Reflections on January 2, 1980

http://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2tb13.htm

JPII talked in one of the early talks of a special way Adam and Eve “saw” each other. He expands on that a little more here, calling it an “interior gaze”. They saw more than just what their eyes could see, more than the physical forms in front of each other. This ability to have an interior gaze of someone, from how I read it, is not taken away by shame. Instead of it being peaceful and full, shame makes this interior gaze a thing that is troubling and threatening to us. That makes sense when you think about people being afraid of commitment, of being vulnerable, lack of marriage and increasing co-habitation. We see this other person, we feel strong feelings, we feel ourselves drawn to them, but instead of peace, we are troubled and instead of committing to the feeling and growing in a deeper understanding of ourselves, we push it away, distract ourselves, destroy and degrade those feelings. I don’t think most would describe that fear of commitment with shame, but we do get an understanding of how Adam and Eve “saw” each other in a deeper than physical way and, as opposed to fear, were at peace.

The footnotes bring up the comparison of JPII’s adequate anthropology to the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution is related to the idea of reductionism (defined below) and JPII says an understanding of adequate anthropology is opposed to this. I understand this opposition much better now after going through the first several of these talks. Theory of Evolution holds as a premise that we were once or evolved from the animal kingdom. No one can explain, and may never be able to (hence it is still “theory”), how animals went from irrational to rational thought, find the “missing link”. But that is what they need to find to use their reductionism. They must explain us and all our actions and a purely scientific manner. An adequate anthropology is opposed because, I believe he is saying, at the bare minimum humans are unique in that they were created in the image of God. Because that is their minimum or adequate starting point, they can never go beyond that boundary, into the animal kingdom and no explanation describing them can take humans beyond that boundary. That is why Theology of the Body may fall on many deaf ears because theory of evolution is seen as fact, yet JPII basic premise is opposed to it.

I have read, and found it to make a lot of sense, that in the Hebrew language they did not have a different type of word for levels (like big, bigger, biggest). Instead they repeat the word 3 times. Thus, when we sing “Holy, Holy, Holy”, we are actually proclaiming that God is the holiest, which like I said, makes sense. In the footnotes it talks about the word creation used in Genesis 1. It says it is used only in Genesis 1:1 and then in the verse regarding man, 1:27. “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them”. Notice “created” is used 3 times indicating that man being created is the highest form of created things.

Words I looked up

Reductionism - the theory that every complex phenomenon, especially in biology or psychology, can be explained by analyzing the simplest, most basic physical mechanisms that are in operation during the phenomenon.

Hermeneutics - the science of interpretation, especially of the Scriptures.