Reflection on September 24, 1980

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb40.htm

We have all heard the saying, “If looks could kill”. I found myself thinking about this as I was reading JPII here. He is speaking about the “look” that the man is giving to the woman and the effect it is having. At least, at first, he is focused on the effect on the man. When the man looks on her with desire, JPII speaks of the “intentionality” of the look being of importance, what is the intended purpose of the look. The effect is “purely interior” on the man, but “a change of existence takes place in him”. Because a change is experienced and experiences are foundational to our understanding, this “look” and it effects shape our view of our existence, in ourselves and in communion with others. Thus we see the importance of a “look” and begin to see why Christ makes it an important part of His teaching, part of His correct interpretation.

This seems like he is saying the same thing he has been, but using language that is denser. What I gleam is this. The “look” and its intentionality is a fork in the road. When the intentionality ceases to be to view the other as a “subject of communion” but becomes an “object for the possible satisfaction of sexual urge”, that shift is the first step down a bad path. The word JPII uses is “enslavement”. This shift “comes to be in the heart to the degree in which it has come to be in the will”. This reduction “drags the will into its narrow horizon, when it awakens I n it a decision for a relation with another…according to the scale of values proper to concupiscence”. He speaks of the path taking over your view of the other, which I think would flow into your view of the world as a whole and yourself through that experience. The more you allow your “look” to have an intentionality of reduction, the more that will drag you into a life of concupiscence.

This may seem like an obvious observation, but if that is the case, why is pornography so acceptable. True, it may not be acceptable in the fact that you can watch it at work, but it appears acceptable in the fact that everyone figures everyone looks at it privately and is okay with it. (With the book “Fifty Shades of Gray becoming a movie, the idea that pornography is even more acceptable than I give it credit for is a possibility) Pornography is the playing out of Christ caution to the extreme, but as obvious as we no taking a wrong path will lead to a bad consequence, we ignore it to satisfy our pleasure.

I think enslavement to concupiscence is an interesting idea to reflect on. It came up in a discussion last night about free will and predestination and how that might all fit together. There are those out there that don’t want to believe in a God that controls us and feel you cannot have it both ways. (God either knows all and free will is not there or we have free will and God is outside it and cannot effect it.) I don’t want to focus on that, but on those that don’t believe in that God but rely on the world and surround themselves in this life of concupiscence with the belief that doing whatever you want is true freedom. As you dive into this world of sin, we have already talked about, it does not diminish the desires, but causes them to increase, thus leading to the enslavement that JPII was talking about. Many with that view don’t want a God that they feel takes away your free will. But how much free will do they have as a slave to the sin in their lives. When you cannot say no, your yes means nothing. When you cannot say no, your choice is gone. When you cannot say no, free will is gone. Completely opposite to God, sin enslaves you and gives you no choices. God allows you to choose Him or not, sin takes choices away.

When you read the following it makes it completely obvious why contraception is considered sinful in the eyes of the Church. Contraception, if you think about the fork in the road, is a good hard shove in the back down the wrong road that cooperates fully in the dragging of intention away from communion and into objectification.

“Concupiscence removes the intentional dimension of the man's and woman's mutual existence from the personal perspectives, "of communion," characteristic of their perennial and mutual attraction, reducing it, and, so to speak, pushing it toward utilitarian dimensions, within which the human being uses the other human being, for the sake merely of satisfying his own needs.”