It is said that the bodily values generate the emotion and make an experience of love an intense one. So body is a very important factor in expressing and experiencing the true love. But its role seems to be overemphasised in the modern world. Wojtyla wrote in Love and Responsibility, “If love remains just sensuality [affirmation of the bodily values], just a matter of sex-appeal, it will not be love at all, but only the utilization of one person by another or of two persons each other.” So lack of efforts to understand the proper role of body in the true love will distort the meaning of marriage. So as pope, John Paul II continues his discourse on bodily values from where he has left in his early works. The matured development of it is seen in his theology of body series. This, as I said in the introduction, is a critical task in a world where the meaning of the body is hung between ‘to love’ and ‘to enjoy.’ John Paul II accomplishes this task by examining the original unity experienced by Adam and Eve in the ‘beatifying beginning.’ He follows the same route of the Lord in doing this. When he had to face the questions regarding the love between a man and a woman, Jesus had no other option but indicating beginning. In all other questions Jesus pointed towards his own person for the answer. But in the questions of love between a man and a woman, Jesus uses another pedagogy, a going back to the beginning. John Paul II takes the same pedagogy for the modern questions on love between a man and a woman. In his own words, it “is not merely a theory, but a specific, evangelical, Christian pedagogy of the body.” This must be seen as a pedagogy by the couple of today in their lives too. John Paul II is convinced that reflections of couples on the Genesis experience of Adam and Eve will do a lot of good for the humanity in general and for the couples particularly. Because it is the first experience of original unity. It is the first experience of love the humanity ever had. It is the first experience of the marriage. This experience of Adam and Eve was a unique one. It was intense and pure. Even Adam and Eve could not have the same experience once more after the original sin. With the profound phenomenological and personalistic background John Paul II was inviting the couple to discover the meaning of true love through the experience of unity. The advantage of this pedagogy is that modern couple will realise that the revealed truth is same as the meaning they discover from their experiences of unity.

The experiences in Genesis, for Adam and Eve, open up many meanings to their lives. They discover meanings of many fundamental questions. They discover meaning of their personhoods, of their bodies and of love from the experiences of solitude, unity, nakedness and shame. There is no doubt that the modern couple too go through these experiences in a slightly different way at their living together as husband and wife. They should be able to discover meanings of their personhood, bodies and love from these experiences as Adam and Eve did. One of the problems of today’s world is that it lost its taste to thrive into the depth, rather it prefers to be in periphery. They look only for experiences, not for the meanings revealed in those experiences. So John Paul feels that it is his duty to invite the modern couple to a new pedagogy of living the marriage – a pedagogy starts from the ‘beatifying beginning.’

There were three original experiences in the Genesis. They are the experiences of solitude, unity and nakedness. The experience of solitude was before the creation of the body of woman. From the experience of solitude first “man” discovers the meaning of some of the realities like personhood, body in relation with the personhood. Then after the creation of the body of woman, she with “man” discovers in the experience of unity and nakedness the meaning of body in relation with love. They discover a nuptial meaning of the body. The use of the word “man” in the second chapter of Genesis is confusing. So it is important to clarify this point here.

The word “man” in the second chapter of Genesis is used in two meanings. In Gen 2,7, when the Lord God formed man from dust of the ground, “man” is used to denote the whole humanity including man and woman. This “man,” who was formed from the dust as a body, which resembled today’s male body with two personhoods inside. So all the events occurring in Garden of Eden from the moment of this creation in Gen 2,7 to the making of woman in Gen 2,22 are experienced by first male person and first female person distinctly through a single body. That is to say both first man person and first woman person experienced original solitude (not only male). This is not because there was only one person existing in the universe but because the two persons existed were not aware of the presence of the other. There was only one body expressing two persons. In that solitude, in naming the animals, in listening to the words of God regarding the tree of knowledge, they became aware of their own personhoods but not the personhood of the other.

