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Why Masculinity and Femininity are not sociological inventions: We are sexual beings with or without our bodies

The Masculine or Feminine Soul: We are Essentially Sexual Beings

                                                                                                By Khaldoun A. Sweis

In this post, I argue that the human being is a two substance entity that is essentially sexual in nature.  I will give a defense of the existence of souls and a defense of the hypothesis that we are sexual souls by using the model of St. Thomas Aquinas of objection and reply.  My assumption is that my audience is a Biblically literate one that takes questions about the sexual nature of human beings as having serious consequences to our culture.  

We are sexual beings. We are beings who are essentially sexual — that is, we cannot exist without sex.  In fact, we have a difficult time dealing with those whose gender we are unsure of.  The sex I am speaking about is not the verb, but the noun.  God created us as essentially sexual.  On the very first page of the Scriptures we read:

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:26-27 NASB). 

We are created as either male or female.[1]  However, there is a strong surge in academia for society to differentiate between gender and sex.  “Sex,” it is argued, refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that characterize males and females. “Gender,” it is argued, refers to the socially constructed roles, activities, and attributes that society considers suitable for performance of feminine and masculine activities or roles.  This mindset assumes that gender is a social construct that can be overcome and may at times be repressive.  This opens the door for men and women to trade roles–pushing for a an extreme egalitarian society despite the obvious differences between the sexes.   Paul Okami, of the Department of Psychology, at the University of California writes that “Several universal sex differences in behavior and aptitude have been established to the satisfaction of most scientists.”[2]  

Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, many still fight for the recognition that there are really no fundamental differences between women and men.  

In the political, business and educational environment this has been somewhat of a blessing to women in general.  For example, the 20th amendment of the US Constitution established a woman’s right to vote in the US.  However, sexual deviances such as transsexuality, homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality etc, and the list goes on, have used the sex and gender distinction as a springboard to legitimize certain ideologies.  

 Are we not essentially masculine or feminine in our very souls?  Did he not create us that way?  The denial of our sexual nature has led to politically correct ideas of egalitarianism. 

 This is not to say that all egalitarianism is bad; extreme egalitarianism, however, is a dangerous epidemic that leads to a sexually confused population.  Wayne Grudem and John Piper argued that “the tendency today is to stress the equality of men and women by minimizing the unique significance of our maleness or femaleness. . . .  The consequence rather is more divorce, more homosexuality, more sexual abuse, more promiscuity, more social awkwardness, and more emotional distress and suicide that come with the loss of God-given identity.”[3]

In the future God will correct what man has corrupted. God does not unmake what he calls “good.” (Genesis 1: 10,18, 21, 25, 31.) He restores it to its original glory before our sin got its venom in it.   God does not thrust aside our sexual bodies as mistakes but gives us glorified sexual bodies.    

My argument is that we are essentially sexual beings right down to our very souls.  I do not argue that we are essentially souls imprisoned in bodies of flesh.  That was Plato’s, and in some sense Descartes’, error as well as a Christian heresy. 

 I argue that we are psychosomatically sexual beings.  I will expand on this theory by answering the objections in a fashion reminiscent of St. Thomas.

Secular Objections

Objection 1

  It is anti-scientific to posit the existence of souls.  Nature is all there is.    

Throughout the history of humanity the conjectures are overwhelmingly in favor that there is something beyond just the body, something within or additional to it that is just as real. The view called naturalism (or materialism) is that we are only physical bodies.  Naturalism can be difficult to define.  However, the common thread I find running through all definitions of naturalism is the following:  Naturalism is a belief or research paradigm that excludes any teleological, theological or supernatural explanations for the elucidation of phenomena in the universe. It assumes that the best explanations are causal non-purposive explanations, ultimately depending on the causal regularities of the physical sciences.  Moreover, if anything cannot be explained by the machinery of the hard sciences, like consciousness, morality, or the soul then it either is a mystery waiting to be solved or explained by the hard sciences, is epiphenomenal or does not exist (it is a social or linguistic artificial convention).  In relation to philosophy of mind, it results in the view that we must either naturalize the soul or give up belief in it and accept it as illusionary.[4]

