Reflection on December 17, 1980

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb50.htm

St. Paul may sound Manichaean, but he is not. I think if you take lines, or even large sections, of Paul’s letters by themselves, you could get that impression. That may be one of the reasons that Manichaeism became so popular, because they could point to so many verses to back their arguments. But SJPII says that even if Paul says the body is set against the spirit, the flesh is not sinful. It can be seen as a battleground, but the battle ground is just where the fight happens, not the fight itself. The flesh is where evil can occur, but not the evil. And just as a body can be used for evil, the body can be used for good. It can be a vehicle for good or evil, but it is just the vehicle. SJPII seems to say that the body leans toward the bad or that evil has the upper hand in the material realm, but says it is wrong to think that it is intrinsically evil. Living according to the Flesh or the Spirit seems to flow along the same lines as we have been looking at with looking at the world with the reductive desire or the eyes of God.

I was really interested in the idea that works are different than fruits. The more I read, the more this makes sense, yet the difference seems very minute and seems to depend on who is talking about what. Paul talks about the “works” of the flesh and the “fruits” of the spirit. The footnotes try to explain the difference in a little more clarity. What I grasp is that Paul sees works as “acts proper to man for whom he will be answerable before God”. This seems to cover the gambit, from circumcision to adultery, any act that we do on Earth for which we will be judged. But thinking about that, I think you can quickly fall back into the interpretation that those questioners of Christ had about what is sinful. Would Paul see “looking on someone with desire” as a work that you will be judged upon? I think he would, but I don’t know if you get that from his writings.

Fruit is produced by living in Spirit, in communion with God. Nothing evil comes from God, so fruit, as opposed to works, is always good. But I would argue that, and I may be assuming too much, I think SJPII would argue that there are works that can be good. If not, flesh=works=bad, spirit=fruit=good would be the argument, but this is Manichaean. Flesh does equal works, but they are not intrinsically evil. Praying a rosary is a good work, an “act proper to man for whom he will be answerable to God.” I wouldn’t consider praying a rosary to be a fruit of the Spirit. Section 6 list “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-mastery” as the fruits of the spirit. I think praying the rosary (a work) flows from the fruits but, according to St. Paul and SJPII, would not be a fruit itself.

I think if you consider “fruit” the result of communion with God, its opposite is what we have been calling concupiscence. Fruit of the Spirit battles concupiscence in us and the works that result, good or bad, are the result of this battle and what we will be judged upon.