Guilt is generally a destructive state of being. Recognising one's actual sinfulness and doing something about it [repentance]; that is a good thing, but focussing on one's supposed inadequacies and failings is a bad idea - especially if those "failings" are not failings at all, but only what some idiot in authority has half-convinced you are failings.
Humility is the same state as pride: both are a recognition of the true state of one's soul - one's virtues and talents as well as one's vices and flaws. Pride is not conceit and humility is not self-hatred.
If you can't love and respect yourself as a sexual being (whatever your orientation) then you'll never be able to love and respect other men and women as sexual beings. You will always have to pretend that they are not so; which does them an injustice.
We honour God and the Saints by doing what pleases them: which is pursuing what is good for us, what fulfils us and enhances our being and allows us to discover our potential and to preserve our lives.
All that God wants of us is that we LIVE and be happy; and to do this we must discover what is good for us. In the end, this is God Himself (who offers us His own Being as "Bread of Life") but in the meantime it is all those life-experiences which mediate God to us - and in particular human friendship and love.
Plato tells us that the erotic experience of beauty is one of the surest (if not the surest) and most direct paths to friendship with God - if only one allows oneself to perceive "beauty in itself" in the particular encounter.
The Death of Socrates
Friday, 14 January 2011
Sex Lova and Friendship
Friendship apart and above sex is a very important value. It is pretty shameful that this value is hardly ever promoted by the Church, whereas it is central to Christ's teaching and example.
The "vocabulary of friendship" is sorely in need of being recovered. However, this has got nothing to do with masculinity or femininity. Friendship has no regard to matters of sex and/or gender; it is a rational relationship not based on instinctive animal nature but "para physin" - beyond nature.
I would be amazed to learn that Newman and Ambrose St John were ever genitally intimate. Newman, at least, was a very temperate man and even should he have been inclined in such a way, I doubt that he would have acted in such a way that he would have (I am sure) felt would have compromised his life-long vow of sexual continence.
It is however more amazing that - given the explicit evidence of Newman's writing concerning Ambrose St John - that anyone could believe that Newman was not "homosexual" in the only worthwhile sense of being deeply and passionately in love with another man. The only explanation for a refusal to account Newman as "homosexual" - though sexually continent - is the idea that to be "homosexual" is itself wicked. If this is not the case, what is the harm in believing that Newman and his beloved ambrose were not "homosexual".
I have had many close male friends, for whom I have felt the kind of love and affection which Newman describes feeling for Ambrose. None of them has ever systematically returned this kind of affection. In fact all of them - apart from my long term partner - has rejected my friendship, when nothing else has ever been demanded of them. The difference between these "friends" and me is that I self-identify as gay and am happy and comfortable with male-male affection, whereas they all self-identify as "str8" and are incapable of such affection and in fact find it threatening.
Until I see clear examples of sustained male-male affection which are clearly not attributable to "homosexual orientation" I will prefer to believe that wherever there is a deeply felt, passionate and unaffectedly expressed same gender friendship there is "homosexuality". I have no problem with this, as I don't think that:
1. Homosexuality is wicked in any way.
2. A homosexual relationship *has* to be expressed in sexual intimacy any more than a heterosexual relationship *has* to be so expressed.
The "vocabulary of friendship" is sorely in need of being recovered. However, this has got nothing to do with masculinity or femininity. Friendship has no regard to matters of sex and/or gender; it is a rational relationship not based on instinctive animal nature but "para physin" - beyond nature.
I would be amazed to learn that Newman and Ambrose St John were ever genitally intimate. Newman, at least, was a very temperate man and even should he have been inclined in such a way, I doubt that he would have acted in such a way that he would have (I am sure) felt would have compromised his life-long vow of sexual continence.
It is however more amazing that - given the explicit evidence of Newman's writing concerning Ambrose St John - that anyone could believe that Newman was not "homosexual" in the only worthwhile sense of being deeply and passionately in love with another man. The only explanation for a refusal to account Newman as "homosexual" - though sexually continent - is the idea that to be "homosexual" is itself wicked. If this is not the case, what is the harm in believing that Newman and his beloved ambrose were not "homosexual".
I have had many close male friends, for whom I have felt the kind of love and affection which Newman describes feeling for Ambrose. None of them has ever systematically returned this kind of affection. In fact all of them - apart from my long term partner - has rejected my friendship, when nothing else has ever been demanded of them. The difference between these "friends" and me is that I self-identify as gay and am happy and comfortable with male-male affection, whereas they all self-identify as "str8" and are incapable of such affection and in fact find it threatening.
Until I see clear examples of sustained male-male affection which are clearly not attributable to "homosexual orientation" I will prefer to believe that wherever there is a deeply felt, passionate and unaffectedly expressed same gender friendship there is "homosexuality". I have no problem with this, as I don't think that:
1. Homosexuality is wicked in any way.
2. A homosexual relationship *has* to be expressed in sexual intimacy any more than a heterosexual relationship *has* to be so expressed.
