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Church Teaching

Theological Anthropology 101: What is a Human Being?

Father Harrison Ayre

April 13, 2023 7:00 am April 13, 2023

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The human being is described in The Catechism of the Catholic Church as created in God’s image – as both male and female – and is one person with both…

The human being is described in The Catechism of the Catholic Church as created in God’s image – as both male and female – and is one person with both a body and a soul. These are the defining characteristics of who we are and are worthy of our exploration.

Image of God

In the book of Genesis we learn that humanity is set apart from the rest of creation – created in the image of God (see Gen 1:27). This image is given uniquely to man, who is willed by God for his own sake. Animals, on the other hand, are made not for their own sake but for service to man.

God’s image is reflected in each human being and perfected in the communion persons. Just as God is a unity in a diversity of divine Persons, so too does man reach his fulfillment and dignity by entering into communion with others. This purpose was darkened through sin. But, by giving ourselves away for the sake of another in Christ, we find ourselves in the only truly life-giving communion.

Body and Soul

This image of God is also found in man by our composite nature of body and soul. So often today the body is misunderstood as a mode of expression that is easily manipulatable for the expression of one’s spiritual, true, inner self. The body is seen purely as an extension of the self. This is known as dualism, which focuses more on the separation of body and soul rather than their integration. The Christian tradition rejects that view. Rather, man is a singular nature of which the body and the soul are intimately united. Not just our souls, but our bodies manifest being made in God’s image.

The soul gives man two especially unique qualities that distinguishes him from the animals. These are attributes of God Himself and found in no other creatures aside from humanity: intellect and will. Man’s intellect gives him the ability to reason, to judge, and to know the truth. Most importantly, man’s intellect gives him the ability come to know and contemplate God.

The human will is the means by which we have true freedom. Through it we can choose the good and reject evil, and are able to offer our lives in the service of others. It is through the will that man is able to choose virtue over vice, to choose God and his salvation. The human will is the seat of action: the animals act but without the freedom of human beings. Man, through a certain intentionality, is able to give expression to his desires and to seek out the truth.

Male and Female

So often, when discussing our human nature, we look to body and soul, intellect and will as the summation of what it means to be human. Thanks to the magisterium of Pope St. John Paul II, another element was rediscovered and re-emphasized: that man is created in God’s image as male and female.

The Catechism emphasizes the equality between man and woman, created to be a unity “in one flesh.” Thus marriage is instituted from the beginning by which the union of man and woman makes visible the God in whose image man is made. Sexual differentiation is willed by God, and both man and woman make present something unique about Him. In a union through the gift of self in marriage, man and wife bring together their unique qualities to complement each other, and making present a more total vision of the human being in God’s image.

This teaching that man and woman are essential to human nature also reveals a final quality of humanity that is difficult for modern man to comprehend. So often we do not see ourselves as a corporate body, part of something bigger than ourselves. Rather, we see ourselves as atomized and separated from other human beings, focused more readily on “me.” We may speak generically of “the human race,” but practically and experientially – especially due to individualism – we have a hard time understanding the social nature of humanity. By virtue of the fact that God created man as a communion of persons from the beginning, it demonstrates that the individual is not perfected in isolation from others, but that it is built into our nature to seek out communion with others so as to come to our own perfection. This is, again, due to the fact that man is made in God’s image – who in himself is a communion of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As each person of the Trinity is only themselves in communion with the other persons, so, too, in man is an individual most fully themselves when in communion with others.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read more from his Theological Anthropology 101 series here.

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Church Teaching

Theological Anthropology 101: What does it mean to be a person?

Father Harrison Ayre

January 25, 2023 1:45 pm January 25, 2023

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If we were to ask the average person what it means to be a person, they would struggle to give an answer. It’s something we intuitively know, but struggle to…

If we were to ask the average person what it means to be a person, they would struggle to give an answer. It’s something we intuitively know, but struggle to define. Perhaps we will simply exclaim that to be a person is to be my “self.” It’s a possibility that adjectives about reason or free will may be thrown into the mix. Generally, though, it is often difficult for us to define.

The concept of personhood has developed over time and is rooted, not so much in philosophy, but rather in the debates around the Trinity in the early Church. It is here, in trying to explain how God can be both monotheistic, and yet also Father, Son and Holy Spirit, they developed the already existing word “person” — in Greek hypostasis — to equate to a particular relation within the Trinity. Thus Father, Son and Holy Spirit are unique “persons” because they are unique relations yet co-equal with the same substance.