From Gen 2,22 onwards with the making of woman body from the “man”, the “man” is no more used in the sense mentioned above, that of humanity. Now onwards “man” is used to denote male and “woman” is used to denote female. As John Paul II says, “the bible calls the first human being “man” (Adam), but from the moment of the creation of the first woman, it begins to call him “man” (ish), in relation to ishshah (“woman,” because she was taken from the man-ish).” Somewhere else John Paul more poetical calls it, “the man (adam) falls into that “sleep” in order to wake up “male” and “female.”” Now through the body of the female, male realises the presence of another person and vice versa. Now onwards both experience the events with separate bodies unlike it was before the creation of woman. Now they are able to experience unity for the first time. They had unity already when both the persons were in the same body. But they were not able to experience it. Before the creation of woman both were in communion of persons in a single body without the awareness of the same but now both are in a position to enter into the communion of persons in two different bodies with full awareness. John Paul writes, “Man in his original solitude was, in a way, already in this [communion of persons] relationship.” With the creation of woman, both man and woman comes into a new consciousness of the sense of one’s own body, a sense in Pope’s own words, “which consists in a mutual enrichment.” This consciousness is expressed in Gen 2,23, “this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called woman for out of man this one was taken.” And this experience is the base of the nuptial meaning of body, the correct understanding of which is very important for the true perception of marriage.

“Man” discovers the meaning of the personhood

This discovery happens before the creation of woman from “man” (Gen 2,22). That is when both male and female persons were in a single body and not aware of each other. So the term “man” here denotes both man and woman separately without being aware of each other’s presence. Both male person and female person thought that there was no other being of his own type. “Man” went through many experiences which lead each of them to understand their personhoods separately. The first of the experiences is when “man” was asked to name the animals. In that process “man” realised a truth that none of the animals is like him/her that he/she are in fact alone in this world. From this experience begins “man’s” search for his/her own identities. What was lacking in those animals which separated them from “man” and threw him/her to the loneliness? “Man” realised in the process of naming them that no other being has what he/she has: the capability of not only of doing things but also of watching himself/herself act. “Man” could name the animals and watch himself/herself naming them. He/She has an awareness of what is happening at the same time of happening itself. Through this awareness which he/she has, he/she distinguishes himself/herself from all of the other beings in the visible world. He/She therefore develops self knowledge – a realisation that he/she is different. The consciousness reveals man as the one who has a mind, realises he is a person. Since there is no other person in this world, Adam realises that he is alone.

The second experience “man” had in the garden is when he/she heard Lord saying: “you are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.” With this command it is for “man” to make a choice. He/She thus has the awareness of choosing and he/she comes to realise that he/she not only has a mind to know himself/herself but also a faculty which allows him/her to choose. He/She knows himself/herself as a person with the powers of thinking and choosing. Here we find the subjective experience of “man” intersecting with the objective truth of revelation. In the first chapter of Genesis, it is written, “let us make man in our image after our likeness.” (Gen 1,26) Once he/she experiences it subjectively and discovers the objective meaning subjectively, there is no problem for Adam to believe his/her personhood. If it was just a revelation without experience, it would have been, as for today’s man, difficult for “man” too. Thus in the experience of the original solitude, and in naming the animals, and listening to the words of God, “man” discovers the meaning of his/her own personhoods, a being who has mind, will and consciousness.

Meaning of body

There in Genesis, different meanings of body is discovered first by “man” (both he and she in the same body unaware of the presence of the other) in the experience of solitude, then by man and woman in different bodies aware of the presence of another person in the experience of unity-nakedness and lastly by man and woman in the experience of shame after the original sin. the first one is all about the inadequacy of the single body, second one is the nuptial, which is the ideal meaning of body and the third one is the limited nuptial meaning of body.

The first meaning: inadequacy of body

There was a fundamental inadequacy in the single body which was unconsciously shared by both man and woman. In naming the animals “man” (both he and she unaware of the existence of the other) realise their body is doing the work willed by his/her person. what the person is supposed to do? Being created in the image and likeness of god, he/she is supposed to will what god does. What does God do? God in their Trinitarian relationship love each other. So he/she, as images of God, must love. each act of the person is done through body. John Paul writes, “the body, in fact, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden since time immemorial in god, and thus be a sign of it.” Here lies the fundamental inadequacy of the single body shared unconsciously by both he and she. Both he and she want to love another person. but they are not able to find another person though another person exists so close to him/she. This is the fundamental inadequacy of the body both experience separately. For the first time we see a problem in the creation. Genesis points to it, “it is not good that the man should be alone.” (Gen 2,18a) God knowingly made it so to make the first persons aware of the importance of body as revealer of the person. If God made that inadequacy for a better cause, he himself had the solution for further better things. Genesis continues, “I will make him a helper as his partner.” (Gen 2,18b)

