HIGHLIGHTS FROM
THE THEOLOGY OF THE BODY
and
LOVE AND RESPONSIBILITY
By Pope John Paul II
Includes "Humanae Vitae," "The Gospel of Life," and "On the Dignity and Vocation of Women."
Love and Responsibility used with permission of Ignatius Press, www.ignatius.com.
The Theology of the Body used with permission of Pauline Books and Media, www.pauline.org.
"PURITY IS THE GLORY OF THE HUMAN BODY BEFORE GOD. IT IS GOD'S GLORY IN THE HUMAN BODY"
(ToB 209).
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Please see editor's explanatory notes at the end.
TOPICAL INDEX
1) SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BODY AND SEXUALITY. For us as creatures, there is no greater good than to be created--created as man and woman in the image of the living God. We are created through sex, as sexual beings, male and female from the moment of conception. Sex is a big deal.
2) IN THE BEGINNING. We are not Gods, nor are we mere animals. All of creation belongs to us, and we belong to our creator.
3) GIVING--Giving is the essence of God, the purpose of our bodies, the basis of pure love. God gives us life and then, in love, gives to us all of creation. He gives us the capacity to give ourselves to him and to one another. Therein we discover the meaning of our lives.
4) LUST AND USING (UTILITARIANISM)-- Understanding how the world rationalizes using.
5) ATTRACTION AND DESIRE VS. LUST: Lust obscures the true beauty and meaning of the body, toward which we should be attracted. Attraction, and desire, are of the essence of love.
6) FREEDOM AND TRUTH. Love is a choice to give. Giving requires freedom. Freedom requires truth.
7) MEN AND WOMEN--DIFFERENCES AND COMMONALITIES. We're basically the same, except for all of the critical ways we are different ;) Our differences are manifested powerfully in male sensuality and female sentimentality.
8) MARRIAGE. Jesus on the cross points back to the first wedding, in the Garden of Eden. He points forward to the wedding of the Lamb to his bride, the Church, in Heaven. The love of the Gospel is a nuptial love. Every human is called to nuptial love.
9) CELIBACY -- EUNUCHS FOR THE KINGDOM: There is no marriage in heaven, because there we all are mystically married to Christ. Celibacy here on earth is a participation in that heavenly marriage.
10) LOVE - CHASTITY - PURITY - HOPE: To be chaste is to be free from the bondage and torments of all types of lust. This freedom makes us capable of truly giving love.
11) THE UNIQUE GLORY OF WOMANHOOD. Women are closer to the mystery of the generation of life, more sensitive to others, and more like Christ in very many ways. As he died upon the cross, Christ was surrounded by many holy women who had not abandoned him at the most critical moment in history.
12) HUMANAE VITAE--COMMENTARY AND EXCERPTS. Perhaps the single most prophetic document written since the Revelation of John.
13) THE GOSPEL OF LIFE: EXCERPTS. A great world war is being waged between the culture of death and the Gospel of Life. The victory was won upon the cross.
14) GENERAL EXCERPTS. More goodies.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BODY AND SEXUALITY
"The sexual urge is a natural drive born in all human beings along which their whole existence develops and perfects itself. The sexual urge is a property of the whole of human existence and not just of one of its spheres or functions. [It] permeates the whole existence of man" (LaR 46f.).
"The sexual urge is something even more basic than the psychological and physiological attributes of man and woman" (LaR 49).
"The sexual urge is an attribute and a force common to humanity at large, at work in every human being. We have to reckon with its effects at every turn in all relationships between the sexes and indeed wherever they exist side by side. Man is at once a social being and a sexual being" (LaR 50).
"Although love grows out of the sexual urge and develops on that basis ... it is none the less [shaped] by acts of will at the level of the person" (LaR 49).
"Existence is the first and basic good for every creature. The natural route by which human beings begin to exist passes through the sexual urge. On no account then is it be supposed that the sexual urge is something inferior to the person and inferior to love" (ToB 51f.).
"The love of man and woman takes shape deep down in the psyche of the two persons, and is bound up with the high sexual vitality of human beings" (LaR 73).
"Any immediate contact between a woman and a man is always the occasion of a sensory experience for both of them. [The] ease with which emotions arise in contacts between persons of [opposite] sexes is bound up with the sexual urge as a natural property and energy of human existence" (LaR 104).
"The love of man and woman originates in the sexual instinct" (LaR 122).
"This theology of the body is the most suitable method of the education of man" (ToB 215).
