I WANNA KNOW WHAT LOVE IS: So a couple people have asked when I will post my notes from last week’s Theology of the Body seminar. The answer is that for whatever reason (I blame, in this order, the lack of free coffee and my own crapulence), my notes are sparse and boring, so you don’t get to see them.

However, I was thinking today about the differences in approach between TOTB and Deus Caritas Est. These differences, as I hope will be obvious, are not invitations to read one “against” the other. But they’re intriguing to me, and possibly to y’all, so here’s my take in a nutshell: TOTB starts in the Bible as a whole–most notably, Genesis read through the lens of the New Testament–and moves from there outward to contemporary concerns. DCE starts with contemporary self-understandings and -misunderstandings, and works to draw seekers back to the Cross and the Eucharist. You can see the DCE focus not just in the namechecking of Nietzsche, but in small moments like the sympathetic treatment of the motives of Julian the Apostate. Benedict is starting from the perspective of a non-Christian, I think, and ending at the foot of the Cross. JPII starts deep within the Biblical tradition, and then redescribes the perspective of this tradition in terms that appeal to the contemporary desire for roles and a “story,” a narrative of one’s own self and life and purpose–sort of, starting at Cana and ending at your local church.

These approaches complement each other, and, really, rely on each other. TOTB feels more “literary” to me, more focused on symbolism, on the human person as a word spoken by God. DCE feels more like a homily, clinging a bit closer to both experience and to abstract categories, rather than the roles and icons and characters found in TOTB. But these are exaggerations to show a contrast; it would be a huge error to miss the role of experience in TOTB–in the intro to Love and Responsibility, I think it is, the future JPII notes how much of his theology is rooted in his experience as a confessor–and similarly to miss the role of narrative in DCE‘s description of human history as the “love story” of God and man.