Christianity is different from any other religion in that there aren't taboos about food. Nor there is any prohibition about sex between husband and wife. What makes things pure is not an intrinsic quality, but our heart.
Omnia munda mundis, it's said.
Christianity and moralism don't go hand in hand, they are actually the opposite.
And, therefore, the only limit, the only rule of what happens in the Thalamòs, is love.
In the nuptial bed the lovers are truly King and Queen, their rule absolute, and honi soit qui mal y penses. Bu then, how can one sin in the sacredness of the Thalamòs? I have sinned when I wasn't completely there, completely for her and into her. And for those, and only those I bitterly repent.
I deleted the following paragraph from my essay, but I think it speaks to what you say. -- Incidentally, Max Scheller is brilliant on love. I recommend his book Ressentiment, if you haven't read it.
To live without morals, one might think, is to invite cruelty, to tolerate abuse, to accept exploitation. But this is to miss the point of love entirely. Love does away with the need for rules and polite niceness. A moral marriage without love is not like throwing out baby with the bathwater; it like throwing out the baby and keeping the bathwater. It is likely true that our public understanding of morality is limited. Anyone who thinks Shakespeare breaks the rules of poetry, CS Lewis explains, doesn’t understand poetry. There are “rules behind the rules, and a unity which is deeper than uniformity.” And there are morals that are deeper than morality. And modesty that lives beneath private immodesty. And indecency that is in decency.
Thank you, Marilyn, for including this paragraph here on the comments.
For some months now I have been turning in my head this very question about decency and the compatibility (or lack thereof) between love and moralism, though I have been framing it as a question regarding the difference between love and justice.
This is how I understand the Incarnation: as an act of grace so complete that it is in fact scandalous. (“Scandalous” in the sense that a scandal is an offense against justice, and God acted beyond justice in the Incarnation. Love never lacks justice, but always goes beyond it. And in this sense, love is scandalous.)
It makes me want to re-read Genesis again, and think anew about why it might be that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil causes the fall of humankind... it is the serpent that says to Eve, "your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Knowing good and evil, perhaps, but not love?
Thanks Marilyn, your paragraph's spot-on and I'm glad you posted it. A few yers ago I found myself in a conundrum. What to make of the dialectics, within Catholicism, between sensuality and chastity. And not in a theorerical way. Both were good, but seemed to go separate, unconnected, ways. Reading CS Lewis was a breakthrough that knocked me off my feet, especially his trilogy. CS Lewis is mostly known in Italy because of Narnia, which is - undeservedly - relegated in the realm of children literature. To me, that was a serendipitous moment and the beginning of a new way of seeing the deep connection of sensuality and chastity in Christianity.
When a reader of Rod Dreher's substack pointed out that the Crawfords were both academics and writers, and that you too wrote a substack. I started reading your posts out of mere curiosity, but I must say that they are a treasure trove. Your insights are great and are really deepening my understanding of the beauty of our sexuate nature in the Creation.
I also enjoy a lot the interplay of ideas between you and your husband and the fruits it bears. Your double interview at UoT is great and I wish there was a recording of your seminars.
So please, write on!
Thanks for the reading recommendation, i'll follow it up.
Giuseppe: yes, this is exactly where my mind took me after reading this latest post. I would be grateful if you could expand on the connection you see between sensuality and chastity in Christianity, or if you could point me to something to read in that direction.
Dear Maca, thanks for your answer, l'll give it a try. To me, sensualty is the ability to give and receive joy through our senses. It includes sex, but it's not just sex. Chastity, according to the CCC, is "the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being". To me, that means that sensuality and spirituality are good when they are one, and are informed by love. Now, what's love? Not everything we call "love" these days is true love, as the one of 13 Corinthians. I think that Dante is the to-go person about love. His entire Comedy is devoted to follow the progress from perverted and misguided love to true love.