"Purity is the glory of the human body before God. It is God's glory in the human body" (ToB 209).
"The redemption of the body is the end and mature fruit of the mystery of the redemption of man and of the world carried out by Christ" (ToB 174).
"By its nature, human life, its dignity and balance, depend, at every moment of history on who she will be for him, and he for her" (ToB 159).
"The body expresses the person" (ToB 41).
"The 'definitive' creation of man consists in the creation of the unity of two beings" (ToB 45).
"Every conjugal union renews in a way the mystery of creation in all of its depth and vital power. Procreation is rooted in creation, and every time, in a sense, reproduces its mystery" (ToB 50f.).
"[These] original human experiences are always at the root of every human experience. They are so intermingled with the ordinary things of life that we do not generally notice their extraordinary character" (ToB 51).
"The nuptial meaning of the body will always remain the deepest level. It demands to be revealed in all its simplicity and purity, and to be shown in its whole truth, as a sign of the image of God. The way that goes from the mystery of creation to the 'redemption of the body' also passes here" (ToB 66).
"Awareness of the meaning of the body, in particular of its nuptial meaning, is the fundamental element of human existence in the world" (ToB 66).
"The fundamental fact of human existence at every stage of its history is that God 'created them male and female'" (ToB 74).
"The body, 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" (ToB 76).
"Man ... from the beginning, searches for the meaning of his own body" (ToB 80).
"By means of the body, the human person is husband and wife" (ToB 81).
"Each person bears within him the mystery of his beginning, closely bound up with awareness of the generative meaning of the body" (ToB 85).
"Resurrection must be understood as the perfectly 'integrated' union of the soul and the body" (ToB 240).
"The resurrection will consist in the perfect participation of all that is physical in man in what is spiritual in him" (ToB 241).
"The glorification of the body will then be revealed again. [The] meaning of the body will be revealed in splendor when every participant in the other world will find again in his glorified body the source of the freedom of the gift" (ToB 248).
"[In] the vision of God face to face, [the body] will find its inexhaustible source of perpetual virginity (united to the nuptial meaning of the body), and of the perpetual [communion] of all men" (ToB 254).
"One of man's fundamental questions [is] the question about the significance of being ?in the body' a man or a woman" (ToB 299).
"According to Paul, the redemption of the body is the object of hope. This hope was implanted in the heart of man immediately after the first sin" (ToB 299).
"The redemption of the body is the redemption of the world" (ToB 300).
"The redemption of the body has already been accomplished in [the death and resurrection] of Christ" (ToB 300).
"The redemption of the body is a great expectation of those who possess ?the first fruits of the spirit (Rom
"The heart, that intimate place where good and evil struggle in man (ToB 347)."
"Every believer and especially every theologian should reread and ever more deeply understand the moral doctrine of [Humanae Vitae] in this complete context [of The Theology of the Body]" (ToB 390).
"The Theology of the Body is not merely a theory, but rather derives from the Bible, and especially from the Gospel. As the message of salvation, it reveals man's true good" (ToB 396).
"As a whole, the catechesis which I began over four years ago and which I am concluding today can be summed up under the title: 'Human love in the divine plan,' or more precisely, 'The redemption of the body and the sacramentality of marriage'" (ToB 419).
"The heart of the tragedy being experienced by modern man: the eclipse of the sense of God and of man. When the sense of God is lost, there is also a tendency to lose the sense of man. Without the creator, the creature would disappear. When God is forgotten, the creature itself grows unintelligible. Man is reduced to being 'a thing.' Life itself becomes a mere 'thing'" (ToB-GoL 509).
"In the materialistic perspective the first to be harmed are women, children, the sick or suffering, and the elderly" (ToB-GoL 511).
"We are facing an enormous and dramatic clash between good and evil, death and life, the 'culture of death' and the 'culture of life.' We all share in the inescapable responsibility of choosing to be unconditionally pro-life. 'See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil. I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live (Dt30:15,19)" (ToB-GoL 514).
IN THE BEGINNING:
"Man cannot find true happiness--toward which he aspires with all his being--other than in respect of the laws written by God in his very nature" (ToB-HV 440).
"During the talk with the Pharisees about the indissolubility of marriage, Jesus Christ twice referred to the 'beginning' (Mt 19:3ff.)" (ToB 25).
"'The beginning' means that which Genesis speaks about" (ToB 26).
"Being and the good are convertible" (ToB 29).
"Right from the beginning sinfulness is in relation to this real innocence of man. If this sin signifies a state of lost grace, then it also contains a reference to that grace" (ToB 33).