For humanity, then, the idea of personhood, as well as our dignity as human beings, flows from our being rooted in being made in God’s image and likeness. As God is a relation between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, man, made in that image and likeness of God, exists to be in relation with each other. To be in relation means you need a body to relate to others, a soul with the powers of intellect and will. But personhood is also the guarantee of uniqueness. By virtue of my body, my soul, my temperaments, etc., I am positioned to be truly unique in the world. Thus, personhood is a word to speak to this unrepeatable uniqueness, while humanity speaks more broadly to our nature. To be a human and to be a person are not the same thing, but you cannot have one without the other, either (Please note: this is an important distinction to always keep in mind about Jesus and the hypostatic union).

To be in relation

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in fact, will go on to emphasize this idea that to be a person is to be in relation. It emphasizes that man isolated and alone is incomplete, that man and woman are created to be a communion of persons. This communion is only possible because a person is endowed with a body to give, a will that chooses the other and a reason that apprehends and knows the other. Thus, to be a person means we are made to give ourselves to and for another. The Catechism talks about this in regard to her social teaching as well: man is by nature a social animal, and therefore persons need to live in a society (No. 1879). Society is not something extraneous to man but is a core expression of who he is as a person. Only in relationship with other persons is the individual able to fully realize their potential.

Mutual gift

This mutual gift of persons — whether on the larger level of society or in the specific vocation a person receives — is rooted in the Trinity itself. There we see the eternal exchange of love, a totally giving for the other between all three Persons. This exchange of love is revealed in Christ on the Cross, where Christ, in giving himself over to death, is also revealing the inner heart of Trinitarian life. By seeing this love on the cross, we see the heart of God, and thereby see the very life we are created for, because it is in that image that we are created. If God is this eternal exchange of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then it follows that man is most a person when he gives himself. This is known as the Law of the Gift, and it was formulated by John Paul II, especially when, as cardinal, he gave us one of the most beautiful passages of the Second Vatican Council: “Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, ‘that all may be one … as we are one’ (Jn 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God’s sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (Gaudium et Spes, No. 24).

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read more from his Theological Anthropology 101 series here.

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Church Teaching

Theological Anthropology 101: Why Marriage is Between One Man and One Woman

Father Harrison Ayre

January 19, 2023 7:50 am January 19, 2023

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One of the more difficult truths about Christianity that we must navigate today is one of the most basic: the truth about what God has intended for marriage. The familiar…

One of the more difficult truths about Christianity that we must navigate today is one of the most basic: the truth about what God has intended for marriage. The familiar Genesis story explains how God established man and woman to be together in a covenant and how that covenant is affected in a negative fashion through the fall (see Genesis 1-3). We read in Matthew’s Gospel about Jesus’ reference to the beginning (Mt 19:8) and how marriage is not meant to end in divorce. Even in this context, Jesus is clear that marriage is constituted in a lifelong bond between one man and one woman.

While the permanence of marriage is something worthy of discussion all on its own, it is just as essential to uphold marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman. The covenant of marriage reveals certain truths about our humanity that would be lost if marriage were open to different definitions such as homosexual marriage, polyamorous marriage, etc.

Marriage reveals to us is that man is by his nature a communion of persons. So often we are inundated with the idea that we are atomized individuals in a society. That’s a fancy way to say that we often see life in very individualistic terms and that we determine our own vision of humanity. But marriage shows us that we aren’t created for isolation, but for communion. Even in the movements for the redefinition of marriage we see this implicit desire played out: we find our meaning only in communion with another.

The reason the Church insists on marriage between one man and one woman, though, is that communion has a goal, a mission, a purpose. The Church teaches that marriage is for the mutual enrichment of the spouses and the procreation of children. The term mutual enrichment is enlightening in and of itself: it is not about self-enrichment. Rather, enrichment only comes through and with another. Thus the communion of persons in marriage is only possible through self-gift, not self-fulfillment. To phrase it differently: marriage is not about seeking a personal, selfish fulfillment, nor is it about simple companionship. But it comes by the principle that the only way to gain life is the give it away for another. This is a fundamental truth revealed through marriage and one of the purposes marriage has: to be witnesses to love. To reveal that this form of love, which builds up communion, is what fulfills the humanity of every person.

