theo unit 2

• Sexuality

  A complex and powerful force, not something that can be ignored, comes from God, fundamentally good
• Sexuality


  • Powerful creative force
  • Divine creation
  • Two powers: Love and life
  • Source of our most basic human relationships
• Human person

  Composed of body and spirit, embodied spirit
• Dualism

  Sexual activities do not affect the inner spirit, it is just an act of mating
• Spiritualist view: only spirit is important, deny yourself any form of pleasure is not good
• Reductionism reduces sexuality to something biological
• Dimensions of sexuality

  • Biological
  • Psychological
  • Spiritual
  • Sociocultural
• Biological dimension


  • Physical/genital, sexual energy, urges, and instinct, hormones, physical pleasure ("sensuality"), indispensable but not total, ethical implications: non-reductionism, proper integration, strong but not absolute
• Psychological/Affective dimension


  • More decisive than biological, tenderness, comfortably experiencing the sexual instinct in various ways, significance: integration with other dimensions and with the totality of the person towards maturity
• Spiritual dimension


  • Human sexuality is a privileged expression of the human person, a language we struggle with for us to mature
• Dialogical dimension


  • Sexual maturity includes forming healthy interpersonal relationships, other-orientedness ("I-Thou"), essential devastation in restoring relationship, sexual behavior is only authentic when it is an expression of the totality of the person
• Three foundations of sexual ethics

  • 1. Sexuality as a gift, creation & source of energy/force for love
  • 2. A holistic view of the human person: embodied spirit
  • 3. Sexuality as having multiple dimensions: bio, psych/affect, dialogical, socio-cultural - persuades all levels of the human person
• Sexuality and the Absolute (God)

  • Sexuality has the capacity to merit and express celebration and symbolize religious song of songs - passion
  • Sexuality also has the capacity to express pain which gives hints of the need for something transcendent/Absolute
• Repressed sexual energy leads to a distorted view of sexuality
• Transcendent source of sexual norms

  Hope, contentment, rest - not repression
• Sacrifice in sexuality is meant to be love - active willing of the good of the other, not conformity
• To conform our lives to God is to transform ourselves into love - everything in us becomes a language of love
• Human and Christian vocations are embodiments of love
• Every human activity has a sexual dimension
• Sexual activity runs the risk of being separated from personhood and its various dimensions
• Sexual fault


  Negation and deliberate non-relation of the person which human sexuality should promote
• Radical sexual sin


  Moral individualism or narcissism in sexuality
• Chastity


  Affirming the integral gift of sexuality, integrating the gift of sexuality towards the service of love, keeping order in the sphere of sexual activity and sexuality
• Chastity is more than just about abstinence, feelings, or sex - it is about the humanization of sexuality
• Socio-cultural

  • sexual energies accumulate in human beings
  • channel excess sexual energies healthily
  • translation into something productive
  • establishment of appropriate societal structures
  • avoiding the naturalistic fallacy
• The Church teaches that chastity is not only about avoiding sexual acts but also about living out one's sexual identity according to God's plan.
• Sexual ethics

  1. Personalization → keep principles but person > principles
  2. Individuality
  3. Progression → humans are a work in progress
• Love as Attraction (Amor Complacentia)


  Love is based on a particular attitude to the good which originates in two persons' liking for or attraction to each other
• Love as Attraction


  • Love most often begins as fondness or attraction
  • One person is initially attracted to another person who is perceived as a good because that person embodies certain values (charming personality, a virtuous demeanor, and physical beauty)
  • Attraction is often the result of the sexual drive
• Attraction


  • Fondness for another person engages our reason and will
  • The will also commits itself
  • The intellect and will help shape our response to another's naturally good features into the incipient love of fondness
• Attraction


  • The emotional-affective reaction plays a prominent part and leaves a specific imprint on it
  • Emotions help mold persons' fondness to each other
  • Emotions can cause intellectual blindness and prevent us from seeing the truth about the person
  • Emotions can make us fixated on only one or two values of a person without regard to the person as whole
• People generally believe that love can be reduced largely to a question of the genuineness of feelings
• Two truths in love

  The subjective emotional truth and the objective truth based on reliable knowledge so that we can appreciate the value of the person along with his or her objective qualities
• Attraction


  • It must never be limited to partial values (something which is inherent in the person but is not the person as a whole)
  • A person's reaction to another's personal or sexual qualities will depend on his or her sensitivity to particular values
  • Fondness must be directed toward the person who possesses the values
  • Authentic fondness captures "above all the very value of the person" and appreciates that the focus of attention is "precisely the person and not something else"
• Attraction "belongs to the essence of love," though love certainly cannot be reduced to fondness
• Emotions have a certain truth of their own, but we cannot trust them to convey the whole truth
• "I love you" at this point most often means "I love YOUR (look or trait)..." or "I 'love' you because you are.."
• Love as Desire (Amor Concupiscientia)


  The second essential ingredient of love, namely, desire
• Love as desire


  • Cannot be reduced to desire itself
  • Represents an objective need for the other person who is good for me and an object of longing
  • Presupposes a need that can be met only by another person who is good for me, who will make my life better
  • Should never be equated with sensual desire alone, though sensual desire is an aspect of this form of love
• A person's gentleness and compassion


  Balance and temper another person's toughness and pragmatism