The following article is an excerpt from a chapter entitled "Castidad" (Chastity), from the book Para ser cristiano (To Be A Christian), written by Juan Luis Lorda. I´d highly recommend the book, which is divided in short chapters that deal with specific subjects related to our Christian walk.
In this selection, which deals with chastity, Lorda gives a compact argument for why the Church emphasizes the need for sexuality to be considered within the realm of marriage.
Juan Luis Lorda is a priest, an Industrial Engineer, and holds a Doctorate in Theology from the University of Navarre, where he is a profesor in Anthropology. He is the author of several books, some of which have been translated into other languages. Para ser cristiano was written in 1991, and is published by Ediciones Rialp SA, in Madrid. I have not been able to find mention of the book having been translated into English. Hence the following translation and possible errors are mine.
Chastity
"God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1, 27-28). With these solemn words, the holy author transmits to us the Christian ideal with respect to man. He speaks first of his dignity, and next to his sexual differences, and lastly, of God’s blessing, which gives meaning to the sexual differences, as a way to transmit life.
Marriage was made, since its origin, as a peculiar union between man and woman, and which is open, as part of its own nature, to fecundity. This is the reason for the sexual difference between a man and a woman, and the sexual faculties are so made to obtain such (ed. future life). This is part of human nature and pertains to being a man, independently if somebody wants to be or not. Man and woman feel a mutual inclination that tends to be affective and to establish conjugal relations, which gives origin to new lives. This is a natural mechanism that is in part out of our own control, and in part, also within our control.
The sexual instinct – this inclination to have sexual relations with members of the opposite sex, to generate new lives – is the strongest, after the instinct of survival. However, instead of what happens among animals, this instinct in humans is part of the spiritual realm, who can control the instinct to a certain extent. Animals have periods in which they feel the instinct and it gives them satisfaction, but with man it’s not the same: man is called to submit his sexual activity to that of his intelligence.
This is not easy. As a consequence of the original sin, the appetites of man are dis-ordered. Material goods have a deceptive attraction, which promise more than what is later given: for that reason, they (material goods) tend to violate the spirit and to deceive it. This also happens with the sexual instinct, perhaps even more than with other instincts (the desire to eat, or to run from effort) because it is the strongest. For that reason, it can present itself in our lives with particular violence.
The intelligence governs this instinct – and in general all passions – in an indirect manner. Aristotle speaks of how its exercises only a political power and not a despotic power over passions, and uses the example of a charioteer driving horses in a chariot. The horses obey the guide, but to a certain measure, conserving part of their autonomy. The instinct also has its own mechanisms and the intelligence controls it in the measure in which controls its means.
For example, a man can decide how he will treat a woman. As a consequence of that treatment, he can fall in love. Falling in love
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