"'From the beginning' [man is] an image of the inscrutable divine communion of persons. [Gen 2] could also be a preparation for understanding the Trinitarian concept of the 'image of God.' Perhaps it even constitutes the deepest theological aspect of all that can be said about man" (ToB 46f.).
"Every conjugal union renews in a way the mystery of creation in all of its depth and vital power. Procreation is rooted in creation, and every time, in a sense, reproduces its mystery" (ToB 50f.).
"[These] original human experiences are always at the root of every human experience. They are so intermingled with the ordinary things of life that we do not generally notice their extraordinary character" (ToB 51).
"Each person bears within him the mystery of his beginning, closely bound up with awareness of the generative meaning of the body" (ToB 85).
"I think that among the answers that Christ would give to the people of our time and to their questions, the one he gave to the Pharisees (Mt 19:3ff.) would still be fundamental. Christ would refer above all to the 'beginning.' Christ would not be surprised by any of these [modern] situations. He would continue to refer mainly to the beginning" (ToB 87).
"Reflection on the ancient text of Genesis is irreplaceable. It is the beginning of The Theology of the Body. The fact that theology also considers the body should not astonish or surprise anyone who is aware of the mystery and reality of the Incarnation" (ToB 88).
"In short, the myth tends to know what is unknowable" (ToB 91).
"Man was God's image through the original communion of persons, constituted by the man and the woman together" (ToB 114).
"Right from the beginning a very clear and univocal boundary is laid down in the Bible between the world of animals and the man created in the image and likeness of God" (ToB 282).
"Man cannot exist 'alone' (cf.Gn
"Human life belongs only to God: for this reason, whoever attacks human life, in some way attacks God himself" (ToB-GoL 499).
GIVING:
"Creation signifies giving. It is a fundamental and 'radical' giving in which the gift comes into being precisely from nothingness" (ToB 59)."
"With regard to man a gift was conferred on him; the visible world was created 'for him'" (ToB 59).
"Alone, man does not completely realize [his] essence. He realizes it only by existing 'with someone'--and even more deeply and completely--by existing 'for someone'" (ToB 60)."
"That love in which the person becomes a gift fulfills the meaning of his being and existence" (ToB 63).
"[Man] can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself (Gaudium et Spes 24)" (ToB 63).
"The human body [reveals a value and a beauty] beyond the purely physical dimension of sexuality. The nuptial meaning of the body indicates a particular capacity of expressing love, in which man becomes a gift" (ToB 65).
"The affirmation of the person is nothing but acceptance of the gift, which, by means of reciprocity, creates the communion of persons" (ToB 65).
"Interior innocence consists in reciprocal 'acceptance' of the other such as to correspond to the essence of the gift" (ToB 70).
"The giving and the accepting of the gift interpenetrate, so that the giving itself becomes accepting, and the acceptance is transformed into giving" (ToB 71).
"In giving herself the woman 'rediscovers herself' because of the way in which she has been received by the man. So she finds herself again in the very fact of giving herself when she is accepted in the way in which the Creator wished her to be, that is, 'for her own sake,' through her humanity and femininity. When the whole dignity of the gift is ensured in this acceptance she reaches the inner depth of her person and full possession of herself" (ToB 71).
"Understanding the nuptial meaning of the body in its masculinity and femininity reveals the depths of their freedom, which is freedom of giving" (ToB 74).
"In the eternal language of human love, the term 'my' indicates the reciprocity of the donation" (ToB 129).
"[Eph 5:22-33, ?Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her etc.'] That passage from Ephesians, correctly understood [is] the crowning of sacred scripture" (ToB 304f.).
"Not only the fruits of redemption are a gift, but above all, Christ himself is a gift. He gives himself to the Church as to his spouse" (ToB 325).
"The gift of God in Christ is a total, that is, a radical gift. It is all that God could give of himself to man" (ToB 331).
"Man cannot exist 'alone' (cf.Gn
"Christ's blood reveals to man that his greatness, and therefore his vocation, consists in the sincere gift of self" (ToB-GoL 512).
"The fullest, the most uncompromising form of love consists precisely in selfgiving, in making [oneself] someone else's property" (LaR 97).
"In giving ourselves we find clear proof that we possess ourselves" (LaR 98).
"The concept of betrothed love implies the giving of the individual person to another chosen person" (LaR 98).
"The acts of surrender reciprocate each other. They combine to produce a perfect whole, an act of mutual self-surrender" (LaR 99).