Now, the Church doctrine is very clear and well formulated (Chapter 6 of the CCC is a great read) but it lacks... sensuality, to be thoroughly understood. So, I think that faithful laypeople are better placed to explore and elucidate this subject. That's why I mentioned Dante earlier on, but great Christian art, in my opinion, is a great teacher. A couple of examples are here
For the rest, I'm very much researching and learning about this, that why I subscribe to this substack - I'm sure Marilyn is better suited to to provide insight and intuition about this subject.
This is so great, and thank you! Yes, it is precisely that sensuality that I am so keen to explore. I have Dante sitting on my shelf. You've inspired me to dust it off!
Thanks Marilyn. I think that starting from the parallel between Inferno, Canto V and Purgatorio, Cantos XXX-XXXI, the two times when Dante faints, might be interesting.
Thank you for taking the time to write this! It has been a busy few days so I haven't been able to stop and write a response, but I'll come back to this thread sometime soon as I keep mulling things over. Thanks again.
A late comment to say that I went through Scheler, as per your recommendation. I'm really grateful, it was a great read!
What I can say is that it cuts really deep, even personally, and I need to ponder it a little bit more. I think that I concur with his understanding of love, even though maybe, as a true German, he calls us to too much rarefied altitudes. Also, even though he criticizes Luther's stance on sin, I couldn't help feeling (well before he mentioned Luther in the text) that he has actuallg a very Lutheran sense of sin, which is a little bit at odds with my instincts as a Catholic, which are more centered around Mercy.
And, what about vitalism? Is it good or bad?
But of course those are just first impressions, and I might be wrong.
However, while reading the book, Lars Von Trier's film Breaking the Waves came to my mind as an involuntary association. I wonder whether you happened to see the movie. I hadn't been thinking about that movie since when it first came out, in 1996. Back then, it troubled me a lot. As I said, it cuts deep.
Lord what I would give for a woman with whom I shared a private conspiracy of naughtiness - and other things, too - with no one else in the entire world privy to any of it. Just the thought brings an indescribable, yearning desire.
It seems to me that what contemporary feminism has overlooked for some time is the yearning men have for just this kind of partnership with women. There is always a catch-22: we say we want politics to stay out of the bedroom, but politics is already in the bedroom when we insist that democratic morality (equality, respect, rights, etc.) determine the quality of our most private relationships. Maybe it is love, not ethics, that make us less alone.
In her latest article Marilyn Simon raises the question of private vs. dictatorial forms of party presence in it; she quotes Hannah Arendt and George Orwell's famous “1984.” Sex is also part of this private; one cannot have sex as a service to the party; it applies mutatis mutandis to the Church as well. The latter can give pointers, if it believes-I would be very cautious after the disasters in this area-but it will have to be careful not to destroy the erotic dimension that is proper to the two, as they are to able to live it; today there are “churches” much more powerful than the Church, and in fact Simon mentions that of “democratic sex” and the sexual revolution; what the American author, in this article at least, does not take into account is the non-symmetry of sexual needs, even between people who really love each other; but even here the private should be able to cover many things that are good to remain private, that is, intimate. In Orwell's dystopian novel, the party is quite liberal with sex with a prostitute, but it cannot stand erotic sex with its own woman. Probably pornography in our days is the entry of prostitution into the private sphere; probably one cannot do without it if there is a non-symmetry in the earlier sense, but of course one will have to be careful that the laws of the democratic-transparent pornographic domain do not enter our homes, more than they already do. In general, the deferral to Arendt reminds us that we must be careful of any form of public domination over the private...it is good for friends not to speak politically correct when they happen to be together!
Christianity is different from any other religion in that there aren't taboos about food. Nor there is any prohibition about sex between husband and wife. What makes things pure is not an intrinsic quality, but our heart.
Omnia munda mundis, it's said.
Christianity and moralism don't go hand in hand, they are actually the opposite.
And, therefore, the only limit, the only rule of what happens in the Thalamòs, is love.