Where does that leave the naturalists?  Troy Cross of Yale University describes it well in his review of Michael Rae’s book, World Without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism. Naturalism, is as Rea suggests, “doomed to incoherence….” because naturalism does not allow science to go where it will lead us.  It places its own metaphysical boundaries on it and says “this far and no further.”  Yet, the naturalists hold that they will go wherever science leads.  This is a problem because, “If naturalism is to follow science wherever it leads, however, it cannot rule out specific kinds of entities [such as a soul] before science is complete.  More generally, the problem is whether the science providing ontological guidance is current science or ideal science. If it is current science, then naturalism is probably false.  If it is ideal science, then naturalism is metaphysically vacuous.”[5]   Cross’s point is that “If, [metaphysical naturalism] . . . is at the mercy of future developments in science, it cannot follow science wherever it leads.  But if it is immune to empirical results, then it is self-refuting, because it is just the sort of hypothesis that epistemic naturalism insists must be grounded on scientific investigation rather than armchair theorizing.[6]”  

I argue that naturalism is a system that is presupposed in advance of the evidence.  Thus, all the evidence we have for an immaterial nature of consciousness will be reinterpreted to fit the naturalist paradigm or it will be dismissed as “not scientific.”   Accordingly, naturalism, by its own rules, is not science.

Furthermore, how then do you explain the concept of love, justice, morality and most of all truth? Are they just abstract things?  What if someone believed that this year was 1872? Is that false?[7] According to naturalism, it cannot be true or false.  There is no truth save that which we can measure with the hard sciences. This is problematic.   This idea, that only what can be measured with the hard sciences is true, is false, because there is no truth save what you can measure with the hard sciences, and you can’t measure an idea or a date.  That is an inconsistency in naturalism.  The very structure of the scientific enterprise today is a naturalistic one; consequently, it is no wonder the soul is automatically dismissed as nonexistent or the conjecture of religious people. 

Objection 2 

What evidence is there that souls exist?  

There are several reasons for believing we are or have souls.  I have written about this here

Theological Objections

Objection 3

 The Bible teaches that man is a holistic entity, we do not have souls, we are souls. The immaterial soul is an invention of Greek philosophy which has made its way into Christian theology.  Modern Christian philosophers[13]have proposed Christian Materialism, the view that immortality does not mean immortality of the soul; rather it means we will all be resurrected one day.  

Although it is true that the Bible does not give a comprehensive view of the anthropology of the human person, whether it is dualism or materialism, that does not mean that we can assume that materialism is true.  Furthermore, the following passages indicate a strong leaning of the Scriptures (New Testament) toward a dualism of human nature. 

  • “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43), the Lord Jesus tells the thief on the cross next to him.  How can this be if the human person is just a body and both of them will be in the grave soon?  
  • In Matt 17:1-9; Mark  9:2-10; Luke 9:28-36, Jesus speaks with Moses and Elijah, how can that happen since Moses and Elijah have been dead for over a century? 
  • The Lord Jesus said that God is “not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him” (Luke 20:38). This implies that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive now, not will be alive in the resurrection.  How can they be alive now, if they are their bodies which are in graves?
  • The Lord Jesus made a sharp distinction between body and soul saying “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell. (Matt 10:28, Luke 12:4-5).  There is implied here that something else will suffer beyond the death of the body for the unbelievers. 
  • The apostle Paul wrote “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake” (Phil 1:21-24). He wished to “depart” his flesh to be with Christ. How can he depart his flesh if he is his flesh?  How can he go to Christ at death if he will be in a grave awaiting the resurrection? 
  • The book of Hebrews speaks of “the spirit of righteous [people] made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23).  It implies that the souls of these men are “made perfect.” 
  • In the book of Revelations 6:9 and 20:4, the souls of the martyred cry out to God.  How can this happen if Christian materialism is true? [14]

The preceding verses indicate that a holistic dualism is what is taught in the Scriptures. We are beings with both a soul and body.  Now that we have established the soul and that the soul is taught in Scripture as a substance in its own right, let us now turn to the nature of the sexual soul.

Objection 4 

Christ said “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:30).  We can be assured that our souls are asexual.  

This objection is also argued in the Baha’i faith as well.

