by David Farias
Love is the culmination of human happiness and flourishing. We all want to love and to be loved. So often, we are consumed by these feelings and become distracted by them, even confusing us at times. We might even make the feelings themselves the goal of attainment without even noticing. In pursuing feelings, we lose sight of the subject of love and the proper orientation of those feelings as a result. These emotions are not wrong, but they cannot be considered “love” itself, so what is love? Love is imperfect when we seek out feelings as the end. Those butterflies we get in our stomachs when we are next to someone we are attracted to or those infatuations resulting from the attraction. Those are feelings, but not love itself. St. Thomas Aquinas defines love “as willing the good of another.” This statement says nothing about stirring up emotions within us but acting on someone’s behalf for their good. How do we correctly understand these feelings in the context of love? Before becoming Pope St. John Paul II, Karol Wojtyla wrote on sensuality and sentiment as “raw material” for love in his timeless work Love and Responsibility.
Sensuality is the feeling directed toward the body as the source of attraction toward an individual. This attraction is that of the sexual value that the body has. This sexual value discovered through the sensual appetite is often opposed to seeing the whole body as something of beauty that ought to be desired in the person. It reduces the body only to the sexual value it contains and the body as sexually consumable and nothing else. Wojtyla, however, tells us that the sensual feeling itself is not an evil thing but rather a natural thing. We can recall in Genesis 2:23-25 when Adam and Eve saw each other for the first time in the Garden right before the fall and felt no shame being naked. Adam saw Eve and was drawn to her, noticing that she was like him “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Though she was like him, she was distinctly different. This difference is acknowledged in the body and the compatibility of the two to bring about the “one flesh union.” Through the sensual appetite, people discover the sexual differences between the opposite sex. When this feeling is understood, it becomes a potent primer for the ends for which it is meant.
The man said: “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my
flesh; This one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of man this one has been taken.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body. The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame. (Genesis 2:23-25)
Though a sensual appetite is natural to the person, it can still be utilized for evil. Much as in the case that we drink water as a biological necessity to survive, one can still be drowned by it. When the proper ends to the sensual appetite are not used, we risk viewing the parts of the person as something we find useful at the moment, devaluing them in the process. The sexual value of the body composes only part of the person and should not reduce the person to their body parts only. In the body, the whole of the person is expressed. When our appetites blind us, we miss out on the other parts that define the individual’s wholeness. The body says what someone is, but one’s own body and what they do with it defines who they are. Sensuality elicits a natural response to that of the member of the opposite sex and is meant to guide us toward the whole value of the other person who is created in the image of God, unique and unrepeatable.
Wojtyla describes sentimentality as another feeling deeply felt within an individual as a response to attraction to another person. This feeling differs from sensuality because it is the source of affection one feels toward another. Sentiment is not the same as it does not suffer the same confusion as sensuality. However, it is a desire nonetheless which needs to be subordinated to the dignity of the whole person. Sentiment is the desire to be close to someone drawing upon the feminine and masculine energy of the individual. Sentiment carries along with it a danger, much as in the case of the sensual appetite. When sentiment usurps the wholeness of the person, one then becomes blind to who the person is. Robbing the person of their inherent value by idealizing them in this perfect other, conjured up by the sentimental feelings of the self. Thus, subjective love is produced as an effect of wanting to be loved, but instead of loving a person created in God’s image, we fall in love with someone created in our image. Ultimately one seeks to feel in love, much as with sensuality, one seeks sexual intimacy. In trying to satisfy the feeling of sentiment, one risks misusing another person, as they are used only to fill a void. Wojtyla tells us that these feelings are meant to serve as “raw material,” a precursor toward loving the whole person.
In having freedom of choice, one can integrate these two feelings into a perfect love by subordinating them to the whole value of the person. In light of the truth, these feelings set one free, and it is in acting free that one can genuinely love. Sentiments are not to be the foundation of love since it deals only with people’s feelings that come and go. One should never base love on feelings because, as we are all well aware, we can have a very dysfunctional relationship based on our emotions, buyer’s remorse; anyone? As persons with dignity and worth endowed with an intellect and a will, we are not bound to respond emotionally. We can appreciate the value others have based on the wholeness of their personhood without reducing them to an instrument in our thoughts or actions. Masculinity and femininity are exclusive but compatible; thus, appreciation for their creation is appropriate without needing to utilize them for one’s interest.
Wojtyla tells us that sensuality is a precursor for what is true about marital relations. Yet, it is not dependable as it elicits a feeling that can be quenched with anybody. Chastity, therefore, is seen as a necessary component to turn this “raw material” into that which honors and values the person’s wholeness. If one loves something, then they exercise temperance. This is a proper response to the importance of the individual and the value of ourselves to that individual. In forgoing temperance, we risk falling into glutenous behavior reducing everything to objects including people. Persons are not “objects” however, and are meant to quench us in a way that reflects God’s infinite love for us.
Wojtyla speaks of a “personalistic norm” as a means of integrating the sensuality and sentiment of persons and bringing it to wholeness to be oriented appropriately toward the love of another person. In the context of sensuality, this is done by affirming the sexual value of the person but subordinating it to the person’s dignity. The person’s sexual value is not the person, but rather the person has sexual value because they are a person of value. Wojtyla draws a distinction by explaining that love can only be directed to a person and not toward their sexual value. Only when this is realized can one know what it is to be a gift for someone and what a gift someone can be. In freely choosing a commitment to another through action and thought, one expresses the fullness of love for another, becoming a true gift of self. This “personalistic norm” is realized only within marriage, as a harmony of all who we are toward the all that someone is.