Body Soul and Spirit
The soul is not separate from the body. The soul is the very activity and life of the body. Without the body there could be no soul or mind - the mind being part of the soul. I believe that Plato was wrong about this: not that it matters or affects his doctrine at all in any way that matters. It is just that he didn't have a clear view of what "life" was: how could he in that pre-scientific era?
The SPIRIT (the Personal Subjective Experiential Consciousness) is what is eternal and is separate from the body. Even so, the spirit is pretty worthless without the body - it is all potential and no action - which is why Judaism and Christianity stress "the resurrection of the body".
One criticism that outsiders have of Platonism that it tends to result in an "instrumentalist" view of the body. This is a distortion of his doctrine.
In any case, of course a craftsman should love his tools. One loves that which is good for one - that which is of benefit, which enables and fulfils and which makes it possible to conduct one's own proper business. For the true craftsman, his tools are the object of his true love for they enable him to answer the call of his daemon and play before the court of Heaven, celebrating his understanding of beauty.
Similarly, the body is the "tool of tools" at the very least; so the spirit should cherish the body - while giving priority to the mind which is the body's highest function.
The SPIRIT (the Personal Subjective Experiential Consciousness) is what is eternal and is separate from the body. Even so, the spirit is pretty worthless without the body - it is all potential and no action - which is why Judaism and Christianity stress "the resurrection of the body".
One criticism that outsiders have of Platonism that it tends to result in an "instrumentalist" view of the body. This is a distortion of his doctrine.
In any case, of course a craftsman should love his tools. One loves that which is good for one - that which is of benefit, which enables and fulfils and which makes it possible to conduct one's own proper business. For the true craftsman, his tools are the object of his true love for they enable him to answer the call of his daemon and play before the court of Heaven, celebrating his understanding of beauty.
Similarly, the body is the "tool of tools" at the very least; so the spirit should cherish the body - while giving priority to the mind which is the body's highest function.
Male and Female: a false duality
Men and women are not any kind of opposites. There is no duality here. We share a common humanity, not two natures which somehow have to be reconciled or combined to make a whole. Both male and female images God, indifferently; there is no gender in God and no duality in being.
Heterosexuals tend to perceive the world as a duality, because so much of their mind is influenced by gender ideas.
Homosexuals are not so blinkered :-) On the whole we don't see "gender" as so important.
Women (for a gay man) are like an "alien species" who it is interesting to deal with, can serve as good friends, and share a common dignity as rational conscious beings; but which are not any kind of necessary spiritual or psychological compliment to the male.
After all, there could be any number of other alien species - all sharing a common spiritual dignity while not having any particular complimentary role.
Heterosexuals tend to perceive the world as a duality, because so much of their mind is influenced by gender ideas.
Homosexuals are not so blinkered :-) On the whole we don't see "gender" as so important.
Women (for a gay man) are like an "alien species" who it is interesting to deal with, can serve as good friends, and share a common dignity as rational conscious beings; but which are not any kind of necessary spiritual or psychological compliment to the male.
After all, there could be any number of other alien species - all sharing a common spiritual dignity while not having any particular complimentary role.
Libido, Eros and Friendship
Do not mistake Eros for nothing more than the sexual desire and the appetite for sexual pleasure. I think that most people who have experienced "being in love" would tell a different story. I certainly would. I would have happily agreed to discount the possibility of sex if only my beloved PJH had agreed to share his life with me.
Read what Augustine says about the boyfriend that he lost and also about his feelings for his concubine - the mother of his son. Also read again what Plato writes about love in Phaedrus and Symposium and Lysis.
Eros includes the libido, but is not identical with it. The libido is only the body's participation in Eros. The libido points to two finalities:
1. The finality of biological reproduction.
2. The finality of personal communion.
I think it fundamentally mistaken to divide love up in the way that is often done - as in C.S. Lewis "Four Loves". Love is a unity, but has various objects. Eros is nothing more than passionate friendship. It is easier to see this as a gay man. For me, friendship and erotic love merge into a continuum with no boundary whatsoever. Even some heterosexuals see this: describing their spouse as their "best friend" as well as their "lover".
Read the Pope's encyclical on the subject - it is a wonderful treatment of the subject: thoroughly Platonic.
If sex is truly "recreational" then it is good. This is only possible between those who know and care for each other as persons. If sex is only an "amusement" than it is ethically neutral, but less than it can be. If sex risks pregnancy with no provision for the upbringing of the child then it is extremely imprudent. If sex is "exploitative" or "obsessional" or a "distraction from the spiritual" then it is bad - and thoroughly bad at than, for it is dehumanising.