The soul is a refection of the attributes of God. If you always thought of yourself as a male soul in a male body, then you may have felt that you should only reflect ‘masculine’ virtues like courage, strength and perseverance. But God is neither male nor female. There is no battle going on between god and goddess, because God is far beyond the limitations of gender. If we are to achieve our full spiritual potential, we must learn to see ourselves and others as souls first, bodies second, and genders a distant third.[15]  

First we do not have souls. We are souls.  We do not have bodies, we are bodies.  We are bodies and souls which are sexual entities.  

To say we have souls or bodies is to assume that we are not identical to our body or soul.  Humans are psychosomatic beings that have two natures, body and soul together.  In the afterlife we will be like the angles, not marrying, but we will have spiritual bodies (spiritual not in the sense of non-physical, but transcendent, and body not in the sense that it is non-spiritual, but wholly perfect).[16]  

The Lord Jesus was fully male in his resurrected body.  What about after he received his resurrected body and after his death? Did he stop being male or masculine between his death and resurrection?  I argue no. (See Luke 23:43–46, Peter 3:15–20).  He did “go” somewhere during the interim period between the cross and his resurrection.  Theologians debate where exactly he went, but we do know that he did not cease to exist during that period of time.  He was still the Lord Jesus, as masculine as we can ever hope to be. This is evidence by the fact of other figures such as the appearances of the men like Moses and Elijah on the mount of transfiguration.   They were “dead” in the physical sense, but the final resurrection had not yet occurred.

Marry Hairs states that “This contrast [Matt 22:30] suggests that the resurrection body will be without sexual passions or procreative powers, not that the resurrected righteous will be sexless (since sexual identity is retained as part of the personality, and personality is retained in the resurrection.)” [17]  In regard to neither marrying nor being given in marriage, it does not follow that marriage is absolutely necessary for sexuality. This is a false and lamentable pretension pressed upon us.  We do not need to be married to be men or women.  It is unfortunate that we as the children of God have allowed this notion to invade the church.

Sexuality permeates one’s individual being to its very depth; it conditions every facet of one’s life as a human. As the self is always aware of itself as “I,” so this “I” is always aware of itself as him or herself. Our self-knowledge is indissolubly bound up with our sexuality. At the human level there is no “I” or “you” per se, but only the “I” who is male or female confronting the “you,” the other, who is also male or female.  

Thus although we will be like angles, we will still be human. And to be human is to be sexual.   Show me a human who is not sexual and I will show you a non-human. 

Sex is not dependent on marriage. To put it another way, our sexual nature is not dependent on us having sexual affairs.  Moreover, Robert Farrar Capon wrote “Suppose I wrote a book called, The Sexual Life of a Nun. You know what people would think. They would be curious or shocked. . . .   For a nun’s life of course is utterly sexual.  She thinks as a woman, prays as a woman, reacts as a woman and commits herself as a woman.”[18]  One need not be having sex to be sexual.  

Objection 5 

Sexuality is something that is more cultural and physical than it is spiritual. We are given roles to play by society and thus we subconsciously accommodate ourselves to them. 

This is an idea that is possibly true given the presupposition that there is no transcendent reality.  It is true that many times in history we have imposed certain roles on each other. But could it be possible that we have at least some of these “cultural” ideas for a reason?

Peter Kreeft of Boston College gives an articulate experiential defense:

The words ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity,’ meaning something more than merely biological maleness and femaleness, have been reduced from archetypes to stereotypes. Traditional expectations that men be men and women be women are confused because we no longer know what to expect men and women to be. Yet, though confused, the expectations remain. Our hearts desire, even while our minds reject the old ‘stereotypes.’ The reason being the old stereotypes were closer to our innate sexual instincts than are new stereotypes. We have sexist hearts even while we have unisex heads. Evidence for this claim? More people are attracted to the old stereotypes than to the new ones. Romeo still wants to marry Juliet.[19]  

However, we cannot ignore the fact that some things are culturally defined. For example for women, wearing lipstick, fingernail polish, carrying a purse, and in most western cultures, the shaving of legs.[20]For men this may mean wearing a suit and opening doors for women. Sometimes women are paid less than men for the same job and treated inferior for their sex.  But we should not generalize from things like that and judge that men who are protecting and supporting their families are sexists.  Some things could have been divinely planned that way.  Again Professor Kreeft does a better job of articulating this:

