An Alternative to Gender Complementarity: The Body as Existential Category in the Catholic Tradition

2019 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brianne Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Gender Essentialism ◽  
Gender Complementarity ◽  
Catholic Tradition

This article reevaluates the concept of “woman” in the Christian tradition by arguing that the body is shaped ontologically not by binary sex (gender essentialism), but by history. While there have been many theological critiques of gender essentialism and complementarity, there have been few attempts to offer an alternative, bodily ontology in the Catholic tradition. I argue for an understanding of the body that reveals it as an existential category, a category that implies complicity, interruption, hope, and holiness. I conclude that when we experience our bodies as structured primarily by our histories, it facilitates the freedom to be in full relationship with each other and with God.

Greed, Envy, and Gluttony

Shadow Sophia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 134-157
Author(s):  
Celia E. Deane-Drummond
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
The Body ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Alcoholic Drink ◽  
Cooperative Community

The vices of greed, envy, and gluttony are named as three of the ‘deadly sins’ in the Christian tradition. All are more specific instances of what ‘free riding’ looks like by individuals in a community. Evolutionary psychology introduced the concept of ‘free riding’ as a problem that arises in a cooperative community. This chapter will focus most attention on greed or avarice understood as taking more than is needed. The chapter will explore key theological and biblical issues related to greed and discuss how the perception of the vice has changed through time. Moreover, the chapter will briefly explore envy, the desire for the goods of another, before moving to gluttony, which is self-indulgence related to food. In the classic tradition, gluttony included alcoholic drink and negatively impacted the body, but it also has wider implications for the community. The chapter will end by discussing how evolutionary, psychological, and medical theories for the origins of these vices compare with theological interpretations.

Plato and the Invention of Life Itself

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Naas
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
The Body ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Life Itself

The final chapter takes many of the insights from the previous chapters in order to show, through a more general reading of Plato’s dialogues, how Plato attempts always to move from what is commonly called life, that is, from a more biological conception of life, a life of the body or of the animal, to a spiritual life or a life of the soul, that is, from something like bare life to real life, from particular life-forms to an essence or form of life itself, the only life, in end, worthy of the name for Plato. This chapter thus concentrates on several later dialogues in which Plato begins to distinguish two different valences of life, human life in the polis (bios) as opposed to what Giorgio Agamben calls “bare life” (zōē), but also, and more importantly, human life as opposed to something like real life. It is the initial distinction between human life and bare life that allows for this reinscription or transformation of bare life into something like real life or life itself, a transformation, it is argued, that is decisive not just for Plato but for the entire neo-Platonic and Christian tradition that takes its inspiration from him.

scholarly journals The Relationship Between Male/Female Identities Along the Biblical-Christian Tradition: Guidelines for Today’s Educations

2019 ◽  
pp. 63-72
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Mari
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
The Body ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
Theology Of The Body ◽  
Theological Foundation ◽  
The Relationship

The article presents anthropological, philosophical and theological foundation of the relationship between male/female identities in the light of the biblical-christian tradition. The first part introduces the concept of the primary reciprocity in Gen 1-2 focusing on affinity and difference between man and woman as well as man and woman’s reciprocal essentiality. The second part pertains to male/female reciprocity according to the “theology of the body” by John Paul II which includes a broad notion of freedom. Lastly, the article describes educational tasks including the nuptiality of human body with regards to Christian personalization. Proposed pedagogical vision involves promoting male and female identities according to their difference and to their common dignity.

scholarly journals From Mary’s Motherhood to the Immaculate Conception: An Iconographic Analysis of Marian Art in Spain during the Tenth to Nineteenth Centuries

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1061
Author(s):  
Antonio Moreno-Almárcegui ◽  
Germán Scalzo
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
The West ◽  
Popular Piety ◽  
Immaculate Conception ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
Popular Image

This article analyzes Marian art in Spain from the tenth to nineteenth centuries in order to show how popular piety represented Mary’s motherhood. Through art, including architecture, painting, sculpture, and oral preaching, a popular image of Mary emerged and, in turn, became key for understanding the history of the family in western Catholic countries. Studying the evolution of Marian iconography during this thousand-year period reveals a kind of grandeur, and then a certain crisis, surrounding Mary’s motherhood. This crisis specifically involves the meaning of the body as an effective sign of the personal gift-of-self. We argue that this process ran parallel to growing problems in theological culture related to reconciling the natural and supernatural realms, and we further sustain that it contains a true cultural revolution, a shift that is at the origin of many later transformations. This interpretation helps better understand the dilemmas surrounding the history of the family in the West, and specifically of motherhood, from the point of view of the Christian tradition.

scholarly journals Presence in Contemporary Religious Art Graham Sutherland and Antony Gormley

Perichoresis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 77-89
Author(s):  
Wessel Stoker
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Christian Spirituality ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Invisible

AbstractThis article analyses the topic of presence in modern and contemporary religious art by means of the work of two artists. Graham Sutherland’s Christ in Glory (1951-1962) will be compared to the Buddhism-inspired works of Antony Gormley. Sutherlands Christ in Glory is intended to show Christ’s presence to the involved observer: the invisible Christ can become present through interaction with Christ in Glory in the same way that Christ becomes present through prayer. Viewed in connection with other works by Gormley, Land, Sea, and Air II (1982) is intended to show presence to the viewer, the body as presence. This concerns an attitude of quiet concentration and awareness in connection with the ‘elemental’ world. Theologically speaking, the difference between Christ in Glory and Gormley’s works is as follows: the Christian tradition views the human being as a creation of God. He or she lives in his or her presence only in dependence on God. For Gormley, it has to do with a presence without God the creator. The human being is present as body and awareness in a world in which everything is uncertain. There is an unmistakable difference in their views of presence, but that does not mean, as we will see, that Gormley’s work cannot be fruitful for the Christian religion. Gormley’s Sound II in the crypt of Winchester Cathedral points the involved observer to the importance of the renewal of life after baptism through meditation as an important part of Christian spirituality.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel King
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Cultural Discourse ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Social And Emotional ◽  
Body Pain ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Original Frame

This chapter concludes the book by returning to some of the key issues surrounding the body and its navigation. It draw togethers three key themes: first, the importance of the anatomico-aesthetic view of the body in different areas of cultural discourse; second, the importance of the connections between the body, pain, and language; and third, the importance it has for social and emotional connections. Finally, it returns to the original frame of the book, by showing how the appreciation of the ancient world’s engagement with pain shapes our understanding of the development of Christian tradition and modern Western thinking about pain.

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