In the context of this colloquium it may be as well to begin by indicating the purpose and scope of an opening paper on this topic. The topic itself is so wide that any adequate treatment would presuppose expertise and experience far beyond the range of the author and perhaps beyond any single individual’s range. My approach is necessarily conditioned by my professional interest and experience, a moral theologian who is, in fact, a celibate by choice. The more precise meaning of these qualifications will, I hope, emerge later.

I can at once outline my approach and summarize my position by saying that I regard the celibate state as a form of human relationship in the way I regard the married state; that I see it as having in common with all other human relationships a sexual dimension; and that I am naturally concerned as a Christian theologian with the Christian meaning of human relationships and their sexual dimension.

It may appear a little unusual to begin a discussion of Christian celibacy in terms of human relationships. In its more conventional presentation, whether in terms of ‘eunuchs for the kingdom of God’ (Mt. 19) or of nuns as ‘brides of Christ’ the emphasis was on the ‘relationship to God’. It is perhaps one more (overdue) example of how we have begun to translate ‘God-talk’ into ‘man-talk’, but it does not need to have the reductionist consequences which some such translations involve. Whatever its fashionableness the procedure will in this instance, I hope, lead to a more careful consideration of the full meaning of Christian celibacy, including its ‘relationship to God’ dimension.

The original ‘slightest alteration’ underlying Freud’s intangible but radical revolution can be conveniently dated to 1898, when Freud, travelling to Herzegovina, turned to ask a travelling companion whether he had ever seen the famous frescoes of the ‘Four Last Things’ in Orvieto Cathedral, painted by-----: the painter’s name would not come; ‘Botticelli’ and ‘Boltraffio’ came to mind instead. Freud’s account of why he had failed to recall the right name, ‘Signorelli’, contains the core of his later theories. ‘Signorelli’ had been replaced through a series of transformations: ‘Signor-’ into ‘Herr’, recalling both Herzegovina-and-Bosnia and an anecdote about attitudes to death and sex in which the sentence ‘Sir (Herr), what is there to be said?’ had been the punch-line. This anecdote had linked to an earlier incident when Freud, while staying at Trafoi in the Tyrol, had heard of a patient’s suicide because of an incurable sexual disorder. Thus, the ‘forgotten’ ‘Signorelli’ produced ‘Herzegovina-and-Bosnia’, ‘Bo-snia’ conflated with ‘-elli’ to produce ‘Bo-ttic-elli’, ‘Herzegovina’, via ‘Herr’, indirectly produced ‘Trafoi’, which conflated with ‘Bo-snia’ to produce ‘Bo-l-traffio’.

In the land of our fathers there are many strangers. They have drifted away from their homes, across the sea, into the New World which they held to be ‘undiscovered’. Why did they seek a new land, and why did they leave their own? Why did they leave behind the soil from which they were born; why did they break away from the womb to which they belong?

With their minds disconnected—and freed—from the earth, they could master the forces of nature. And so they took possession of the land that seemed so empty, so much there for the taking, because no one claimed it. They did not know that man does not naturally possess the land to which he belongs; he does not say: I own this soil’. For how can we own the soil from which we are born and to which we will return? Is not man’s life encompassed by the earth and her dark forces, as in a wider dimension from which things and deeds receive their meaning?

Primitive man still knows this: he knows that the heat of the sun is only a blessing when it enkindles the potentialities of the earth, not when it scorches, burns into things so that everything withers. The warmth of God is felt in the fire that burns within the dark energies of the earth and that brings them to life. The God of natural man is an inward God whom he meets when dwelling with the mystery of his own existence, birth and death: the womb from which he is born and into which he will return. The earth is not God, but God is the earth, for here is the place where the divine presence is felt.

‘Batter my heart, three-Personed God’, wrote the poet John Donne. However, it has been the mind, not the heart, which has been battered by this most unfathomable of all mysteries. Centuries of long and painful battering of Unitarian hammer on tritheistic anvil eventually forged a statement which expressed the mystery: three persons in one nature. And ever since the Council of Florence there has echoed down the centuries a thunderous ‘So what?’. For the riddle of the Trinity is not merely that of the Three-in-one, but the revelation of it. Not ‘how?’, but ‘why?’. What is its relevance?

In the attempt to make the Trinity relevant one is beset by problems which appear insoluble. The most obvious of these is the danger of falling into the error of ‘tritheism’.

One morning, I rose from my bed and walked out to explore the world. There was much that was familiar to me and after a short time I felt the need to break new ground. I set off towards unknown regions, while my gaze left the familiar things and settled on the distant horizon. Far and fast as I walked, I could not reach that horizon, for, as I advanced, it receded, yet my journey seemed far from fruitless; it was full of discovery.

I began to question the existence of the horizon, though, and I met one who had travelled much more than I, and I held him in conversation for a while. He laughed, and said that the horizon is always there, always receding as man advances. ‘Then why advance?’ I inquired, seeking a reason for my own behaviour. ‘Because there must be an end’, he said. ‘It is of the very nature of the cosmos that there must be an end to time and to space.’ This perplexed me because I could not imagine an end to time and space, but he drew on the ground and waved his hands in the air until his words settled on my understanding. Although I was annoyed to think that I was captive to time and space, I could not help but think that an infinity of time and space would be a bit of a bore.

‘But what is there beyond time and space?’ I called, as he parted from me. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not-time and not-space in which all-that-is is cradled.’

I began to think and reflect, and realized that I was existing. So, I began to explore my thoughts, knowing that I was exploring my own existence, and the belief came upon me that perhaps I had now found a world without limit, an existence without end.