In the nuptial bed the lovers are truly King and Queen, their rule absolute, and honi soit qui mal y penses. Bu then, how can one sin in the sacredness of the Thalamòs? I have sinned when I wasn't completely there, completely for her and into her. And for those, and only those I bitterly repent.
You: preachin'
Me: choir
Amen, Giuseppe.
I deleted the following paragraph from my essay, but I think it speaks to what you say. -- Incidentally, Max Scheller is brilliant on love. I recommend his book Ressentiment, if you haven't read it.
To live without morals, one might think, is to invite cruelty, to tolerate abuse, to accept exploitation. But this is to miss the point of love entirely. Love does away with the need for rules and polite niceness. A moral marriage without love is not like throwing out baby with the bathwater; it like throwing out the baby and keeping the bathwater. It is likely true that our public understanding of morality is limited. Anyone who thinks Shakespeare breaks the rules of poetry, CS Lewis explains, doesn’t understand poetry. There are “rules behind the rules, and a unity which is deeper than uniformity.” And there are morals that are deeper than morality. And modesty that lives beneath private immodesty. And indecency that is in decency.
Thank you, Marilyn, for including this paragraph here on the comments.
For some months now I have been turning in my head this very question about decency and the compatibility (or lack thereof) between love and moralism, though I have been framing it as a question regarding the difference between love and justice.
This is how I understand the Incarnation: as an act of grace so complete that it is in fact scandalous. (“Scandalous” in the sense that a scandal is an offense against justice, and God acted beyond justice in the Incarnation. Love never lacks justice, but always goes beyond it. And in this sense, love is scandalous.)
It makes me want to re-read Genesis again, and think anew about why it might be that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil causes the fall of humankind... it is the serpent that says to Eve, "your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Knowing good and evil, perhaps, but not love?
Thank you, Maca! Scandalous. What a perfect way to think about the Incarnation. Such a glorious humiliation.
The question of love and justice is one that Max Scheller explores in his little book Ressentiment. It's under 100 pages, but packs a real punch!
I bought this cool 1972 edition of it off the internet, and it's on its way to me now. I'm looking forward to reading it. Thank you, Marilyn.
Thanks Marilyn, your paragraph's spot-on and I'm glad you posted it. A few yers ago I found myself in a conundrum. What to make of the dialectics, within Catholicism, between sensuality and chastity. And not in a theorerical way. Both were good, but seemed to go separate, unconnected, ways. Reading CS Lewis was a breakthrough that knocked me off my feet, especially his trilogy. CS Lewis is mostly known in Italy because of Narnia, which is - undeservedly - relegated in the realm of children literature. To me, that was a serendipitous moment and the beginning of a new way of seeing the deep connection of sensuality and chastity in Christianity.
When a reader of Rod Dreher's substack pointed out that the Crawfords were both academics and writers, and that you too wrote a substack. I started reading your posts out of mere curiosity, but I must say that they are a treasure trove. Your insights are great and are really deepening my understanding of the beauty of our sexuate nature in the Creation.
I also enjoy a lot the interplay of ideas between you and your husband and the fruits it bears. Your double interview at UoT is great and I wish there was a recording of your seminars.
So please, write on!
Thanks for the reading recommendation, i'll follow it up.
Giuseppe: yes, this is exactly where my mind took me after reading this latest post. I would be grateful if you could expand on the connection you see between sensuality and chastity in Christianity, or if you could point me to something to read in that direction.
Dear Maca, thanks for your answer, l'll give it a try. To me, sensualty is the ability to give and receive joy through our senses. It includes sex, but it's not just sex. Chastity, according to the CCC, is "the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being". To me, that means that sensuality and spirituality are good when they are one, and are informed by love. Now, what's love? Not everything we call "love" these days is true love, as the one of 13 Corinthians. I think that Dante is the to-go person about love. His entire Comedy is devoted to follow the progress from perverted and misguided love to true love.
