Aristotle and Derrida both point-out how Touch is unique among the senses. For one thing the other four senses have a clear object: Tasting tastes flavor; Hearing hears sound; Sight sees light; and (easiest of all) Smelling smells smell. But Touching? What does Touching touch?
Touching is strange for there seems to be no pure object of touch —nothing available for touching that remains only “touched” and does not touch me back. I can smell without being smelled, I can hear without being heard, I can taste without being tasted, etc., but I cannot touch without also beind touched —without being “in touch with” the thing that I am touching.
For Aristotle this creates an enigma, a riddle, an aporia, and for Derrida a problem without limit. But I wonder if there is not some access into the mystery granted to those who read Genesis chapters 1-2 plainly: God touches and is touched in the Creation —He does not remain sterilized from His Image, he forms Adam out of the dust, and breathes/kisses/sings into him. He lays Adam into a sleep and forms Eve from his side. God is haptic —or, rather, God is Touch Himself. We are those whom God has touched and —O marvel!— we are those who have touched the Father whose hands have “handled” Him (1 Jn. 1:1). We touch because we are made in the image of God, and He touches.
This interrelatedness of touch is perhaps why we use the phrase “touch” to describe so many inward events that have otherwise nothing to do with actual touching other than the fact that they are the kinds of things that in doing them the thing is done to both parties, that blur the lines between subject and object: “I was touched by that music,” or “she has touched my life,” or “your gift touched me deeply.” etc. Touch names the things that draw us into each other. We’ve shared the touch.
Such thinking, far from making us despair of the life of the body should call us more deeply into it. Christ invites Thomas to touch Him (Jn. 20:27); Christ touched the sick and made them whole (Mk. 6:56); and Christ was touched for our sake (Is. 53:4-6; Lk. 22:63-65; Jn. 19:1), and the touching He received there was mean and cruel and on our behalf. Christ also calls us to Himself not only to “hear, think, reflect, ruminate” (we could do that with other senses) but, when we arrive at His House, to “take, eat” (Matt. 26:26) —-which means first touching and being touched.