two principles of sexual ethics: that one must not “enjoy” another person solely for pleasure and that sexual union involves giving oneself to another. Pope John Paul II agreed on those principles, yet disagreed on the meaning and reasoning behind the principles. Kant believed that people lose their autonomy and dignity in sexual acts, because they are reduced to things being used for pleasure. Marriage resolves that by giving the spouses “lifelong mutual possession of their sexual characteristics”. However, Kant's explanation of marriage still does not transform the objectifying nature of sex, it merely permits it as legal. On the other hand, Pope John Paul II explains the sexual act in marriage as fulfillment of the natural law of spousal love. Rather than objectifying and depersonalizing, it is enriching for a person because it is a sincere gift of the self in love. Pope John Paul II highlights conjugal love, whereas Kant does not acknowledge it. John of the Cross Pope John Paul II's basic beliefs on love, when he was establishing his Theology of the Body, was derived from Saint John of the Cross (San Juan de la Cruz), a Spanish mystic and Doctor of the Church. Karol Wojtyla—before he became Pope John Paul II—defended his doctoral dissertation, later translated in a book titled Faith According to Saint John of the Cross, in June 1948 at the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas. In that work, John of the Cross's influence is shown in his belief that relationship with God is a unifying process in which its elements actuated dynamically. Other influence is that he values love over faith, and that love "draws the person into a real ontological and psychological union with God". The "Sanjuanist triangle" of love consists of three points: 1) Love is self-giving; 2) Filial love to God and conjugal love in marriage are the self-giving paradigm; 3) Relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit within the Trinity is the model of self-giving love. Through pure love, a person experiences God in the "mutual exchange of self-donation". Thomas Petri O.P. writes, "We may also note Wojtyla's observation that for John of the Cross, God is objective but not objectivizable to the intellect, which naturally lends itself to the personalistic norm that will eventually hold pride of place in Wojtyla's thought. Like the person of God, no human person can ever be