Now, the Church doctrine is very clear and well formulated (Chapter 6 of the CCC is a great read) but it lacks... sensuality, to be thoroughly understood. So, I think that faithful laypeople are better placed to explore and elucidate this subject. That's why I mentioned Dante earlier on, but great Christian art, in my opinion, is a great teacher. A couple of examples are here
https://mcrawford.substack.com/p/travelogue-budapest-and-croatia
For the rest, I'm very much researching and learning about this, that why I subscribe to this substack - I'm sure Marilyn is better suited to to provide insight and intuition about this subject.
This is so great, and thank you! Yes, it is precisely that sensuality that I am so keen to explore. I have Dante sitting on my shelf. You've inspired me to dust it off!
Thanks Marilyn. I think that starting from the parallel between Inferno, Canto V and Purgatorio, Cantos XXX-XXXI, the two times when Dante faints, might be interesting.
Dear Giuseppe,
Thank you for taking the time to write this! It has been a busy few days so I haven't been able to stop and write a response, but I'll come back to this thread sometime soon as I keep mulling things over. Thanks again.
Cheers,
Maca
Thanks Maca, looking forward to it
Thank you, Giuseppe!
A late comment to say that I went through Scheler, as per your recommendation. I'm really grateful, it was a great read!
What I can say is that it cuts really deep, even personally, and I need to ponder it a little bit more. I think that I concur with his understanding of love, even though maybe, as a true German, he calls us to too much rarefied altitudes. Also, even though he criticizes Luther's stance on sin, I couldn't help feeling (well before he mentioned Luther in the text) that he has actuallg a very Lutheran sense of sin, which is a little bit at odds with my instincts as a Catholic, which are more centered around Mercy.
And, what about vitalism? Is it good or bad?
But of course those are just first impressions, and I might be wrong.
However, while reading the book, Lars Von Trier's film Breaking the Waves came to my mind as an involuntary association. I wonder whether you happened to see the movie. I hadn't been thinking about that movie since when it first came out, in 1996. Back then, it troubled me a lot. As I said, it cuts deep.
Lord what I would give for a woman with whom I shared a private conspiracy of naughtiness - and other things, too - with no one else in the entire world privy to any of it. Just the thought brings an indescribable, yearning desire.
It seems to me that what contemporary feminism has overlooked for some time is the yearning men have for just this kind of partnership with women. There is always a catch-22: we say we want politics to stay out of the bedroom, but politics is already in the bedroom when we insist that democratic morality (equality, respect, rights, etc.) determine the quality of our most private relationships. Maybe it is love, not ethics, that make us less alone.
Brilliant! I’m in my seat, ready for takeoff to LA, or I’d write more. Full of bon mots and wonderful insights—thank you!
In her latest article Marilyn Simon raises the question of private vs. dictatorial forms of party presence in it; she quotes Hannah Arendt and George Orwell's famous “1984.” Sex is also part of this private; one cannot have sex as a service to the party; it applies mutatis mutandis to the Church as well. The latter can give pointers, if it believes-I would be very cautious after the disasters in this area-but it will have to be careful not to destroy the erotic dimension that is proper to the two, as they are to able to live it; today there are “churches” much more powerful than the Church, and in fact Simon mentions that of “democratic sex” and the sexual revolution; what the American author, in this article at least, does not take into account is the non-symmetry of sexual needs, even between people who really love each other; but even here the private should be able to cover many things that are good to remain private, that is, intimate. In Orwell's dystopian novel, the party is quite liberal with sex with a prostitute, but it cannot stand erotic sex with its own woman. Probably pornography in our days is the entry of prostitution into the private sphere; probably one cannot do without it if there is a non-symmetry in the earlier sense, but of course one will have to be careful that the laws of the democratic-transparent pornographic domain do not enter our homes, more than they already do. In general, the deferral to Arendt reminds us that we must be careful of any form of public domination over the private...it is good for friends not to speak politically correct when they happen to be together!