Israel Centeno

The question of the nature of the union between man and woman traverses both Greek philosophy and Judeo-Christian revelation. In The Symposium, Aristophanes presents a myth in which human beings were originally spherical creatures with two faces, four arms, and four legs. After being split in two by Zeus, they were condemned to seek their other half to restore their lost unity. Although expressed in mythopoetic terms, this narrative suggests that love is a search for lost wholeness, a longing for what we once were.

In his Theology of the Body, Saint John Paul II approaches the same problem from an anthropological and theological perspective, rooted in the account of Genesis. The fundamental difference from Aristophanes’ myth is that the Bible does not present man as an incomplete fragment in need of restoration, but rather as a being created in the fullness of his existence, yet destined for communion. Genesis 2:18 states this clearly: “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Adam’s original solitude is not that of a mutilated being but that of a person who, upon seeing himself in the world, becomes aware of his distinction from other creatures and his constitutive openness to the other.

This distinction is no minor detail. In Plato’s account, the need for the other is understood as the restoration of a loss; in the Christian vision, otherness is neither an accident nor a misfortune but a calling. The human being is not incomplete in his individuality, but his fullness is realized in the gift of himself. While Aristophanes describes love as an erotic tendency toward reunification, Saint John Paul II understands it as a vocation to self-giving love, modeled ultimately on Trinitarian communion.

Unity and Complementarity: Between Nostalgia and Vocation

Although Aristophanes and Genesis agree that human love involves a relationship with another and not mere self-sufficiency, their conceptions of the nature of that relationship differ. The Platonic myth posits a kind of metaphysics of desire: love is the lack of what was once possessed. The idea of the “other half” implies an ontology of insufficiency, a conception in which the couple is not so much an encounter as a recovery.

Genesis, in contrast, establishes an anthropology of self-gift: man and woman are not separated because they were divided, but because they were created distinct in order to give themselves to one another. As Saint John Paul II states, “Man is a person insofar as he is capable of self-giving” (Familiaris Consortio, 11). This capacity for self-donation is not merely a biological impulse nor an extrinsic mandate but the internal structure of true love. It is not imposed by necessity but inscribed in human nature, originating in the Trinity itself—three distinct persons who are one God precisely because they give themselves completely to one another.

In this sense, human love in the Christian vision is not merely the search for a broken primordial unity but participation in a divine design. The communion between man and woman is not an ontological repair but a reflection of divine communion. Love, therefore, is not a return to a previous state but a projection toward a transcendent end.

The Body as Language and the Ultimate Destiny of Love

Another crucial point of divergence is the relationship between love and the body. In Aristophanes’ myth, the body is an incidental element in the equation of desire: the human being is physically severed, and his search for the other seems motivated by nostalgia for an original unity. Though not despised in the Socratic sense, corporeality is presented as a remnant of an initial split.

In the Theology of the Body, however, the body is the very language of love. It is not an obstacle nor a sign of division but the means through which the gift of self is expressed. The union of bodies in marriage is the sacramental manifestation of an ontological truth: love is neither purely spiritual nor purely physical but the integration of both dimensions in the totality of the person. This vision finds its fulfillment in the analogy between marriage and the relationship of Christ with the Church (Ephesians 5:31-32): just as the husband and wife give themselves to each other, Christ gives himself for his bride, the Church, in an act of absolute love.

Here, the difference from Platonic thought becomes even more evident. While Aristophanes suggests that erotic desire is an attempt to mend a metaphysical wound, Saint John Paul II teaches that love is prophetic: it points beyond itself to a definitive communion that is not exhausted in the finitude of this world. This is why celibacy for the Kingdom is not a negation of human love but its eschatological anticipation: those who renounce conjugal union do not do so because human love is insufficient, but because they have been called to testify to its ultimate consummation in God.

Conclusion: Nostalgia for Unity or Vocation to Communion?

Plato, in his attempt to understand love, intuited that the human being is relational and that love is the driving force that impels him toward transcendence. However, in Aristophanes’ myth, love is fundamentally a longing for restoration. It assumes that man was once whole and now can only aspire to recover his original state.

The Christian vision, on the other hand, does not see love as an echo of a lost unity but as the promise of a future fullness. Love is not a return to a lost paradise but a call to participate in the very communion of God. One does not seek a “missing half” to restore individual integrity; rather, in the reciprocal gift of self, one discovers the true meaning of existence.

The question, then, is not whether we were once whole and later divided, but whether we are willing to step outside of ourselves and find in the other not merely a reflection of our own need, but a vocation to love as God loves.