The dangers of Theology of the Body, part I

From the very first moment I heard Christopher West speak, I knew there was something very wrong about what I was hearing. In my senior year of college he spoke, and I got up and walked out for a number of reasons. One is that it was just plain immodest, from the standpoint of true modesty not mere prudery. The other was the language Mr. West used in that particular conference was just so mundane. "Sex is good, its great, God made it good." I don't need to be taken away from important time I could be studying or praying to hear this. Of course we know that it is good, that is not the point.

His conferences that I have heard, range from anthropocentric to displacing the Church's traditional focus on celibacy for sex. What is disturbing is according to one of his websites he rejected Catholic teaching on celibacy and sex, until he came by Theology of the Body. This suggests to me, that he never really changed his views he just found something to validate his rejection of the Catholic approach to sexuality.

This is intended specifically as a critique of Christopher West. This is not a critique per se of the late Holy Father's audiences, even though they are extremely low level pronouncements and open to some criticism. One reason is that I have not read them all because there is too much good stuff in the tradition to waste my time with anything modern. A second is that what little I have read, though imprecise and based on bad philosophy (i.e. personalism) I can't recall anything explicitly contrary to the catechism or the doctors of the Church. Some of it is quite correct and consonant with St. Augustine's thinking on marriage, but we will save that for a future installment. However others have ventured to tackle this subject at the horse's mouth, here and here.

It is also necessary to point out that not everything West says is evil either. Sexual relations between men and women were made to be good, made to be a remedy for concupiscence, (something else taught by that prudish pre-vatican II church which West dislikes so much) and established as a part of God's hierarchical order, and His plan for the human race. When our speaker affirms that marital love is a sacramental he is on the right track. Where he is completely screwed up is in the various directions he takes this truth.

Now some will scoff, even if agreeing with this critique, that "look at all the good West has done for these people, or these people". I'm not going to dispute that. However that doesn't make evil good (as we shall see what evil we are talking about in a moment), nor does it make validate the whole project. As we witness in history, Satan is happy to suffer good in order to net souls, as we saw in Spain with the anti-Pope Gregory XVII who started a movement which brought hope in the midst of the Vatican II revolution. People prayed the rosary and went to confession frequently who hadn't been in many years. People began practicing greater piety, THEN the guy went nuts, declared himself the Pope and took many of those souls out of the Church. The devil is no doubt happy to suffer a few souls improving their marriage so as to net a few more who fall into sins of the 6th and 9th commandments. Thus, when we offer this under the title of "the dangers of Theology of the Body", we do not mean to deny or label dangerous the good things present in the late Pope's thought, nor do we wish to deny the same when it is found in Mr. West's writings. Rather we seek to identify those things which are dangerous so as to avoid certain things he advocates which are sinful.

A. Modesty

The first thing to examine is Modesty itself. Modesty is broader than relating to speech and dress in relation to the 6th and 9th commandment. A full treatment would be overly laborious. Yet it is necessary to discuss it since the over-sexualization of our society is at the root of the defining evil of our time, the willful destruction of the family through contraception (natural or artificial) and no fault divorce be it through the civil law or the abuse of annulments.

Modesty is when our exterior actions are conducted according to due mode. St. Thomas teaches that modesty is that virtue that moderates all of our actions according to virtue. (II;II QCLX, a.1) So a man who has a house payment and buys a second home or a boat is immodest. If a child plays too many video games he is immodest, as well as a man who speaks too much, or speaks in a place where silence is expected by custom or positive law (i.e. a Church prior to or during Holy Mass, or a court room where a judge has asked silence).

Modesty with regards speech concerning sexuality, requires moderating our speech to not evoke the passions outside of their correct context. The correct context for the sexual passions is between a husband and wife in private. Those who fail to exercise self control in these areas are immodest by definition. This has nothing to do with the goodness of the sexual act. Speaking is good, but if I speak in Church during Mass, even about something good, I behave immodestly.

This is where West violates the virtue of modesty in his presentations. For instance, he speaks in a very crass way about sexual relations, and very graphically. One conference he had a participant stand up and say "Look at so and so's body, its good!". Apart from the fact that such speech is little better than the immature ramblings of a perverted teenager, there is a certain virtue once talked about namely custody of the eyes. We keep our eyes from looking at a person in such a way to excite the passions. It is also apart of the dignity of the person that we don't look at them impurely, that is in regard for the sex appeal. I wonder if West would stand up some 60 year old woman and tell us the same thing. Moreover, one wonders if he would approve of other men looking at his wife under the guise of "her body is good." Anyone about to defend him ought to consider that with respect to their person or their spouse.