Have you ever wondered why almost all languages except English attribute sexuality to things? Trees, rocks, ships, stars, horns, kettles, circles, accidents, trips, ideas, feelings — these and not just men and women, are masculine or feminine. Did you always assume unthinkingly that this was of course a mere projection and personification, a reading of our sexuality into nature rather than reading nature’s own sexuality out of it (or rather out of her)? Did it ever occur to you that it just might be the other way around, that human sexuality is derived from cosmic sexuality rather than visa versa, that we are a local application of a universal principle?[21]

Thus, it cannot be deduced that electricity or gravity are manmade just because man uses it. The same can be said about sex roles.  Just because we have them, does not necessarily mean that they all are artificial. 

Objection 6 

Sexuality is not part of our souls because the physical world is evil and only the spiritual world is the good one. 

It is commonly held that physical things are less special or “evil”.  This idea is from the Gnostics and is not Christian at all.  In fact, it is one of the great heresies of Church history called Gnostic Docetism.  The book of 1stJohn is written to combat this idea. Christ himself had a physical body. He was born in one, died in one, and was raised from the dead in one.  When God created the physical world, the Scriptures tell us that it was good seven times (See Genesis 1)!  The notion that matter is evil is not Biblical. 

We are physical and spiritual; unique in all God’s creation. The animals are physical and the angels are spiritual. We are both, as our Lord who is the God/Man.  We humans have access to both realities of spirit and physical realms.  But because we are both physical and spiritual entities, we must understand that we are more than just bodies and just souls. We are images of God physical and spiritual.  A microcosm of the macrocosm. C.S. Lewis wrote “It is a serious thing…to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only a nightmare.”[22]  

Our resurrected bodies will be extravagant. They will be from God (Rom. 8:11,) spiritual (1 Cor 15:45,) imperishable (Rom. 6:9,) suffused with glory (2 Cor. 4:6; Phil. 3:21a; cf Acts 22:6,11,) powerful (Phil. 3:10, 21b) and heavenly (I Cor. 15:49; 1 Thess. 4:16; cf. Acts 26:13, 19,) They will also be sexual, ie. male or female as Christ’s body is.[23]

Howard Eilberg-Schwartz said it well, “human embodiment and sexuality are considered good; but they are good because God said so ( Gen. 1:31) and because they are products of God’s creative activity.”[24]

So if Christ was a “he” when he had his resurrection body, can it not be reasonable to assume that we will be either a he or a she in our resurrected body also?

Objection 7

The image of God or the imago Dei, is not physical since God is not physical. The fact that we are created in the image of God proves we are spiritual not physical beings, essentially.  Therefore since sex is a physical thing, we are not sexual beings, only trapped in sexual bodies. 

God is a trinity, and although God the Father is a spirit, God the Son is very much physical.  He took on flesh and in flesh he rose again. Physicality is not limited to the animal and human kingdom.  Divinity took on human flesh and redeemed it, giving it an importance it never had before. Because Christ rose and lives in a resurrected body we also will rise one day with resurrected bodies.  

The idea that the essential nature of man is a soul or mind is linked to some theologians as well as Plato and Descartes, but not with Scripture, and it has nothing to do with the imago Dei.[25]  God did not err when he made Adam a male body — and there were no distinctions drawn between body and soul when Scripture declared man as made in the image of God. Sadly, however, this notion has also found it’s way into Christian theology. St. Thomas Aquinas states that the image of God is only in the mind (spiritual).  Aquinas writes: “Man’s excellence consists in the fact that God made him in His own image by giving him an intellectual soul, which raises him above the beasts of the field. Therefore things without intellect are not made in God’s image.”[26]

This idea seeped into Protestant theologians like John Calvin who also states that the imago Dei is only in the soul of man, “For although God’s glory shines forth in the outer man, yet there is no doubt that the proper seat of the [God’s] image is in the soul.[27]”

This is problematic. Again it has its roots more in secular philosophy than in Scripture.  There isn’t a place in all of Scripture where one will find this idea.  Instead man is looked at as a whole being, both body and soul.  The new body we will be given will be able to experience the sensual and spiritual pleasures in ways we can never do in these bodies affected by the ravages of sin.  Thus the glory and pleasures of heaven will be fully experienced. To the opposite extent of the spectrum, the agony of hell will be experienced fully as well.  

