Image and Likeness of God

When I was growing up the entirety of the Catholic Church's teaching on sex was presented as the logical consequence of the commandments against adultery and coveting one's neighbor's wife. The medieval theologians had done a fine job of constructing their system. And a fine system it is.

But it is almost entirely negative in its outlook,or at least in what was presented in the catechisms of the day.

So I was delighted 18 months ago to hear a presentation by Christopher West on Pope John Paul's "Theology of the Body." The Pope put sexual morality on a positive basis. Starting from Jesus' response to the question of divorce, "In the beginning it was not so," he went back to look at how it was in the beginning. He articulated that in the beginning the sexuality of male and female was part of God's creation that was "very good." He saw that it is in the very act by which man and woman obey the positive command to be fruitful and multiply that humans are most fully the image and likeness of God. Their love is the image of the love among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, their commitment is the image of the unbreakable bond of the Trinity as well as God's faithful love for his people. Their openness to procreation is the image of God's loving creation, especially his creation of man and woman. Marriage, therefore is the "primordial sacrament."

That is how it was in the beginning. That is what we have fallen from, with our lusts. That is what Christ restores through his redemptive work. Conduct which is wrong is conduct which does not live up to the greatness which is God's will for us from the beginning. Sex is not dirty. Sex is wonderful when lived according to God's loving plan.

I'll have more to say on this later, I hope.