Love and Responsibility Chapter 1

Karol Wojtyla (who becomes Pope John Paul II), wrote Love and Responsibility in 1960.  This blog post summarizes the salient points from the author's Introduction and Chapter 1.

The key Biblical texts for sexual morality are Matthew 5:27-28; 19:1-13, Mark 10:1-12, Luke 20:27-35, John 8:1-11, I Corinthians 7, Ephesians 5:22-33 (page 16).

Chapter 1 - The Personal and the Sexual Urge

Analysis of the Verb 'To Use'

Every subject also exists as an object (page 21).
A person is an individual being of a rational nature (page 22).
The person, as subject, is distinguished from animals by having an inner life which revolves around truth and goodness, and can communicate with God (page 22-23).
Man has the power of self-determination or free will (page 24).

1st definition of "to use" - to employ some object of action as a means to an end (page 25).
2nd definition of "to use" - to experience pleasure, the pleasure which is slightly different senses is associated both with the activity itself and with the object of the activity (page 32).

Love is the opposite of using.  It involves two people consciously choosing a common aim (page 28).
For example, in marriage two people share the same common aim of procreation, and at the same time, the continual ripening of the relationship between them (page 30).

Utilitarians regard the principle of the maximization of pleasure accompanied by the minimization of pain as the primary rule of human morality (page 35).

The Personalistic Norm, in its negative aspect, states that the person is the kind of good which does not admit of use and cannot be treated as an object of use and as such the means to an end.  In its positive form the personalistic norm confirms this: the person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude is love (page 41).

Saint Augustine's distinction between uti and frui. 
Uti is intent on pleasure for its own sake, with no concern for the object of pleasure.
Frui finds joy in a totally committed relationship with the object precisely because this is what the nature of the object demands.

Interpretation of the Sexual Urge

The Religious Interpretation (correct) -The man and the woman use the sexual urge in sexual intercourse and enter as it were into the cosmic steam  by which existence is transmitted (page 54-57).
In his inner self, man is aware of the objective order of existence, and at the same time discovers the part which the sexual urge plays in that order.  He is even capable of understanding his role in relation to the Creator, as a form of participation in the work of creation (page 62).

The Rigorous Interpretation (incorrect) - The conjugal life and sexual intercourse are good only because they serve the purpose of procreation.  The use of a person for the objective end of procreation is the very essence of marriage.  To use in this way is a good thing (the first meaning of the verb 'to use'), but using in the second sense, on the other hand -- seeking pleasure and enjoyment in intercourse -- is wrong (page 57-61)

The Libidinistic Interpretation (incorrect) - The sexual urge is fundamentally an urge to enjoy.  Procreation is only accidental (page 61-65).  The inner life of the human person is negated. (page 62).

A subject endowed with an 'inner self' as man is, a subject who is a person, cannot abandon to instinct the whole responsibility for the use of the sexual urge, and make enjoyment his sole aim -- but must assume full responsibility for the way in which the sexual urge is used (page 63).

The Church teaches that the primary end of marriage is procreation, but that it has a secondary aim of union between the man and woman, and a third aim of a legitimate orientation for desire.  These ends must be realized on the basis of the Personalistic Norm, which means that the man and woman as persons must consciously seek to realize the aims of marriage according to the order of priority given above, because this order is objective, accessible to reason, and therefore binding on human persons.  If any of the above mentioned purposes of marriage is considered without reference to the personalistic norm, this is bound to lead to some form of utilitarianism.  To regard procreation in this way leads to the rigorist distortion, where the libidinistic distortion is rooted in a similar attitude to the tertiary end of marriage (page 66).

These aims can, moreover, only be realized in practice as a single complex aim.  The three aims of marriage mutually reinforce each other and when one is missing the other two are weakened (page 68).