Knowledge-Generation Cycle and Perspective of Deathby Pope John Paul II from this General Audience on 26 March 1980. Read text via EWTN.Transcription:And with these words Pope John Paul II concludes his 22nd catechesis Man and Woman He Created Them a Theology of the Body. There are many salient points that we should consider having heard this 22nd catechesis of our Holy Father. Again he reminds us of Genesis, the conjugal union defined as “knowledge.” This is part of number 6 of chapter 1 part 1, “The Words of Christ” “Christ Appeals to the Beginning”, “Knowledge and Possession.” Conjugal union is defined as knowledge carrying on this aspect, “Adam knew his wife and she conceived.” The conjugal union the union of husband and wife, to make love, the marital nuptial embrace. Conjgalis – means ‘with the yoke.’ This is part of the teaching of Sacred Scripture. The Holy Father Pope John Paul II has identified for us that there is in the Sacred Scripture a biblical cycle of knowledge generation. He has this phrase ‘knowledge-generation’ hyphenated to show that it is not just the generative act and not just the unitive act but both together even without saying as much this is what is behind it. So it reminds us back in 1968 Pope Paul VI, the venerable servant of God, he wrote Humane Vitae with assistance from his friend from Krakow, Karol Wojtyla, who became his successor twice removed as the Bishop of Rome. The Sacred Scripture, the Bible, has a cycle knowledge-generation. This is important enough for Pope John Paul II to include in his catechesis on the Theology of the Body and as a part of the biblical cycle of the knowledge-generation, hybrid as it were. There is a new being brought into existence, a new being similar to the parents reaching all the way back to “the beginning.” This new being is conceived, is generated. The new being begins to exist in conception at the moment of conception. A DNA that is distinct from the father, which is distinct from the mother. A third DNA. A third being. A third person. Not only is this new being similar, this new being is similar themselves via biblical knowledge. God made us and made us to his own image. God is all knowing. God who is love, God who has given a share, a participation, in creation, called procreation. So they cooperate with God in bringing a new being into existence similar to themselves. This is the biblical knowledge generation cycle. And our Holy Father reminds us that the whole sequence of human conceptions and generations from the beginning, from the very mystery of creation, there is this cycle, there is this sequence. When was I conceived? When was I born? When were my parents conceived? When were they born? And my grandparents and we go back to the beginning. The whole sequence of human conceptions and generations from the beginning, from the very mystery of creation. So often we are caught up in only the here and now. The Holy Father is asking us to have a wider scope, to have a broader visions, and he does this based on the sacred text. The text of Holy Scripture found in the book of Genesis. The Holy Father also asks us to expand our way of thinking by invoking a biblical and philosophical, specifically Platonic, vision. Pope John Paul II cites Plato in regards to eros. Eros has been reduced, truncated, so as to only refer to sexual matters. It may be good to mention here that Pope Benedict XVI, who has called Pope John Paul II his “beloved predecessor”, in his first encyclical letter Deus Caritas Est – God is Love, likewise addressed: eros, agape, and philia. Three different Greek words for love reminding us that God is love. When Pope John Paul II here invokes eros he reminds us that we have a thirst for a transcendental beauty; a beauty that is beyond us. Here we can well remember Saint Augustine of Hippo, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, who in the Confessions would [...]