through the very act of giving himself becomes, the pope teaches, the source of a new giving of himself. He is thus enriched not only by the gift of the woman, but also and especially by the act of giving himself to her. Through the self-knowledge obtained within the sexual embrace, both man and woman obtain-the pontiff teaches-greater self "possession" in virtue of which they are each rendered still more capable of giving of themselves and of receiving the other's self-gift.37

In this way, receptivity conditions giving which, in turn, leads to further giving in a harmonious development of self-realization. In other words, human freedom-in John Paul II's teaching, and consistent with the tradition-must itself be received as a gift before it can give itself further. This, in turn, means that human freedom follows upon, or presupposes, human nature precisely as God has entrusted it to the human creature-in himself and in the other-for the good of the human person and for the construction of the human community. We might thus note a significant correspondence between Wojytla's philosophy and his theology: "as activity reveals esse, the gift of self reveals the capacity of the human person. It is in the person's structure of self-possession and self-governance that a person can," Kathleen Curran Sweeney rightly explains, "give himself or herself as a gift to another."38

We are thus confronted with two truths concerning body-persons in John Paul II's theological anthropology. Firstly, there is the truth concerning the person as "an object" of knowledge and love: the human person is revealed as a body, which is to say that the human body is a sort of epiphany of the person-self, in virtue of which he or she is visibly beautiful, attracting others to his or her internal beauty or goodness. Indeed, it must be insisted that every body-no matter how "ordinary," deformed, or otherwise unusual-has an intrinsic beauty, whether or not it is so esteemed. This is to say that the human body reveals a value and a beauty that "goes beyond the simply physical level of 'sexuality'" so as to manifest the fact that the person is created "for his own sake."39 Secondly, there is the truth concerning the person as a subject of knowledge and love: precisely as body-persons, our knowledge of the world and others, and thus also our judgment of their value or goodness, are provided in and through-that is to say, by means of our bodies."[A] mass of potentialities" and "a potential of relations," the

37 See General audience of February 6, 1980 (Man and Woman He Created Them, 195-96).38 Kathleen Curran Sweeney, "The Perfection of Women as Maternal and the Anthropology of Karol Wojtyla," Logos 9:2 (Spring 2006): 129-54, at 149.39 General audience of January 16, 1980 (Man and Woman He Created Them, 188); cf. Gaudium et Spes, no. 24.

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John Paul II’s Theology of the Body on Trial: Responding to the Accusation of the Biological Reduction of Women

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