This communion through self-gift is expressed sexually in marriage. Scripture is clear that procreation is a central purpose for the sexual act. It thereby follows, quite simply, that marriage must be between a man and a woman because only the conjugal act between the two can have as its end the possible procreation of a child. Indeed, the Church teaches what she does about the exclusivity of marriage to being between a man and a woman for two reasons. One is simple: it is how God has constituted things and revelation clearly states this. Second: we can see from nature that man and woman are made for each other. Our biology reveals that this communion only makes sense between a man and a woman. In this communion, too, the complementarity of man and woman fulfills and completes each other through the distinctive characteristics of their genders.

This is a hard teaching for the world to understand. The reasons are manifold why people often misunderstand the Church’s teaching. The moral character of her teaching on marriage depends on a moral framework that sees the purpose of things to be constitutive of moral action. The sexual biology of man and woman have specific ends or purposes that can only be completed in the context of a union with each other. Or the world does not see procreation as a necessary outcome of marriage. Here we often see that marriage is about companionship or that how one “feels” is what really matters. This is the line of argumentation often used by people who are pursuing the same-sex marriage agenda. Yet they’re ignoring the fundamental character of marriage that sex is both integral to it and has a specific purpose, even if that outcome is not always achieved, namely, both the enrichment of the spouses through self-gift and the related possibility of bringing about new life.

The Church’s understanding of this depends on a moral framework that is, at best, foreign to the mindset of most people. It is why we must not only witness with greater fervency to the life-giving nature of marriage, but show how it reveals what it means to be truly human, and thereby call the world back to this truth that is both inscribed in nature and revealed by God.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read more from his Theological Anthropology 101 series here.

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Church Teaching

Theological Anthropology 101: Why the Church is adamant on the male-female nature of marriage

Father Harrison Ayre

June 30, 2022 12:10 am June 30, 2022

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Sometimes it appears that the only thing modernity is obsessed with is sexuality. From the debates surrounding pronouns to the question of sexual orientation, there is a deeper truth that…

Sometimes it appears that the only thing modernity is obsessed with is sexuality. From the debates surrounding pronouns to the question of sexual orientation, there is a deeper truth that the contemporary world reveals: human sexuality touches the core of our humanity.

It is important to understand that human sexuality is a much deeper and richer reality than human sexual expression between husband and wife. By sexuality, the Church means that “in which man’s belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman” (CCC No. 2337). In short, it is an expression of our bodiliness – and therefore is something we share with the animals. But, the Catechism goes on to talk about how sexuality becomes “personal and truly human” when it is expressed in relationships. That is: this purely physical aspect of human sexuality also has a spiritual and personal character to it that also separates us from the animals.

The Catechism also states that sexuality “affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others” (No. 2332). It also says that “everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out” (No. 2333).

What the Catechism attempts to make clear here is that human sexuality is essential to human life and identity and is a good given us by God that brings about human flourishing.

Human Sexuality as Essential

If human sexuality is a personal living out of being embodied creatures, then a few necessary things follow. The first is that being male and female is essential to our human condition, and, more fundamentally, is a gift from God. This implies its goodness. But since it is a gift, meaning sexuality is something that is given, it is not something we make on our own. Our bodies determine our sexual expression and orientations.

This last claim is a difficult pill to swallow for contemporary society. The issues around gender and our given sex as male and female demonstrate, first, that the issue of sexual identity digs deep into our core as human beings. The fact that there are strong voices for different gender ideologies is a sign that human sexuality is a strong part of who we are. But the Church will always defend the givenness of our humanity. While it will not doubt the suffering of people who struggle with things like same-sex attraction and gender dysphoria, it will always defend the fact that humanity is male and female and that the two sexes are created to be in communion with each other through the bond of marriage. These are the ends or purposes of our human sexuality. Only by living these given purposes by God do we find our identity and live more perfectly our humanity.

Human Sexuality and Human Flourishing

Human sexuality is the means by which bonds of communion are formed. This is expressed most perfectly in the bond of marriage between a man and a woman, but is not reserved to it. Human sexuality, again, is not reserved to the conjugal act. The bonds of friendship and the complementarity of the sexes are means by which the communion of persons is built up. In short, in as much as men and woman see the gift of being man and woman as core to their humanity, then society itself will flourish because of the essential character of the relationship between man and woman in the social nature of humanity. It is so essential that its disorientation can lead to the disintegration of communion in society.