"By its nature, because it is what it is, the person is its own master and cannot be ceded to another. But love forcibly detaches the person, so to speak, from this natural inviolability. It makes the person want to do just that--surrender itself to another, to become the property of that other. The reciprocated gift of self, so that two persons belong each to the other--this is the only full and satisfactory description of 'betrothed love'" (LaR 125f.).
A woman is capable of truly making a gift of herself only if she fully believes in the value of her person, and in the value as a person of the man to whom she gives herself. Realization of the value of the gift awakens the need to show gratitude and to reciprocate in ways which would match its value" (LaR 129).
"The sexual instinct wants above all to make use of another person, whereas love wants to give, to create a good. To desire 'unlimited' good for another person is really to desire God for that person (p. 138)."
LUST AND USING (UTILITARIANISM)
"Extorting of the gift and reducing him or her to a mere 'object for me,' should mark the beginning of shame and bears witness to the collapse of innocence" (ToB 70).
"In the three forms of lust (I John
"A certain fear always belongs to the essence of shame" (ToB 112).
"Lust is explained as a lack [in the] human spirit" (ToB 112).
"Reducing him or her to a mere 'object for me,' [marks] the beginning of shame. Shame [creates] a fundamental disquiet in all human existence" (ToB 70, 115).
"Lust, especially the lust of the body, is a specific threat to the self-control and self-mastery, through which the human person is formed. The structure of self-mastery is shaken to the very foundations [by lust]" (ToB 115).
"Man is ashamed of his body because of lust. In fact, he is ashamed not so much of his body as of lust" (ToB 116).
"Shame was born in their hearts together with the lust of the body" (ToB 117).
"After original sin, man had lost the sense of the image of God in himself. That loss was manifested with shame of the body" (ToB 118f.).
"The nuptial meaning of the body has not been completely suffocated by concupiscence, but only habitually threatened" (ToB 126).
"The heart has become a battlefield between love and lust" (ToB 126).
[Man] can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself" (GS 24). "Lust in general--and the lust of the body in particular--attacks this 'sincere giving.' It deprives man of the dignity of giving" (ToB 126f.).
"Concupiscence entails the loss of the interior freedom of the gift. [The] meaning of the human body is connected precisely with this freedom. Man can become a gift--that is, the man and the woman can exist in the relationship of mutual self-giving--if each of them controls himself. Concupiscence limits self-control. In a certain sense it makes impossible the interior freedom of giving. It does not unite, but appropriates" (ToB 127).
"Mutual giving changed after original sin to mutual appropriation" (ToB 128).
"Lust in its three forms is the heritage of all humanity, and the human heart really participates in it" (ToB 131).
"The history of the human heart after original sin is written under the pressure of lust" (132).
"Concupiscence of the flesh flaring up in man takes possession of his heart, suffocates in his heart the most profound voice of conscience" (ToB 145).
"In suffocating the voice of conscience, passion carries with it a restlessness of the body and the senses" (ToB 145).
"Man committed to satisfying the senses, finds neither peace nor himself, but, on the contrary, 'is consumed'" (ToB 146).
"Where passion enters into the whole of the most profound energies of the spirit, it can also become a creative force. If instead it suppresses the deepest forces of the heart and conscience (as occurs in the text of Sirach
"Although hidden in the heart, and expressed only by the look, there already occurs in him a change [in] the very intentionality of existence. If it were not so [the words] 'has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Mt
"A look expresses what is in the heart. A look expresses the man within. The man looks in conformity with what he is" (ToB 147).
"Concupiscence itself is an interior separation from the nuptial meaning of the body" (ToB 147).
"The separation of the matrimonial significance of the body causes a conflict with his personal dignity" (ToB 148).
"Lust is a deception of the human heart" (ToB 148).
"The man dominated by lust [is under] more or less complete compulsion. This brings with it loss of the freedom of the gift" (ToB 151).
"This reduction of such a rich, reciprocal and perennial attraction of persons in their masculinity or femininity does not at all correspond to the 'nature' of attraction" (ToB 152).
"It cannot be forgotten that the fundamental interior situation of historical man is the state of threefold lust" (ToB 222).
"Materialism breeds individualism, utilitarianism and hedonism" (ToB-GoL 510).
"In the materialistic perspective the first to be harmed are women, children, the sick or suffering, and the elderly" (ToB-GoL 511).
"The sexual relationship presents more opportunities than most other activities for treating a person -- sometimes without even realizing it -- as an object of use" (LaR 30).
