36. The innocence of the body
36. THE INNOCENCE OF THE BODY
Why can’t we blame our bodies for our sins of the flesh?
As the Philosopher (Aristotle) says: We observe . . . despotic and a politic principle; for the soul dominates the body by a despotic power, but the intellect dominates the appetite by a politic and royal power. For a power is called despotic whereby a man rules his slaves, who have not the right to resist in any way the orders of the one that commands them, since they have nothing of their own. But that power is called politic and royal by which a man rules over free subjects, who, though subject to the government of the ruler, have nevertheless something of their own by reason of which they can resist the orders of him who commands. And so the soul is said to rule the body by a despotic power because the members of the body cannot in any way resist the sway of the soul, but at the soul’s command both hand and foot, and whatever member is naturally moved by voluntary movement, are moved at once. But the intellect or reason is said to rule the irascible and concupiscible (appetites) by a politic power, because the sensitive appetite has something of its own by virtue of which it can resist the commands of reason. For the sensitive appetite is naturally moved not only by . . . the cognitive power which the universal reason guides, but also by the imagination and sense. Whence it is that we experience that the irascible and concupiscible powers do resist reason, inasmuch as we sense or imagine something pleasant which reason forbids, or unpleasant which reason commands . . . (I,81,3).
Augustine, in the Confessions, marvels at the same thing St. Paul marvels at in Romans 7: “The good that I will, I do not do; the evil that I will not, that I do.” He blames his “flesh”, but this is not his body. His body obeys his will perfectly: if he is not paralyzed or chained, his arm rises every time he commands it to rise. But his will does not obey itself; it is a divided will. Part of it is enslaved, not to his body but to his selfish passions. It disobeys both its navigator, the reason, and itself. The captain of the starship Soul is a schizophrenic.
Aristotle explains this by the political analogy: the passions, being of the soul, are free to rebel against the rightful rule of the reason and against the rational will. The body is not.
So we do not need to hate, fear, resent, oppose, harm, or chain the body. We need to tame the passions, that is, the emotions.
But the emotions are precisely what we take with the greatest seriousness today! Pop psychology virtually worships them. Ever since Rousseau, they have swapped place with the reason: reason is looked down on as cold and inhuman, while the passions of the heart are assumed to be innocent and natural and unfallen. In fact they are treated as authoritative, having rights over the reason. Part of the problem is that we have demoted “reason” to “calculation”.
Contrast all the saints. They do not hate the emotions, but they ignore them, and tell us to do the same, especially when making moral choices, praying, and contemplating.
They are like dogs. We must often say “Down, boy!” as Christ said to the storm on the Sea of Galilee. He will help us. It’s not easy. But it is liberating and rewarding.
They are not our enemies. That is Stoicism. They are like our dogs, “man’s best friend”, but we need to tame them.