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The Good Is Love - The Body and Human Acts in Humanae Vitae and John Paul II (Paperback)
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The Good Is Love - The Body and Human Acts in Humanae Vitae and John Paul II (Paperback)
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John Paul II in his personalist approach to moral questions
reaffirmed that as sin offends that which is good, if we truly know
what human love is--and that it is good--we would thereby see how
certain acts can never be acceptable insofar as they in all cases
wound this love. Yet in moral debates surrounding love, sex and
contraception Adrian Reimers observes that we are not using this
approach and these debates are not advancing the cause of real
love. Reimers draws upon the encyclical Humanae Vitae and John Paul
II's catechesis known as the theology of the body to respond to the
stalled development of moral theology on the issues most crucial to
human love and intimacy. "It is time, we are told, for a 'paradigm
shift' in the Catholic Church's moral teaching, such shift
representing a more pastoral and less dogmatic approach to moral
issues," writes Reimers. His claim that "a paradigm shift in moral
theology and philosophy may be valuable--perhaps vital--to scholars
who think and write about these sciences and to teachers who
communicate moral truth" is not an exhortation to redefine moral
truths. Rather, he argues that an approach to contraception, for
example, that relies exclusively on natural law is a hackneyed one
and often "tedious." John Paul II's series of catechetical
addresses known as the theology of the body was originally composed
in the 1970s after Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae. Albeit
derived from the writing of an archbishop and not yet pope, Reimers
identifies John Paul II's perspectives on love, sex and
contraception as an essential force behind this so-called paradigm
shift in continuity with the profound and unchanging truths set
forth in Humanae Vitae. As Reimers states, "Moral truths do not
change, even if our ways to understand them improve." How, then, is
our sense of the goodness or badness of contraception meant to be
helped by such a development of thought? Ethics grounded
philosophically tends to lean toward legalism in the context of
moral actions, says Reimers, as it emphasizes conformity to God's
law and largely overlooks "the relationship between moral behavior
and the human person's ultimate end of beatitude with God." The
important principle of the necessarily two-fold description that
natural law gives to sex--namely, as unitive and procreative--must
not be the authoritative end of the discussion regarding the moral
nature of contraception. In an age where technology has given human
beings new power it seems there must be new rules as well, and the
conquest of procreative acts changes the human perception of the
limitations once associated with harmful acts. Herein lies the
importance of John Paul II's catechesis--the goodness or badness of
acts is not just concerned with end of a particular act. As Reimers
writes, "If we are to understand the complex relationships among
love, marriage, and their sexual expression, we must situate these
within the context of the end of the human being." A position on
contraception and human sexuality cannot be comprehensive without a
concept of love properly understood. Human acts must bring us
closer to sanctity, not to comfort or possession. Holiness is the
perfection of love, and its pursuit aims at ultimate beatitude.
This end, the truest love human can know, is the end which
ultimately condemns contraception once and for all, as
"contracepted sex is contrary to holiness." Reimers unpacks this
sometimes difficult truth in eight chapters, which begin with love
and conclude with faithfulness to moral norms and a spirituality of
marriage. The arguments surrounding contraception and "good sex"
seem to have set the grounds for coherently choosing a side rather
than to have succeeded in presenting certain human acts as
definitively immoral. As Reimers notes, a natural law position on
contraception often fails to employ its greatest ally: the reality
of authentic human love and "victory" of the individual in one's
sanctity as achieved through that love. This work will reorient the
objectives and claims of the moral debate, as well as influence the
popular notion of what love is and what it cannot be. It is an aid
to scholars, students and study groups, humanists, and those who
seek to deepen the sense of love's highest physical expression.
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