Read what Augustine says about the boyfriend that he lost and also about his feelings for his concubine - the mother of his son. Also read again what Plato writes about love in Phaedrus and Symposium and Lysis.
Eros includes the libido, but is not identical with it. The libido is only the body's participation in Eros. The libido points to two finalities:
1. The finality of biological reproduction.
2. The finality of personal communion.
I think it fundamentally mistaken to divide love up in the way that is often done - as in C.S. Lewis "Four Loves". Love is a unity, but has various objects. Eros is nothing more than passionate friendship. It is easier to see this as a gay man. For me, friendship and erotic love merge into a continuum with no boundary whatsoever. Even some heterosexuals see this: describing their spouse as their "best friend" as well as their "lover".
Read the Pope's encyclical on the subject - it is a wonderful treatment of the subject: thoroughly Platonic.
If sex is truly "recreational" then it is good. This is only possible between those who know and care for each other as persons. If sex is only an "amusement" than it is ethically neutral, but less than it can be. If sex risks pregnancy with no provision for the upbringing of the child then it is extremely imprudent. If sex is "exploitative" or "obsessional" or a "distraction from the spiritual" then it is bad - and thoroughly bad at than, for it is dehumanising.
Love and Posession
Love is a movement or attraction of an agent for an object which it perceives as being beneficial. When the movement is complete the object is - in some manner or other - united with the agent. However, the kind of "union" can vary hugely.
Food is united with feeder by its high-level form being destroyed and its material substance being assimilated.
Knowledge is united with learned by becoming integrated in their being without any loss to itself. The learner possesses the knowledge, but the knowledge looses non of its integrity by such possession and in fact gains power over its learner by directing their actions, subsequently.
The lover possesses the beloved - but only in the sense (if the love be wholesome) that they are motivated to care for and cherish and protect the object of their love as being precious to them.
The saint possesses God in the way that the learner possesses knowledge - but also by simply being intimately associated with God, in a communion and intercourse of being which results in the Eternal Life of the soul.
Food is united with feeder by its high-level form being destroyed and its material substance being assimilated.
Knowledge is united with learned by becoming integrated in their being without any loss to itself. The learner possesses the knowledge, but the knowledge looses non of its integrity by such possession and in fact gains power over its learner by directing their actions, subsequently.
The lover possesses the beloved - but only in the sense (if the love be wholesome) that they are motivated to care for and cherish and protect the object of their love as being precious to them.
The saint possesses God in the way that the learner possesses knowledge - but also by simply being intimately associated with God, in a communion and intercourse of being which results in the Eternal Life of the soul.
Plato's Forms
Plato's Forms are supposed to be the fundamental unchanging and eternal "spiritual" abstractions on which the mutable material world is constructed. It is easiest to understand geometrical forms, but the idea is that all that is at all real (such as "justice") is only real because it participates in the absolute reality of the forms.
The "Form of the Triangle" (or the "Ideal Triangle") is the perfection or definitive triangle. It is no actual triangle and does not have angles of any particular magnitudes; but it has three vertices and three perfectly straight sides. The Ideal Euclidean Triangle also exits in un-curved space and so its angles add up to precisely 180 degrees, even though they have no actual values.
The "Form of the Triangle" could be expressed exactly in terms of various mathematical formulae. However such an expression is not exactly the Form itself, because it has no significance in itself (after all it is no more than a set of black marks on white paper or one and zeroes in a computer's memory), but only the significance which the crafter of that expression intends in terms of the symbology of the (mathematical) language employed.
The Forms are not "empty". They are immaterial, though. It is matter (according to modern physics) that is "empty". The Forms and most especially "the Good" are full-of-being and omnipotent.
Augustine definitely understood "the Good" to be "God" and it seems to me that any monotheist has little choice but to do so - or perhaps "the good" is the "mind of God" rather than "God unqualified", I don't know.
The "Form of the Triangle" (or the "Ideal Triangle") is the perfection or definitive triangle. It is no actual triangle and does not have angles of any particular magnitudes; but it has three vertices and three perfectly straight sides. The Ideal Euclidean Triangle also exits in un-curved space and so its angles add up to precisely 180 degrees, even though they have no actual values.
The "Form of the Triangle" could be expressed exactly in terms of various mathematical formulae. However such an expression is not exactly the Form itself, because it has no significance in itself (after all it is no more than a set of black marks on white paper or one and zeroes in a computer's memory), but only the significance which the crafter of that expression intends in terms of the symbology of the (mathematical) language employed.
The Forms are not "empty". They are immaterial, though. It is matter (according to modern physics) that is "empty". The Forms and most especially "the Good" are full-of-being and omnipotent.
Augustine definitely understood "the Good" to be "God" and it seems to me that any monotheist has little choice but to do so - or perhaps "the good" is the "mind of God" rather than "God unqualified", I don't know.
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