So thank you so much for coming, because you could have not come. And not coming is infinitely

easier than coming. So that was very good of you. I'm very pleased. As Caitlin mentioned, I'll be

speaking on by knowledge and by love. And what we're going to do is a kind of deep dive into what

it means to be made to the image and likeness of God.

So, to orient ourselves, to situate ourselves, I suspect that a few of us are familiar with a kind

of contemporary discussion centering around the image of God and how the image of God is

reflected in the body.

So certainly in discussion centering on the theology of the body, there is great concern

with precisely this theme.

Question being, in what does the image of God principally consist?

Where is it to be located?

Where is it to be found? How is it to be acknowledged and addressed? Now, there are elements in the tradition that detect and correct for

a kind of anti-material strain. What do I mean in saying that? Well, in the history of the church,

there have been a variety of heretical movements that have been very negative with respect to the body.

Now, there's a kind of healthy Christian suspicion about the body because we recognize the fact that we have a sensitive appetite, which can be easily led astray.

But throughout the course of the church's history,

she has always vindicated the place of the body in the incarnate order, in the sacramental dispensation,

and in salvation, you know, crowned by the resurrection of the body. So there are elements recently in

the tradition that want to remind us that we cannot abide

an anti-material strain, or we cannot abide a kind of anti-incarnate or Gnostic tendency.

So one of the ways in which this plays itself out is with respect to the sacrament of marriage.

There can be a thought surrounding marriage, namely that it's a concession to the flesh,

...