A 'Personless' Purity Isn't Pure At All

Every now and then you come across a quote so profound that you’re forced to reframe your thinking on an issue. This one initiated a renovation of my thinking on sexual purity:

The problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.

This summary of Pope John Paul II’s teaching on pornography not only highlighted the gravity of sexual sin, but did so from an angle I’d never considered. For John Paul, the conceptual core of lust is the reduction of a person to a body—an object. Fueled by thirst, not benevolence, lust doesn’t seek to love someone, but to use something. It reduces an image bearing “who” to an instrumental “what.” Purity then involves more than simply avoiding lust. It requires seeing and honoring the value of the person.

I was compelled. I grew up in evangelical churches and earned an M.Div. from an evangelical seminary. Why had I never heard this?

A review of the relevant literature reveals that a theological account of embodiment plays only a minor role in evangelicals’ conception of purity which largely revolves around ethical imperatives + grace for those who have failed. Anthropology remains on the periphery (but this is improving).

And while we shouldn’t decenter ethical imperatives or grace in our discussions of purity, incorporating a thicker doctrine of humanity helps to clarify the wisdom of Scripture’s sexual ethics, and supplies us with a useful tool as we strive for the holiness without which no one will see God (Heb 12:14).

While Reformation-minded evangelicals like me will certainly disagree with John Paul on a number of issues, my doctoral work on his Theology of the Body convinced me that anyone interested in sharpening their thinking about sexual purity stands to gain from his treatment of the body-person dynamic.

The Body-Person Dynamic

Recall that humans are body-person (or body-soul) unities consisting of both a material and an immaterial component. A mere body is an object, not a person. A person who isn’t oriented to a body isn’t human.

Thus, a human body is a body that visibly manifests and expresses a person. A human person is a person designed by God to be mediated through a body.

Herman Bavinck is helpful here:

The nature of the union of the soul with the body … is so intimate that one nature, one person, one self is the subject of both and of all their activities. It is always the same soul that peers through the eyes, thinks through the brain, grasps with the hands, and walks with the feet….

If this sounds a bit strange, consider for a moment: how is it that the eternal Logos became visible? How it is that he walked with, served, and sacrificed for his disciples (among others)? He did it by means of his body: “The word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14).

In short, not only does the body visibly manifest the human person, it serves as the substratum through which they—by God’s design—participate in the visible world.

What does any of this have to do with sexual purity? As it turns out, quite a bit.

Chastity is both a "yes" and a "no."

For many evangelicals, purity is essentially defined negatively, viz., by what it avoids (like being gluten-free). On this approach, sexual purity boils down to “one long no.”

JPII offers a better way forward:

“[C]hastity is first and foremost a ‘yes,’ from which a ‘no’ then proceeds. The underdevelopment of the virtue of chastity occurs when someone ‘does not keep up’ with the affirmation of the value of the person…. The essence of chastity lies precisely in ‘keeping up’ with the value of the person in every situation and in ‘pulling up’ to this value every reaction to the value of the ‘body and sex.’”

Understood this way, purity isn’t merely committed to not indulging thoughts about ‘body and sex.’ It’s also committed to personalizing the bodies of those around us and valuing them for the image-bearing people God created them to be. We fight lust not only because Jesus forbids it, but because honoring Him requires honoring the reality that the people He created aren’t things for use.

Consider Edward Sri’s illustration. After describing an opportunity he once had to see an artist who made everything out of chocolate—intricate ships, birds, and flowers—he describes two ways that he could enjoy the sculptures:

I could gaze upon them as works of art, admiring their beauty … marveling that these delicate masterpieces were made out of sugar and cocoa. On the other hand, I could ignore the fact that these sculptures are beautiful pieces of art to be contemplated and view them primarily as candies to be devoured—delicious chocolates that would satisfy my cravings. This latter approach, however, would be a degradation of the confectioner's masterpieces, reducing them to mere objects to be exploited for my tasting pleasure.

Purity doesn’t ignore the body or pretend it’s unimportant. Rather, it remains committed to God-honoring thoughts and actions toward the person the body manifests.

Mature sexual purity can look at an attractive man or woman and say, “Wow, an utterly unique person mediated through a body.” Lust says, “Wow, a useful body.”

To be sure, sometimes we simply need to look away to avoid mentally reducing a person to a serviceable object (i.e., lusting). And yet, while this response represents a meaningful step toward purity, it’s not the finish line. It may help us avoid “eating the chocolate” but it does so at the cost of valuing the person. Yes, it’s better than lusting, but it’s purity lite.

Training ourselves for godliness (1 Tim 4:7) requires more than “bouncing our eyes.” It demands that we train ourselves to look at a body and see somebody.

Defiling the Marriage Bed

Our tendency to reduce a person to their sexual value isn’t simply a pre-marital struggle. In fact, it’s dangerously possible to view marriage as a construct that frees us to indulge this ethic of reduction (i.e., lust) with a clear conscience.

If conceiving of others in view of their sexual potential is only wrong because they aren’t our spouse–if what makes lust “wrong” is simply the fact that we’re not married to the other person–marriage then becomes a kind of moral safe-space where we can gratify our sinful desires to treat people we ought to love as objects for use. Marriage is redefined as a God-given concession to our “burning passion” where He authorizes us to view one attractive member of the opposite sex in the same way we were tempted to view the rest of them before marriage.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Beyond failing to honor God’s design for sex and keeping the marriage bed undefiled (Heb 13:4), the effects of obscuring the person and reducing our spouses to their sexual value are regularly and predictably catastrophic.

Here, the lovers’ example in Song of Songs is particularly instructive.

After vividly describing the bridegroom’s body—from head to toe—over six stanzas (Song 5:10–15), the Shulamite maiden says, “His mouth is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend…” (Song 5:16). The bride’s appreciation of her groom’s figure doesn’t obscure the fact that he is her friend. She values him.

Similarly, after praising his bride’s physical features, the bridegroom says, “You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride…. How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride!... A garden locked is my sister, my bride. (Song 4:9,10,12).

Even as the man delights in his bride’s body, he does so in a way that affirms her as a person to be loved—a sister.

Conclusion

True love waits to have sex in the context of marriage, but it doesn’t wait to exercise the discipline required to look at a body and see a person. A walk down the aisle doesn’t somehow erase the impulse to reduce “the other” to their sexual value. The sexual ethic you bring to the altar is the sexual ethic you bring to the marriage.

With this in mind, while purity certainly requires you to guard against lust, it also demands that you make a relentless effort to personalize the bodies of those around you. With this commitment in place—whether you marry or remain single—you’ll be best positioned to view and honor others as the embodied image-bearers God created them to be.