The second meaning: Nuptial meaning of body

This meaning is discovered from the experience of unity and nakedness. This experience occur after the creation woman from “man.” (Gene 2,22) Now onwards “man” denotes male and “woman” denotes female. If the first meaning of body as revealer of person is discovered by “man” in the first sense (two persons in the same body without awareness of each other), this new meaning of body is discovered by man and woman in two different bodies with the awareness of each other. This meaning is discovered in the conscious presence of each other. About that experience of unity, Genesis speaks, “this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called woman, for out of Man this one was taken. Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” (Gen 2,23)

Man sees another naked body in front of him. At this time, before the original sin, he had no experience of shame and at once what the body of the woman presented to him was not tied with bodily values of woman, rather the value of the person of Eve herself. Thus Adam, in the body of Eve, saw the person of Eve. Because, in his solitude experience, what he was not lacking is not just a body but a person like him. So all his cognition, which was under the control of intellect and will, at once, perceived and affirmed the person of Eve. Body was the sacrament of that personal affirmation. What a joy he must have felt at that moment. He, while naming the animals, was looking for an identical person to escape from the solitude and so to enter into love, to which he is made for. But here, at this moment of ‘beatifying beginning’ he finds another person near him. He finds a body which expresses the person. That is precisely why Adam cries in joy, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” It is very clear from the above cry that the body is so closely connected with person. He doesn’t cry that this is a person like me. Adam could see the bone and flesh as a value of the person itself.

Once they realise that the person is closely tied with the body, the gift of the person, that is love can be done through the bodies. So body can speak the language of the person. a mutual giving of bodies will be the sacrament of personal self-gift. The language of the body will become the sacrament of love. In doing so, that is when they try to give their self gifts each other in bodily union, they experience the differences in their body language. Though both the bodies express persons, they realised each other that their bodies were not identical. They experience, as John Paul writes, “two complementary dimensions, as it were, of self-consciousness and self-determination, two complementary ways of being conscious of the meaning of the body.” They realised from the experience that the body expresses the persons in each of them in different ways. In a word they discover masculinity and feminity. They discover the subjective values like sexual and bodily values in each other and the presence of these values make their experience of unity of persons more intense.

So before the original sin, everything was in order. The value of the person was tied with the body and it dominated the bodily and sexual values in the body. In a union between a man and a woman, cognition is first of all presented with the value of person by the body. And will had it easy to proceed in affirming the person of the other. Since both body and person are united so closely, the personal gift could be done through the gift of body. In that process both of them realises the sexual and bodily values and they make their union intense. So the love starts for the sake of persons and the bodily aspects come into play later. And love was spontaneous because of the pure nature of intellect and will. Thus man and woman discover from their experience of unity that their bodies express and experience the betrothed love their persons will since the body was tied so intimately with the value of the person. John Paul calls this meaning as the nuptial meaning of body. In his own words, it is, “the capacity of expressing love, that love in which the person becomes a gift and – by means of gift – fulfils the meaning of his being and existence.”

And thus it is the nuptial meaning of body that defines the love between couple. This nuptial meaning of body eliminates all the utilitarian attitudes from the relationship between man and a woman. In this meaning body is no more a thing to enjoy, rather a gift of God to express and receive the person, the sacrament of betrothed love.