Anthony Hoekema makes the observation that we cannot be fully God’s image without the other sex. He says that man and woman together are the image of God. Sexuality is not a secondary state, but at the very heart of our being.[28]  This has its problems as well though. Dr. Bruce Ware (Professor of Christian Theology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and former president of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood) points out that this is not a new philosophy. It comes from Karl Barth.  He goes on to say that this view cannot be correct in light of Gen 9:6 where a man is considered to have assaulted the image of God by killing one person. It would not technically be the image of God unless this man was killed with a woman at the same time. Second, Jesus is called the ‘image of the invisible God’ in Col 1:15, yet he is one man. Third, ‘all single individuals, including Jesus, John the Baptist, and Paul, are fully in the image of God.”[29] It is also important to note that sex is not exclusively for humans.  Animals are also made into two sexes[30]and I would argue that some angels represent a male and female image as well.  In the book of Zechariah 5:9-10, there is a vision given of angels that are described as female in form. “Right after this I saw two women coming through the sky like storks with wings outstretched in the wind. Suddenly they lifted the basket into the air . . . .” 

However, human beings alone, among living organisms, bear the imago Dei.“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him” (Genesis 1:27).  The imago Dei has been prominent since its inception in the Torah.  There are many view points on what exactly it encompasses.  Paul K. Jewett writes: “The reason why the concept of the divine image has become so prominent in Christian anthropology is obvious: it confers on the human subject the highest possible distinction, leaving the world of animals far behind.  . . . In other words, Christian anthropology is done from above, not from below.”[31]  

Nevertheless, what is this imago Dei? Dr. C. Ben Mitchell Associate Professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, wrote: “Curiously, nowhere do the scriptures tell us precisely what the image of God consists of. Nevertheless, theologians and biblical commentators are not shy about inferring content to the image of God. Garrett observes, for instance, that theological interpretations of the imago Dei have included (1) humankind’s erect bodily form, (2) human dominion over nature, (3) human reason, (4) human prelapsarian righteousness, (5) human capacities, (6) juxtaposition between man and woman, (7) responsible creaturehood and moral conformity to God, and (8) some composite view.”[32] 

Dr. Mitchell concludes that the imago Dei may not be what we Westerners think it is.  He cites the work of the Eastern Orthodox scholar John Zizioulas that the Western way of looking at the human person or the imago Dei, is insufficient.  “What is a person?” or “what quality makes us persons in the image of God?,” are the wrong questions.  Zizioulas argues that it is who we are as social beings that makes us persons in God’s image, rather than what we are.  The fact that we can even function as persons at all is because we are first intrinsically personal beings.  Mitchell quotes Zizioulas:  “. . . identity of a person is recognized and posited clearly and unequivocally, but this is so only in and through a relationship, and not through an objective ontology in which this identity would be isolated, pointed at and described in itself.  Personal identity is totally lost if isolated, for its ontological condition is relationship.”[33]  If I understand Professor Mitchell’s explanation well—it is more important who we are than what we are.  Who we are is made in community from what we already are in the flesh.  What we are is and may very well be inexplicable.  But who we are is just as, if not more, important then what we are.  We are embodied persons who are cultivated and given value, our very existence, from God in community.  I think this is a very good starting point for understanding this perplexing issue. 

I would add that “human persons” cannot exist, let alone be understood, in isolation of others.  Dennis Kinlaw wrote that “The person, in striking contrast, never comes alone.  If the revelation of God found in Christ is true, there never has been a person who existed alone, not even God.  The God revealed by Jesus is one whose inner divine life is a life of communion of persons, persons who found their identity not in themselves but in one another.”[34]

Taking this illustration of relationships as integral to the imago Dei, we can posit that our sexuality, our psychology, and our biology are all for relationships with each other — ultimately with, and for, God. 

Objection 8

The reason God became a man is because of social/cultural reasons; he could have easily come as a woman and still fulfilled the mandates of Scripture.  In the same way, our gender or sexual nature is irrelevant to God.  