This is why the Church is adamant on the male-female nature of marriage. The covenant of marriage is the “first society” and the “domestic Church.” As the relationship between the sexes is lived out in marriage, it trickles down and impacts the way the same relationship is lived out on a larger scale in society. The more the home is in harmony, the more society will grow to be in harmony, and this is all rooted in the male-female relationship that completes the total expression of being human. As Pope St. John Paul II once said, “As the family goes, so goes the nation, and so goes the whole world in which we live.”

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read more from his Theological Anthropology 101 series here.

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Church Teaching

Theological Anthropology 101: Three lessons from the feminine heart of Mary for the whole Church

Father Harrison Ayre

April 1, 2022 7:05 am April 1, 2022

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What does it mean to be female? In the life of the Church, our teachings often are illuminated by the lives of the saints. Regarding femininity, the preeminent person to…

What does it mean to be female?

In the life of the Church, our teachings often are illuminated by the lives of the saints. Regarding femininity, the preeminent person to look to is Mary, our Blessed Mother. Through her, we see not only essential aspects of what it means to be a woman, but also how she reveals to us the heart of the Church. Her features, while essential to feminine identity, are not exclusive to women. Like Mary, we are all meant to be characterized by receptivity, affectivity and the sharing of ourselves for the good of others.

Receptivity

Mary’s quintessential act of receptivity is found in the Annunciation. Mary’s response to Gabriel is one of pure receptivity since she has a total openness to Gabriel’s message. Unlike Zachariah, she has no fear or doubt at the presence of Gabriel. Mary almost is expecting this moment to come. Here, her receptivity is intertwined with docility and listening: there is a deep trust for God to make whole Mary’s mission and fulfill her needs in life. Even when she struggles to understand the mission given to her, Mary’s questioning does not come from a place of doubt. Rather, it rises from her constant pondering and searching for the deepest fulfillment of her life. This docile listening is embodied in a deep trust by which she responds with total self-giving. She consents with a profound “fiat” to the God who alone fulfills the purpose and meaning for which we are created. This receptivity is vital, is deeply active, is not passive, nor slavish. It comes from a sense of action and personhood which recognizes that I cannot create my own truth, but I must receive it always.

Receptivity is a difficult category to see in a positive light. Receptivity is often seen in modernity as a negative quality. Negative versions of feminism attempt to embrace an activism that is more masculine in character. Equality often promotes femininity in a masculine way, rather than an authentically feminine way. But an authentic Christian view of femininity not only sees receptivity as vital to feminine life, but essential and universal to the Church and to all humanity. The Church Fathers, in fact, see a necessary receptivity for all of humanity: we are only ourselves because we have received our being from God. This can only be known if the feminine characteristic of receptivity is promoted and defended.

Affectivity

In many of Pope Benedict XVI’s writings is found reflections on Mary’s role as the archetype of the Church. In Mary, he says, we see the perfection of the Church personified. Virginal, without sin, receptive, etc. are all prominent themes in these discussions. But these, while embodied in a feminine figure, are obviously categories that are not universal to all women. However, one key element Benedict brings into discussion about Mary and the Church that he sees as universally applicable to women — and, indeed, the Church as well — is affectivity, or the expressing of emotion. For Benedict, Mary embodies this affectivity perfectly, and it is vitally important to the life of faith.

Perhaps that is shocking since often we are told that feelings or emotions are to be ignored in faith. Yet there is a key phrase in Scripture that shows us the importance of affectivity in Mary: “She pondered all these things in her heart” (Lk 2:19).

The heart, in Scripture, is not just the source and center of life, but is the place of affectivity as well. Mary’s affectivity differs from ours since hers is both sinless and fully integrated. Hence, we hear about the action of “pondering.” In the moments of the life of Jesus, Mary does not simply respond with a reflexive emotionality, which is so common in our fallen state. Rather, she ponders the mystery in her heart and discerns the proper response to the mysteries she encounters. This demonstrates not only that affectivity is central to femininity, but it is even central to the act of faith — it has a place in the response to the mystery of Christ. Too often we doubt feelings and even fear them so that we would distrust their ability to help us develop our faith. Mary shows that feelings and affectivity are vital not only to feminine life, but to the life of faith for the whole Church.

Sharing of Self

In Mary, we see a love that not only listens and receives, but also dispossesses all she has. There is a form of gift in her that everything she receives she does not hold for herself: all that is hers she makes property for all.