That is apart of the virtue of modesty, looking at that which is due. Women who dress poorly are immodest when they do not dress so as to keep the normal man from entering into sin. Noting that it is the normal man is important, since there are some men who are extraordinary cases, and just being present in front of a woman causes them to sin. Women do not have to take account of them, except in as much as they dress for a normal guy. We are not speaking of Catholic Amish. In these extraordinary cases, those men can look at a woman immodestly, or vice versa, even when the other is dressed normally, either because of certain physical features or because of imagination evoked by context. As I said women do not need to put themselves in a burkha just because such men exist, it is the responsibility of such men to bring themselves under control. However, if you are at a presentation on sex in marriage, your speaker is talking about sex, and he tells you to look at a woman or a man because their body is good, what is one of the thoughts that is going to come up? The senses are made to work a certain way. Walking on the street you might not have been affected by it, since you would take account of the whole person just walking around, but in a context where you are exhorted to look, you'll notice something you might not have noticed (and should not notice) otherwise. In such cases West is exhorting his attendees to sin.

The Church, following the command of St. Paul, maintained that women needed to have their heads covered, because a woman's hair is her glory. We should take account of the fact that when you walk in a public place, which of those women are the ones who are notable, who attract our attention? It is those women whose hair is glorious. Glorious hair is the crowning glory of a woman, and that is why it is covered at Mass, because we need to place all of our focus on almighty God and being a body soul unity, we are prone to be distracted by such things especially considering our concupiscent state as regards 6th and 9th commandments. The beauty of the women is not for consideration at that point, and as such the wearing of a veil is modest, hidden. If that is true of a matter of a woman's hair, how much more is that the case when speaking of matters of the body pertaining to marital union.

Speech can lead one into sin just as easily as dress, by evoking emotions or thoughts which by their nature evoke thoughts of matter for the 6th and 9th commandments. Considering that our society is completely over-sexed to the point of exhaustion, it is fair to say that at the very least such speech is simply not prudent, at the worst it is venially sinful.

Let us consider again that ABC nightline interview, where West compared the book of the Song of Songs to a centerfold in a pornographic magazine.

First off, the evocation is sinful since it compares holy things to satanic things. A center fold in a magazine is intrinsically evil since it's aim is only to evoke sins against the 6th and 9th commandment. In effect it is casting pearls before swine. Holy things are to be reverenced as holy, not brought down to even mundane things, let alone intrinsically evil things like pornography. Moreover the analogy fails because the Song of Songs is not the central point of the bible. The point of a "center-fold" is to build the magazine up to its highest point, where a woman is laid out for perverts to see and commit sins of self abuse. Why do men commit self abuse? Because love calls for union, and the effects of marital love, which deal with sexual pleasure, are intrinsically ordered toward a union. Desire for sexual pleasure, disconnected with its guiding principle, which is marital love, is the sin of lust, and while it maintains some of the effects of the ordering principle, which is union it is disconnected from its proper context. So unable to find union, men find a cheap imitation, hence the sin of self abuse.

Now the Song of Songs, an important book to be sure, is not the central point of the bible where men find true union with God. It is in the Gospels, where the Word becomes flesh and through his sacrifice makes propitiation for our sins and provides us with grace to die to ourselves and attain heaven through His Resurrection. THAT, not talk of the effects of marital love, is THE central point of the Holy Scripture. That is where the body finds union with the divinity, it is in the incarnation.

More importantly, should we look at the commentaries of the saints on the Song of Songs? Those commentaries, and I'm thinking here of St. Bernard's, St. Teresa of Avila's and St. John of the Cross' commentaries, are mystical. They interpret what is a carnal book in its literal sense, in an entirely spiritual sense, almost to the exclusion of the carnal element. West inverts this interpretation entirely to his own purposes.

Lastly, West's verbal presentation is juvenile, so much so that he is aware of it since the real gems from his presentations never quite make it to written form. When he came to Franciscan University in my last year to give his presentation, I got up and left after about 10 minutes and said "This guy is a pervert." Why? He provides a juvenile presentation of the body is good, "sex is good, and yes, it is goooood". What kind of speech is that? That isn't a Catholic presentation. The subject matter is indeed Catholic, but the means of presenting is irreverent, perverted and unfitting of a man, but rather more suitable to locker room speech. Having been raised in that environment, and trained in high school to think women were objects for use and that sex was a thing to joke about and make amusement over, I was not going to go back to that way of thinking after finding Christ's redemption and embracing purity. That is exactly what West would propose we do, go back to locker room behavior. My wife when she first heard a cd of West, given to us after we were married said "This man is a disgusting pervert." Why? Because it sounded like perverted boys used to speak whom she stayed away from for the sake of her purity.

The fact is, these presentations are contrary to the virtue of modesty, and it weakens the bond of charity that should exist between men and women because it conjures up thoughts of that which is evil. To willfully admit thoughts of women to whom one is not married (and vice versa) is intrinsically disordered because we have no rights to their bodies. Even thinking of one's own spouse can be dangerous, if it causes one to lose control. Mixed groups listening to presentations of how so and so's body is good, to admonitions to look at themselves naked and offer for those gathered to bless the ovaries of the women present is at the very least venially sinful and contrary to right virtue, because it is based on bad philosophy. It is based on the idea that the effects of original sin can be undone, in spite of claims to the contrary.