Feminists’ theologians have even tried to argue that God the Father of the Bible is neither masculine or feminine.  I cannot but agree that he is not a male, but to say that he can be called “Heavenly Mother,”[35]as Jann Aldredge-Clanton writes, is coming close to paganism.  Catherine Kroeger writes, “Can Christians neglect any aspect of God’s being as it is revealed in Scripture? There is good biblical reason, then, to speak of God as both Father and Mother, both “she” and “he”.”[36]The implications of this are that we are androgynous in our souls as well, since this is what God is like.  Now this is not a paper about the sexual nature of God, but it is an issue I will briefly address here as it relates to the topic on hand.    

Professor Bruce Ware’s article, “Could Our Savior Have Been a Woman?” is very helpful in showing the relevance of Jesus’ maleness for his mission, and indirectly how our sexuality matters to God. Ware offers twelve important reasons “for concluding that the male gender of Jesus was essential both to the reality of his incarnation identity and to the accomplishment of his incarnation mission.”[37]  Below are nine of the twelve reasons (with scriptural references from Micah Daniel Carter):

  1. Jesus Christ’s pre-incarnate existence and identity is clearly revealed to be that of the eternal Son of the Father.  
  2. Jesus came as the Second Adam, the Man who stands as Head over his new and redeemed race (Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22).
  3. The Abrahamic covenant requires that the Savior who would come, as the promised descendant of Abraham, would be a man (Genesis 12; 15; 17; genealogies of Matthew 1 and Luke 3; Galatians 3).
  4. The Davidic covenant explicitly requires that the One who will reign forever on the throne of David be a Son of David, and hence a man (2 Samuel 7; Ezekiel 34:23-24; 37:24-28; Luke 1:31-33).
  5. The Savior who would come must come as a prophet like unto Moses, as predicted by Moses and fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and so he must be a man (Deuteronomy 18:15; Acts 3:22).
  6. Our new and permanent High Priest, whose office is secured as sins are atoned for and full pardon is pleaded on our behalf before the Father, must be a man.
  7. Christ came also as the glorious King of Kings, reigning over the nations in splendor and righteousness, and to be this King, he must be a man (Isaiah 9:6-7; Hebrews 1:8 [reflecting Psalm 45:6-7]; Matthew 19:28; Revelation 19:11-21).
  8. Because the risen Christ is now presented to the Church, not only as her Lord and King, but also as her Bridegroom, the Savior to come must have been a man (Ephesians 5; Revelation 18:23; 19:7; 21:2, 9; 22:17).
  9. Because our Savior came as the “Son of Man” it is necessary that he come as a man.

These reasons reflect the importance of Jesus’ sexuality, and indirectly tell us, whether we are male or female, that our sexuality is also important to our God. 

Objection 9

 Since when we die we will be present with the Lord,[38]and our bodies will stay on earth, we cannot be sexual without our bodies.  In the Resurrection we will reclaim our bodies and our sexuality, but not in the intermediate state between death and Judgment Day.  Therefore our souls are asexual.

The time between the death of the human person and the resurrection of his body is commonly called by Christian theologians and historians as the “intermediate state.”  The term in the New Testament, Hades always refers to this intermediate state[39]as a time of waiting.[40]What are we then at that point? Am I still a male while I am waiting for my body? In I Corinthians 15 Paul gives us details on how the body will be. There will be some who have “fallen asleep[41]” and they will be raised too. Are these people still sexual in their intermediate state?  I will say yes, but with a qualification.  Remember that Elijah and Enoch never died and the lord Jesus, with them, went to heaven in his physical body.

The lord Jesus is not the only one who had a sexual body after he died and came back. See I Samuel : 11-15. The Samuel that retuned from the dead was a ghost like masculine being, not an it.  See also Matthew 17: 1-13. Moses and Elijah were there and were recognized by Peter as males.  They were something beyond physical but still men, at least all the evidence points that way from the passages. I challenge anyone to show asexual humans in the Scriptures.

An analogy I will use is that of software and hardware of a computer system.  When we die, our immortal software (soul) is pulled from the perishable “hardware,” (i.e. our body) and put in a state of waiting in God’s presence. We are still men and women, but incomplete men and women. Since we are only ½ who we are meant to be, I stand with St. Thomas Aquinas who noted that “no part has its natural perfection separate from the whole. Hence the soul, since it is part of human nature, does not have its natural perfection unless it is in union with the body…. Hence the soul, though it can exist and understand separate from the body, does not have its natural perfection when it is separate from the body.”[42]We do not have our hardware to fully express who we are created to be in the intermediate state.  But I will still be Khaldoun Sweis, the masculine human being, waiting for his resurrected body.  God did not make a mistake while making male and female.  He will not unmake us. He will remake us.

