Reflection on February 3, 1982
https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb70.htm
I am not sure I like the analogy of Adam and Christ being seen as two poles. Poles, in most circumstances, means they are completely opposite. I just don’t see Christ and Adam being completely opposite. I know Christ is the new Adam, but is He the opposite of Adam. In the sense that Adam made the wrong choice and Christ makes the right one, Adam’s choice led to sin entering the world and Christ choice brings about redemption from sin, I can see the poles forming. But Adam, before the fall, was “very good” in the eyes of God. I would not see that in opposition to Christ. Adam represents a life lived totally for Earthly belongings and Christ for Heavenly eternity, that I can see, but I didn’t feel it was as easy as they are just two opposite poles.
One thing that it does allow for is the image of what magnetic poles do. If you have two poles, the closer you get to one or the other, the stronger that pull becomes. Think of what life is like when you grow closer to God, you will want more and more of what He offers, growing every closer, wanting even more. The same goes for moving away from Him, seeking the world, gaining some increases your longing for more, causing you to move further away from God. That attraction in relation to closeness to the poles is very relatable.
I had a real struggle with paragraphs 4 and 5, but here is what I think it is trying to say. There are 2 different ways of looking or describing eschatological man. Christ relies on the beginning and the end to describe what we are meant for, what we were made for. He goes to the beginning in order to show us what God planned. He talks about the end to give us an idea of what that will entail. He uses those book ends to help us understand what eschatological man will look like.
St. Paul uses what we are now, fallen man, as an antithesis for Christ to describe what we will become. I think Paul sees man, fallen man, and that is what he has as an example to help us understand eschatological man. What he wants to describe is, take a look at what we are now, take all of our flaws, and perfect them, take all that we do good, and perfect it in abundance. That is eschatological man. SJPII points out the 2 ways but, as we have seen, they all point to the same understanding, the same foundational Theology of the Body, even though they come to it from different paths.
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