Objective vs. Subjective Dimensions of Love

"Tobias and Sarah," Jan Steen (1626-1679)

Throughout the recent Christopher West debates, to which I have already alluded earlier, I think that one element of the Theology of the Body has been left out, although David Schindler alluded to it in his discussion of the objective nature of concupiscence.

I have been reading JPII's commentary on the Song of Songs and the Book fo Tobit, all found in TOB 108-117b. One of John Paul II's beautiful points is the synthesis of these two books, from which he draws out both the objective and the subjective dimensions of marital union as a language of the body confirming the sign of covenant and grace. What struck me in this read through this section of the TOB is John Paul II's repeated insistence on the priority and importance of the objective dimensions of the "truth of living in communion."

He notices that the Song of Songs speaks powerfully of the "subjective dimension of the truth of human hearts," but that the "prayer of the new spouses in Tobit seems certainly to confirm the [objective dimension] in a menner different from the Song of Songs, and also in a manner that is undoubtedly more deeply moving." [116:4]

John Paul's analysis here seems to reflect the Thomistic idea of love as goodwill, which is based on friendship and expressed through concrete acts and tasks. In Love and Responsibility, John Paul II speaks of "love as desire," "love as attraction," "love as friendship/goodwill" and "betrothed love." Here in TOB, it appears that he is continuing the reflection on the interplay and relationship between his "four loves," and shows particular the necessity to fuse the erotic, love as desire, experienced suibjectively within the human heart, and the agapeic love as goodwill. The fusion of these two loves, the purification of desire through goodwill in friendship, results in a deeply moving and beautiful betrothed love. This, John Paul II points out, is the essence of the spirituality of marriage.

It is popular these days to speak of the "spirituality" of things: work, the priesthood, marriage, nature, etc. Rather than giving some sort of banal answer like "the spirituality of marriage consists in making your spouse happy by random acts of kindness," (an answer you could find in countless self-help and therapy books out there), John Paul II proposes that the spirituality of marriage consists in making yourself, with your spouse and for her, a "sacrifice and offering acceptable to the Lord." Yes, through their sexual lives spouses speak a "language of the body," which expresses the total self gift promised in the vows, but also through their entire common existence, spouses are called to speak a "liturgical language." (TOB 117b:3) "In the daily life of the couple, acts become tasks, and tasks acts. These acts--likewise also the obligations--are by nature spiritual, but they are still at the same time expressed by the 'language of the body.'"

Three things come to mind:

1) My fear about West's presentations is a lack of enough emphasis on the objective dimensions of living in a communion of persons. Real love is not just about the beautiful longing, love, and poetic romance expressed in the Song of Songs. Real love also means the performance of conrete tasks, day in and day out, for your spouse, modeled on the love of Christ for His Church. This helps one keep in mind that when the times are tough and the "subjective" element of the "dimension of the heart" might be lacking, this is ok. I think it is important, especially for young Catholic married couples to keep this in mind, since there exists a not too uncommon phenomenon of the "perfect, young, orthodox couple" getting married, then disillusioned, and then seeking an annulment. True love, as expressed by the theology of the body, is not just about speaking the sexual language of the body, but the "liturgical" language of the body.

2) Speaking the "language of the liturgy" with one's body means uniting oneself to the sacrifice of Christ, and to the original covenant of God with man. Man was created as cosmic priest, to rule over himself, and creation, and to say to God, "We offer You these gifts from your own gifts in all and for all." Christ came fully revelaed to man how to live according to this original plan, and as Pope Benedict tells us, we are all called to become "true liturgists of Jesus Christ." This means that we develop a liturgical worldview by which each act we perform becomes sanctified as it is done by God's grace and for His glory. In marriage, the spouses speak this "litrugical language" through their acts of duty and faithfulness to their given tasks, speaking with their acts always the language of tenderness in self-giving love.

3) These points are in radical continuity with the early Wojtyla, who recognized and argued that man fulfills himself through the performance of his own acts, and this is done most fully through the performance of acts in community, as this provides the possibiltiy of living out a gift of self, acting in solidarity with and for others.

Thus, the objective dimension of love, expressed through a living in communion of persons based on speaking a "liturgical language," as expressed in the prayer of Tobit (Tob 8:5-8) needs to always be emphasized by anybody who seeks to popularize the theology of the body, as it does a great disservice to mislead people through an overly optimistic (though admittedly, beautiful) emphasis on the subjective dimension of love in the human heart as experienced by two spouses living according to God's plan.