Herman Bavinck states that “Man’s body also belongs to the image of God…the body is not a tomb, but a wonderful masterpiece of God, constituting the essence of man as fully as the soul…it belongs essentially to man that, though through sin it is violently torn away from the soul [in death], it is nevertheless again united with the soul in the resurrection.[43]”

The redeemed will be given back their hardware, but this time it will be fully compatible with the software, free from the curse of sin.  Finally, I will say that a clear reading of the Scriptures will reveal that our sexuality is not an afterthought of the almighty, but part of his plan for us both in this life and in the next. We must be careful on this topic to avoid making any dogmatic statements.  I have conjectured much in this paper and ask for forgiveness and correction where I may have been mistaken in diving too far into esoteric matters such as this, as one risks a greater chance of committing heresy by doing so.  Thus, God made us male and female.  That was not our choice. Our choice is whether we will be real men and women.  

Conclusions

We are now, and will stay sexual beings in the afterlife. Some reasons to consider why this is so:

  • Sexuality is not just something we do, it is something we are. We don’t have to be having sex to be sexual beings. A nun is as much a woman as a prostitute is.  
  • In heaven, God will redeem what man has corrupted.  God does not unmake what he calls “good.” (Genesis 1: 10,18, 21, 25, 31.) God made our bodies sexual, and they were good. 
  • We do not have souls, we are souls. We do not have bodies we are bodies. Thus at the Resurrection we will be fully human, masculine or feminine without sin.
  • Although we will be like angles in heaven, we will still be human. And to be human is to be sexual.
  • We are physical and spiritual. Unique in all God’s creation. The animals are physical and the angels are spiritual. We are both.
  • If Christ was a “he” when he had his resurrected body, is it not reasonable to assume that we will be men and women in our resurrected bodies as well? 
  • We do not have the image of God, as if it can be taken from us.  We are the image of God.
  • A computer that has its program removed is useless and for all practical proposes, dead, until it gets its programming back.  Bodies that lose their souls are dead.  So we, at the Resurrection will come out of the intermediate state (internet database) and be given back our bodies (hardware) but this time they will be fully compatible with the software (our soul).  We will be a fully integrated system!  

God the sex maker himself tells us through the words of Paul what he has planned for us:

“No eye has seen

no ear has heard,

no mind conceived

what God has prepared

for those that love him”

 (I Corinthians 2:9b).

ENDNOTES

[1]There are medical anomalies such as hermaphrodites, where a child is born with both ovarian and testicular tissues and internal reproductive organs.  This is a very rare condition called after the combination of the Greek names for the gods Hermes and Aphrodite.  When we find signs of disorder like these tragic cases in nature, as Hume did and dismissed the teleological argument because of them, that does not dismiss the order there isin nature. Furthermore, disorder assumes an order.  You cannot have something wrong with X, unless there was something right with X in the first place.  Sin has not only morally and spiritually affected mankind; it has also had terrible effects on our biological natures as well. Hermaphrodites are just one example of the many diseases and mutations find in the human species as a result of original sin, or the sin of Adam. 

[2]Collaer, M. L., & Hines, M. (1995) “Human behavioral sex differences: A role for gonadal hormones during early development?” Psychological Bulletin, 118, 55-107. Guttentag, M., & Secord, P. F. (1983) Too many women?(Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1983). Halpern, D. F. Sex differences in cognitive abilities,3rd ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum 2000). Hyde, J. S. (1996) “Where are the gender differences? Where are the gender similarities?” In Sex, Power, Conflict: Evolutionary and Feminist Perspectives, D. M. Buss & N. M. Malamuth, eds., (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 107-118.  Kimura, D., Sex and cognition(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999). Silverman, I., & Eals, M. (1992). “Sex differences in spatial abilities: Evolutionary theory and data.” In The Adapted Mind, J. H. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby eds., (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1992), 595612. All cited in Paul Okami, “Human sex differences in sexual psychology and behavior” Annual Review of Sex Research, (2001) by Okami, Paul,  Shackelford, Todd K

[3]Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhooded. by Wayne Grudem and John Piper, ed. (Wheaton IL: Crossway, 1991).

