The Theology of the Body is one of the most important theological developments of the past few centuries. It’s also incredibly hip.

When I was in high school, it was everywhere. Every tight t-shirt chastity speaker was talking about it. At Franciscan, TOB was one of the hard classes to get into. Whenever people talked about sex or marriage (Which is a lot in your teens and twenties) people were talking about TOB.

But I was recently told by a publisher…people are getting tired of hearing about TOB.

Where Our Misunderstanding Comes From

That confused me. It’s such an important topic, how could people be tired of it? It’s only a few decades old, we can’t possibly have exhausted it yet.

For some reason, many of us believe we know everything we need to know about it. I blame it on two things:

First, American Christians in general care more about behavior modification. We spend so much time talking about the right way to have sex (meaning without condoms and after marriage.) So we believe that if you don’t do the bad things, you understand TOB.

Second, we think the Theology of the Body is about sex.

It’s not, and I’ll tell you why!

How to Correct our Misunderstanding

The Catechism makes a distinction between the Economy and the Theology of the Trinity. Economy is how the Trinity works on Earth while the Theology of the Trinity is how God relates to Himself. The Divine Economy is how God reveals His inner life. (CCC)

Sacraments are part of the Divine Economy, they are God’s grace working on earth, and marriage is a sacrament. So, if John Paul II was just talking about marriage, it should’ve been called the Economy of the Body.

I don’t think we understand the depth of the word “Theology.” We use it to mean “thinking about God” but Theology is really the grace to pray and search the mysteries of God.

The economy of the Trinity includes stuff like: creating man and woman, establishing marriage, etc. John Paul II talks about these things because they reveal the inner life of God. We can’t stop there. The translator calls this a Theology of the Body precisely its primary focus is the inner life of the Trinity. Which leads to the shocking revelation:

The Theology of the Body isn’t about us.

Love and Responsibility Is John Paul II’s work about sexual ethics and marital love. Theology of the Body on the other hand is about how the human person, body and soul, images the Trinity.

So if you’re one of those people who, like me, has said in the past, “I don’t need to go to that TOB talk, I’ve heard it all already,” stop and consider how lucky you to be the only human besides Christ Himself to have heard everything there is to hear about the Trinity.

The body is a lens we have to look towards heaven. Theology is the Queen of Sciences because the mysteries of the Trinity can never be exhausted. We can’t say we’ve studied the whole sky just because we know how a telescope works.

The Theology of the Body points to the mystery of the Trinity in two ways: individually and in the communion of marriage. The union of our body, mind, and soul together images the unity of the Trinity. The love of a man and a woman bringing a third person into the world images the triunity of the Trinity.

Theology of the Body is one of my favorite subjects to write about, so if you would like to hear more from me on this topic, subscribe to get posts emailed to you.

Note: If you would like to read more about how the body points to the Trinity, you can read my posts about Celibacy and Marriage. You can also read posts on Catholic Match Institute.