"Utilitarianism preaches the maximum of pleasure for the greatest possible number of people. At first glance this principle seems both right and attractive -- it is difficult to imagine people behaving otherwise. The real mistake is the recognition of pleasure in itself as the sole or at any rate the greatest good, whereas pleasure is essentially incidental, contingent, something which may occur in the course of action. Pain or pleasure is not the decisive consideration if I am to act rationally. What is more, it is not fully identifiable beforehand. Pleasure and pain are always connected with a concrete action, so that it is not possible to anticipate them precisely, let alone to plan for them or, as the utilitarians would have us do, even compute them in advance. Pleasure is, after all, a somewhat elusive thing" (LaR 36).
{Editor's note: Pope Saint John Paul the Great then explains the ineluctable unraveling of utilitarianism if, and when, one no longer finds pleasure in the pleasure of others (LaR 37f.).}
"The only escape is by recognizing beyond pleasure, an objective good. Such an objective good is the foundation of love. Love is the unification of persons" (LaR 38).
"If we start from what utilitarians accept as the basis for the regulation of human behaviour, we shall never arrive at love" (LaR 40).
"The person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude is love. The value of the person is always greater than the value of pleasure" (LaR 41).
"A person's rightful due is to be treated as an object of love, not as an object for use. Love is a requirement of justice" (LaR 42).
"This interpenetration of love and justice in the personalistic norm is very important. In the sexual context what is sometimes characterized as love may very easily be quite unjust to a person. This occurs because love in the sexual context lends itself to interpretation, sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious, along utilitarian lines" (LaR 43).
"Psychologically, the sexual urge does not fully determine human behaviour but leaves room for the free exercise of the will" (LaR 50).
"Giving oneself only sexually, without the full gift of the person to validate it, must lead to [utilitarianism]" (LaR 99).
"Sensuality in itself has a 'consumer orientation' -- it is directed primarily and immediately towards a 'body....' Thus sensuality really interferes with the apprehension of the beautiful, even of bodily, sensual beauty" (LaR 105).
"Sensuality by itself is not love, and may very easily become its opposite. Sensuality in itself is quite blind to the person, and oriented only with the sexual value connected with 'the body'" (LaR 108).
"Take away from love the fullness of self surrender, the completeness of personal commitment, and what remains will be a total denial and negation of it" (LaR 129).
"It is impossible to judge the value of a relationship between persons merely from the intensity of their emotions. The very exuberance of the emotions born of sensuality may conceal an absence of true love, or indeed outright egoism" (LaR 145).
"Sensual or emotional reactions to a person of the other sex arise before and develop more quickly than virtue" (LaR 146).
"Carnal concupiscence leads to a 'love' which is not love [because the feelings are not integrated, and] do not rise to the level of the person. There is a serious possibility not only that love will be deformed, but also that its natural raw material will be squandered" (LaR 153).
"Emotion diverts the gaze of truth from the objective nature of the act and onto how we feel about the act. An act is supposed to be true or genuine to the extent that it is imbued with sincere emotion. This causes a detachment, or dis-integration between the subjective emotion felt about the act, and objective totality of the act itself. The problem here is that genuine emotion can inform an act which objectively is not good.
"When emotion becomes the supreme value, and the only scale by which we measure values, the result is confusion, a disorientation of feelings and actions so serious that it ends by destroying completely not only the essence of love, but even the erotic character of the experiences in question (LaR 154f.)'
"Concupiscence itself means a constant tendency merely to 'enjoy', whereas man's duty is to love" (LaR160).
"Sinful love is often very emotional, saturated in emotion, which leaves no room for anything else" (LaR 163).
"The more successfully the utilitarian attitude is camouflaged in the will the more dangerous it is. 'Sinful love' more often than not is not called 'sinful' but simply 'love', since those who experience it try to convince themselves and others that love is just this and cannot be otherwise" (LaR 170).
ATTRACTION and DESIRE vs. LUST:
"The perennial mutual attraction on man's part to femininity and on woman's part to masculinity, is an indirect invitation of the body. But it is not lust" (ToB 148).
"When compared with the original mutual attraction, lust represents a reduction, an intentional reduction, almost a restriction or closing down of mind and heart. It is one thing to be conscious that the value of sex is a part of all the rich storehouse of values with which the female appears to the man. It is another to 'reduce' all the personal riches of femininity to that single value of sex. Lust has the internal effect of obscuring the significance of the body" (ToB 148f.).
