Inter-Personal Communion Under Siege

Everybody has heard that we are made in the image and likeness of God, but what does that really mean anyway? It means war!

Okay, let me back up a minute. I had a great conversation the other day with a good friend of mine and we were talking about why the Devil attacks us so badly. As we talked, we really began to look into the differences between angels and humans.

Angels (the Devil and his demons being fallen angels) are pure spirits. That means that they have an intellect and free will. In other words, they can know and love. Obviously, the Devil and his demons have rejected truth and love in their falling. This means that fallen angels are really failed-angels or defective-angels. They’re not what the used to be and definitely not what God made them to be!

Humans, however, are not pure spirits but are nevertheless spiritual. In humanity is the union between spirit and matter. Our material bodies are united and enlivened by our spiritual souls. Thus we can not only know and love like the angels but we can also experience five senses like the animals. What’s more, being that we belong to the same species, a man and woman can unite in marriage and bring new life into existence.

Angels can’t do that.

In fact, each angel is its own species – which thereby prevents any real union between angels. Humans on the other hand truly are made in the image and likeness of God. Just as God is a Trinity of Persons in a communion of life and love with each other, humans through marriage can image and experience that triune communion through procreation, where the union of two makes three.

That’s a major reason the Devil hates humanity so badly – and it’s a big reason why he attacks marriage and sexuality. He plans to destroy marriage and sexuality in order to mutilate humanity as the image and likeness of God.

Our Counterstrategy: Theology of the Body. Pope John Paul II wrote the Theology of the Body as a means to understand who God is through the physical body – specifically through the person of Jesus Christ, the only human is also God. In Christ, we can truly know who God is and understand what it means to be a human with a body. This theology gives us an eternal look at the truths of sexuality and is a powerful tool against the work of the Devil.