The receptive, pondering and affective heart of Mary never keeps these experiences for herself. Everything kept in her heart exists for the whole Church. So, too, the feminine heart is never able to hold everything to herself. The motherly need, for example, to provide at all times for her children comes from a deeper sense that all she has received is not for herself: it must be a gift to others. Hence, the feminine principle of dispossession. All that is received is given with a deep and reflective activism that is not only different than masculine activity, but, it could be argued, is more fundamental to the total human condition. When the Church begins to embrace this more fully in her anthropological outlook, not only can she promote the dignity of women, but also can show the great gift the feminine heart is not only for women themselves, but for the Church and, indeed, humanity as a whole.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read more from his Theological Anthropology 101 series here.

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Church Teaching

Theological Anthropology 101: The Church’s View on Gender Ideology

Father Harrison Ayre

January 19, 2022 10:29 am January 19, 2022

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A massive issue in the Western world at the moment concerns the question of gender. It is becoming increasingly in vogue to say that while your body may demonstrate you…

A massive issue in the Western world at the moment concerns the question of gender. It is becoming increasingly in vogue to say that while your body may demonstrate you are male or female, it is rather your interior experience that truly determines whether you are a man or a woman.

While there isn’t anything specific to this issue within the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a summary of various magisterial documents and theological reflection can give us some insight into how a person of faith should respond when confronted with this increasingly prevalent viewpoint.

While the Church can — and does — hold that the concept of “gender” and one’s biological sex can be distinct, they are by no means separate from one another. The Church teaches that the body is both instructive and integral to our identity as male and female. This means that while some aspects of masculinity and femininity can find roots in culture more so than nature, there are essential qualities possessed specifically by a man and specifically by a woman. Gender, then, is rooted in the giftedness of our body. What it means to be man and woman — as distinct from the biological difference of male and female — is deeply rooted in the gift of the body. To put this more simply: gender is only properly integrated when it takes its starting point in the gift of the body and its sexual difference.

Gender theories that exist today attempt to undermine this basic fact of the unity between gender and biological sexual difference. While the Church and these theories would agree on the distinction between gender and biological sexual difference, that is about the only common thread between the two. The issue arises when these theories attempt to move the distinction into a real separation: bodily sexual difference (male and female) and gender identity (man and woman) are not really related to each other at all. Rather, they will attempt to argue that the interior experience of a person has no real connection with the body. Thus while the body may be classified as male or female — and this can be altered if they see fit to coincide with interior experience — the interior experience is different to the experience of the body and therefore it is acceptable to change the identifying gender.

This is a simple overview of the position. But this is a complex topic with many varying extremes that is rooted in many false ideological positions. For one, it is rooted in a philosophical position known as dualism, which sees the body and the soul as separated and not really integrated with each other. Thus the body becomes a means of the true interior self’s expression rather than integrated with the inner, spiritual self. It is also of interest that the varying trends in gender ideology keep the “traditional” roles of male and female, but simply allow them to be appropriated by people according to experience. In other words, these theories actually depend on the integrated view of gender and biological sexual difference: without these masculine and feminine aspects, there is nothing for gender ideology to root itself in.

This all being said, there is one other aspect that contains a seed of truth when it comes to gender ideology. It is true that some men will integrate some feminine characteristics and vice versa. Some men may be more inclined, for example, toward receptivity than a lot of other men. This, however, does not negate their fundamental masculinity and femininity; rather, they incorporate these masculine and feminine characteristics according to the sexual difference with which they are gifted.

These ideologies have massive impact on culture and personal experience. And that is the nature of ideologies: they are intentionally forceful. It must also be recognized, though, that things such as gender dysphoria are real afflictions that some have to endure.

The roots of our culture’s focus on gender ideology are many, and it can be argued that there are symbolic and cultural influences that have brought about this issue with greater rapidity than ever before. Regardless, those who struggle with gender identity still require the patient love of Christians to help them bear their cross and to encourage them to find the giftedness of being male and female. This is found through their body and sexual difference.

Real freedom can be found in the Church’s teaching on sexual difference and gender. Seeing them as integrated but also malleable in terms of appropriating certain characteristics of the opposite sex, always respects the gifted nature of existence and of the body: who I am is fundamentally received as a gift, not determined by my own whims and desires. Only in the law of the gift is freedom found.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read more from his Theological Anthropology 101 series here.

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