"This reduction of such a rich reciprocal and perennial attraction of persons in their masculinity or femininity does not at all correspond to the 'nature' of attraction" (ToB 152).
"Attraction is of the essence of love and in some sense is indeed love, although love is not merely attraction. Attraction is not just one of the elements of love, but is one of the essential aspects of love as a whole" (LaR 76f.).
"When we speak of the truth of an attraction, it is essential to stress that the attraction must never be limited to partial values, to something which is not the person as a whole. An attraction which fastens [from the] first upon the value of the person has the value of complete truth." (LaR 79).
"A human being is beautiful and may be revealed as beautiful to another human being" (LaR 79).
"Like attraction, desire is of the essence of love. This results from the fact that a human person is a limited being, not self-sufficient, and therefore needs other beings. Realization of the limitation and insufficiency of the human being is the starting point for an understanding of man's relation to God" (LaR 80).
"A human being is either man or woman. Sex is also a limitation, an imbalance. A man therefore needs a woman to complete his own being, and woman needs man in the same way. This need makes itself felt through the sexual urge. The love of one person for another grows up on the basis of that urge. This is 'love as desire.' There is however, a profound difference between love as desire and desire itself, especially sensual desire. Love-as-desire is not felt as mere desire. Love is apprehended as a longing for the person. Desire goes together with this longing, but is overshadowed by it. The [person] in love is conscious of its presence, but working to perfect this love, will see to it that desire does not dominate, does not overwhelm all else that love comprises. If desire is predominant it can deform love between man and woman and rob them both of it" (LaR 81f.).
"A false love is one which is directed toward a genuine good in a way which is contrary to its nature. A false love is an evil love. Love between man and woman would be evil, or at least incomplete, if it went no farther than love as desire. For love as desire is not the whole essence of love between persons. It is not enough to long for a person as a good for oneself, one must also, and above all, long for that person's good. Love as goodwill [is] unconditional. It is the purest form of love" (LaR 83).
"Neither sensuality nor carnal desire is in itself a sin" (LaR 160).
"There is a difference between ?not wanting,' and ?not feeling,' ?not experiencing'" (LaR 162.).
FREEDOM AND TRUTH:
FREEDOM
"We mean here freedom especially as mastery of oneself (self-control). It is indispensable that man may be able to 'give himself.' 'They were naked and were not ashamed' can and must be understood as the revelation of freedom. This freedom makes possible the nuptial sense of the body" (ToB 64).
"The man dominated by lust [is under] more or less complete compulsion. This brings with it loss of the freedom of the gift" (ToB 151).
"Man is precisely a person because he is master of himself and has self-control. Indeed, insofar as he is master of himself he can give himself to the other. The liberty of the gift becomes essential and decisive" (ToB 398).
"[The] culture of death betrays a completely individualistic concept of freedom, which ends up by becoming the freedom of 'the strong' against the weak. When freedom is made absolute in an individualistic way, it is emptied of its original content, and its very meaning and dignity are contradicted. Freedom negates and destroys itself leading to the destruction of others, when it no longer recognizes and respects its essential link with truth. When freedom shuts out even the most obvious evidence of an objective and universal truth society becomes a mass of individuals placed side by side, but without any mutual bonds" (ToB-GoL 507).
"It is of the greatest importance to re-establish the essential connection between life and freedom. No less critical is the recovery of the necessary link between freedom and truth" (ToB-GoL 568).
"His ability to discover the truth gives man the possibility of self-determination and that is what freedom means" (LaR 115).
TRUTH:
"He is called in that truth which has been his heritage from the beginning, the heritage of his heart, which is deeper than the sinfulness inherited, deeper than lust in its three forms" (ToB 167).
"Feelings naturally are not concerned with the truth. Truth is a function [of] reason" (LaR 77).
"A purely emotional love often becomes an equally emotional hatred for the same person. [In emotional attractions] the subject does not enquire whether the other person really possesses the values [perceived], but mainly whether the newborn feeling for that person is a true emotion. People generally believe that love can be reduced largely to a question of the genuineness of feelings. We must [insist] that the truth about the person who is [love's object is] at least as important as the truth about the sentiments. These two truths, properly integrated, [result in a] genuinely good and genuinely 'cultivated' love" (LaR 78).
"When we speak of the truth of an attraction, it is essential to stress that the attraction must never be limited to partial values, to something which is not the person as a whole. An attraction which fastens [from the] first upon the value of the person has the value of complete truth." (LaR 79).