Third meaning: Limited nuptial meaning of body

Now after the original sin, Adam and Eve experienced shame out of their nakedness. And in that awareness of shame, the body of Adam no more presented with it the value of the person to the cognition of Eve as it was before. Instead his body presented the bodily values alone. Same with the body of Eve to the cognition of Adam. In this new awareness, the value of the person is hidden unlike before the original sin, where value of person was explicit while the bodily values were hidden. So what follows, as we have seen in the first chapter, is sensuality and sentimentality in the relation between a man and a woman in their nakedness. What the body expresses is not person, but body itself. The attitude follows is not love but lust. John Paul perceives this new meaning of body discovered by Adam and Eve in the shame as limited nuptial meaning of body. There, with the original sin, occurred a “constitutive break within the human person, almost a rupture of man’s original spiritual and somatic unity.” The whole inner structure of man in expressing, knowing and willing was reversed. Before the original sin, body was tied with personal values in an explicit way and now body conceals the person. Before the original sin intellect and will could affirm the value of the person without any difficulty and now it has to take an extra effort to reveal the person in another body and affirm it. Before the original sin, love was the spontaneous attitude experienced in the nakedness between a man and woman and now lust is the spontaneous attitude in nakedness. Before the original sin, the will could, without any difficulty, affirm that spontaneous act of love and now the will had to take extra efforts to stop that spontaneous act of lust and to elevate it into the level of love.

So after the original sin, the meaning of body man always discover is a limited one. And so, is the man in a state of despair? Is he devalued into man of lust? Does body cease to exist as an expression of person and the sacrament of love? Is man doomed to live with a limited meaning of body with lust at its centre? Can not man no more discover the nuptial meaning of body? As a solution, John Paul II tells modern man and woman, who habituated to think the limited nuptial meaning of body as the true meaning of body, “ redemption is a truth, a reality, in the name of which man must feel called, and ‘called with efficacy.’” Called to what? “called to rediscover, nay more, to realise the nuptial meaning of the body and to express in this way the interior freedom of the gift.” But how?

It is true that a break occurred in each of us due to the original sin and each of us has perceived this break interiorly. But in the Sermon on the Mount Christ exhorted, “you have heard that it was said, ‘you shall not commit adultery,’ but I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” With this words Christ points his fingers to the interior perceptions man discovered and practiced after the break, that is nothing else than the limited nuptial meaning of the body. It is not enough to obey the written law for its own sake. The laws are written by man who are habituated to the limited nuptial meaning of body as the true meaning of body. The right attitude, according to Jesus, is interiorising the law and acting according to it and form it as a virtue. A man may not commit adultery externally just being afraid of the society and its laws. What stops him from committing adultery is not his interior perceptions but is fear of the society. A marriage is the place where the interiority of a man and a woman is tested to its core. Their acts in a marriage, to a certain extent, does not come open to the society and if one is accustomed to the limited nuptial meaning of body as the true meaning of body, their marriage will be a playground of lust. So with his words Christ asks the Pharisees and also to us to overcome the break within us, to re-interiorise the values present in the state of original innocence, and then live accordingly. John Paul II in his own words concludes the solution given by Jesus:

“In the Sermon on the Mount Christ did not invite man to return to the state of original innocence, because humanity has irrevocably left it behind. But he called him to rediscover—on the foundation of the perennial and indestructible meanings of what is human—the living forms of the new man. In this way a link, or rather a continuity is established between the beginning and the perspective of redemption. In the ethos of the redemption of the body, the original ethos of creation will have to be taken up again. Christ did not change the law, but confirmed the commandment, “You shall not commit adultery.” At the same time, he led the intellect and the heart of listeners toward that “fullness of justice,” willed by God the Creator and legislator, that this commandment contains. This fullness is discovered, first with an interior view of the heart, and then with an adequate way of being and acting. The form of the new man can emerge from this way of being and acting, to the extent to which the ethos of the redemption of the body dominates the lust of the flesh and the whole man of lust. Christ clearly indicated that the way to attain this must be the way of temperance and mastery of desires, that is, at the very root, already in the purely interior sphere (“Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully…”). The ethos of redemption contains in every area—and directly in the sphere of the lust of the flesh—the imperative of self-control, the necessity of immediate continence and of habitual temperance.”

This challenge put forward by Jesus is not that easy for the man who is accustomed to the limited nuptial meaning of body after the break. But by echoing the beginning Christ wants us to re-interiorise the values of the beginning though the state of innocence is irrevocably left us. And if Christ wants he does not leave us alone in that effort. He pours over us the grace needed from the cross of redemption. So dear couples, when the meaning of body in your marital life is hung between ‘to enjoy’ and ‘to love,’ the words of John Paul II must echo in your ears: you are “called to rediscover, nay more, to realise the nuptial meaning of the body and to express in this way the interior freedom of the gift.”