological Reflection on the Human Body” accessed 3.5.2017, https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=4546

[92] Ibid.

[93] Okechukwu Maurice Izunwa, Readings in Spirit, Body and Nature, 144

[94] John Paul II, “Address to the third General Assembly of Latin American Bishops” (Puebla, 28 January, 1979) in Jacques Dupuis (ed.), The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church, 7^th edition (Bangalore: St. Peter’s Seminary, 2004), 178-179.

[95] Cosmas Ekwutosi, Bioethics: History and Contemporary Issues (Nimo: Rex Charles & Patrick Limited, 2008), 60.

[96] P. Singer, Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Tradition Ethics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 218.

[97] Samuel E. Stumpf, Philosophy: History and Problems, 5^th international edition (McGraw-Hill Inc., 1994), 62-66.

[98] Joseph Myers, “Theological Reflection on the Human Body” accessed 3.5.2017, https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=4546

[99] Paul Davies, God and the New Physics, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), 6.

[100] Okechukwu Maurice Izunwa, Readings in Spirit, Body and Nature, 258.

[101] Ibid.

[102] Jorg Splett, “Body” in Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi, Karl Rahner,  157.

[103] Joseph Myers, “Theological Reflection on the Human Body” accessed 3.5.2017, https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=4546

[104] John R. Sachs, The Christian Vision of Humanity: Basic Christian Anthropology (Minnesota: A Michael Glazier Book, 1991), 53.

[105] Ibid.

[106] Joseph Myers, “Theological Reflection on the Human Body” accessed 3.5.2017, https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=4546

[107] Adimike George, The theology of the Body in the Teaching of Pope John Paul II (an unpublished memoir work), 11.

[108] Ibid.

[109] Ibid.

[110] Margaret R. Miles, Fullness of Life: Historical Foundations for a New Asceticism (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1981), 19.

[111] Ibid.

[112]Wikipedia Encyclopedia, “Catholic Theology of the Body”, accessed 7.5.2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Catholic_theology_of_the_body&oldid=764679982

[113] Ibid

[114] Ferdinand R. Gahbauer, Highlight of Creation: The Question of Man in Early Christian Literature (Be & Be Publishing house, 2008), 46.

[115] Ibid., 52.

[116] Ibid., 56.

[117] Ibid., 57.

[118] Ibid., 59.

[119] Ibid., 78.

[120] Ibid., 79.

[121] Boniface Ramsey, Beginning to Read the Fathers (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1985), 59.

[122] Samuel E. Stumpf, Philosophy: History and Problems, 5^th international edition, 62-66.

[123] Ibid., 20.

[124] George Omaku Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision (Iperu-Remo: The Ambassador Publications, 1997), 53.

[125] Jacques Dupuis (ed.), The Christian Faith (New Delhi: Rekha Printers Pvt. Ltd, 2001), 167

[126] Ibid., 168.

[127] James N. Lapsley, Salvation and Health (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972), 39.

[128] Adimike George, The theology of the Body in the Teaching of Pope John Paul II, 20.

[129] Ibid.

[130] Joseph Omoregbe, A Simplified History of Western Philosophy (Lagos: Joja Press Ltd, 1997), 147.

[131] Jorg Splett, “Body” in Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi, Karl Rahner, 159.

[132] Jacques Dupuis (ed.), The Christian Faith, 170.

[133] James N. Lapsley, Salvation and Health, 41.

[134] Jorg Splett, “Body” in Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi, Karl Rahner,  159

[135] J.C. Achike Agbakoba, Theories of Mind: A Case for Interactionism (Enugu: SNAAP Press, 2001),  39

[136] Rene Descartes, Principles of Philosophy as quoted in Theories of Mind by Achike Agbakoba (Enugu: SNAAP Press, 2001), 39.

[137] J.C. Achike Agbakoba, Theories of Mind: A Case for Interactionism, 40.

[138] Collen M. Griffith, “Spirituality and the Body” in Bodies of Worship: Explorations in Theory and Practice, ed. B. T. Morrill (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1999), 73.

[139] Jorg Splett, “Body” in Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi, Karl Rahner,  159.

[140] Jacques Dupuis (ed.), The Christian Faith, 175.

[141] Austin Flannery (ed.), Vatican Council II: The conciliar and post Conciliar Documents the Church in the Modern Word, Gaudium et Spes, 14,  804-805.

[142]Jorg Splett, “Body” in Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi, Karl Rahner,  160.

[143] Jacques Dupuis (ed.), The Christian Faith, 977.

[144] Ibid., 985.

[145] Valerie Riches, Sex and Social Engineering (Oxford: Family Education Trust, 1999), 12.

[146] Christopher West, Theology of the Body Explained (Herefordshire: Gracewing, 2003), 2.

[147] Ibid., 5.

[148] Anthony Percy, The Theology of the Body made Simple (Mumbai: St. Pauls, 2005), 12.

[149] John Paul II, The Theology of the Body,  76

[150] John Paul II, The Theology of the Body, 191.

[151] Ibid.

[152] Ibid.

[153] John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them, 330.

[154] Ibid., 350.

[155] Ibid.

[156] Ibid., xxvi

[157] Ibid.

[158] Christopher West, Theology of the Body Explained, xxix

[159] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter, Veritatis Splendor, 6 August 1993, 48: John Wilkins (ed.), Understanding Veritatis Splendor, the encyclical Letter of John Paul II on the Church’s moral teaching (London: Holy Trinity Church, 1994), 123-124.

[160] John Paul II, Letters to Families, accessed 11.05.2017, https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/1994/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_02021994_families.html

[161] Gregory Nwachukwu, “Respect and Care for Health and Bodily Integrity”, 39

[162] Galatians  5:19-21, The New Revised Standard Version Bible, Catholic edition,  190-191.

[163] Joseph Myers, “Theological Reflection on the Human Body” accessed 3.5.2017, https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=4546

[164] Okechukwu Maurice Izunwa, Readings in Spirit, Body and Nature, 149.

[165] John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created them, 234-261.