Neo-Manichaeanism

John Paul II warned in his Letter to Families about the neo-Manichaean perspective that has infected modern views of sex.  According to this view “body and spirit are put in radical opposition; the body does not receive life from the spirit, and the spirit does not give life to the body.  Man thus ceases to live as a person and a subject.  Regardless of all intentions and declarations to the contrary, he becomes merely an object.”

This can only lead to sexual exploitation: “This neo-Manichaean culture has led, for example, to human sexuality being regarded more as an area for manipulation and exploitation than as the basis of that primordial wonder which led Adam on the morning of creation to exclaim before Eve: ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.’”

The Manichaean label is counter-intuitive: How could a culture so devoted to the body be anti-body? Counter-intuitive, but correct.  John Paul II discerned that we cannot really affirm the value of bodies unless we at the same time recognize that we are more than bodies.