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expression: the common ground between theology of the body and natural law theory

The key to a practices-centered natural law /theology of the body, is the notion, central to TOB, that human actions are always bodily, expressive, and at some level achieve what they express.  There is a sense in which this expression is first discovered in a very public way, but later becomes internalized even if it only the doer knows.

A man who commits adultery "says" something by that action, even if it is never discovered.  And this "saying" reconstitutes his identity in a way that cuts him off from the common good in which he previously shared.

A married but infertile couple says something through coitus... they say the same thing that a fertile couple says.  They share in that common good.  But the good is not a thing being distributed, it's a shared affirmation of the meaning of life as expressed in marital sexual union.

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