[4]There is of course methodological and metaphysical naturalism, and my critique applies to metaphysical naturalism. 

[5]See T. Crane and D. H. Mellor, “There Is No Question of Physicalism,” Mind99 (1990); cited in Troy Cross, review of Michael Rae, World Without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews2003.07.14.

[6]T. Cross, review of Michael Rae, World Without Design.

[7]Norman Geisler and Paul Feinberg Introduction to Philosophy. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1980 ), 182.

[8]See Revonsuo, A. 1999. “Binding and the phenomenal unity of consciousness,” Consciousness and Cognition8: 173-185.  T. Bayne and D. J. Chalmers, “What is the Unity of Consciousness?” in A. Cleeremans ed., The Unity of Consciousness: Binding, Integration, Dissociation(Oxford: Oxford, 2003); also available at http://consc.net/papers/unity.html, last accessed 21 August 2007. S. Shoemaker writes “Perfect unity of consciousness, then, would consist of a unified representation of the world accompanied by a unified representation of that representation,” Shoemaker, S. 1996 “Unity of Consciousness and Consciousness of Unity,” The First-Person Perspective and Other Essays(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); quoted from T. Bayne, “Self-consciousness and the Unity of Consciousness,” forthcoming in The Monist 2004; available at http://www.phil.mq.edu.au/staff/tbayne/self_consciousness.pdf; last accessed 21 August, 2007.

[9]F. Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul(New York: Touchstone, 1995), 159, 262. 

[10]W. Hasker, “On Behalf of Emergent Dualism,” in In Search of the Soul eds. J. B. Green and S. L. Palmer (Downers Grove, InterVarsity, 2005), 92. 

[11]N. Malcolm, “The Conceivability of Mechanism,” Philosophical Review77 (1968): 67-58.

[12]I accept a compatibilist position on free will because of the tension in Scripture of human responsibility and divine providence such as but not limited to Phil 2:12-13, “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (NASB).  A compatibilist is defined as “a human action is `free’ if the following requirements are met (1) the immediate cause of the action is a desire, wish, or intention internal to the agent; (2) there is no external event or circumstance that compels the action to be performed; and (3) the agent could have acted differently, if she had chosen to.  If these criteria are satisfied, the action comes, as we might say, `from within’; it cannot rightly be said that the agent is forced to perform it.  This is `compatibilist’ free will, because it holds that free will is compatible with deterministic causation, so long as the three conditions are satisfied.” Reason & Religious Belief ed. M. Peterson, W. Hasker, B. Reichenbach and D. Basinger 5thedition. (New York NY: Oxford University Press, 2003) 158. 

[13]There has been a resurgence of Christian materialists writings in the past decade such as Whatever Happened to the Soul: Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature, eds. Warren S. Brown, Nancey Murphy, H. Newton Malony  (Minneapolis MN: Fortress, 1989).  Kevin J. Corcoran, Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alternative to the Soul (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2006). L. R. Baker, Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Malcolm Jeeves, Reflections on the Science of Mind and Brain(Grand Rapids, MI, 2003). 

[14]See Paul Copan, How do you know you’re not Wrong (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker 2005 ) 90-97, for a helpful summary of this.  Also, for an excellent defense of the dualism of human nature from a philosophical and Biblical position, see John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000).

[15]Nine things Men Gain by Promoting the Equality of Women. Pamphlet published by the Bah’ai Faith, no name give. For free copies call 1800-326-1197.

[16]Murray J. Harris Raised Immortal: Resurrection and Immortality in the New Testament.  (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,  1983), 119-123.

[17]Murray, 123

[18]Robert Farrar Capon, Bed and Board: Plain Talk About Marriage(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965), p. 49. Available at 

http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/mosynod/web/sxty-02.html#fn-2 ; last accessed 21 August, 2007.

[19]Peter Kreeft, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven: But Never Dreamed of Asking(San Francisco CA : Ignatius, 1990), 119.

[20]Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood ed. by Piper and Grudem. (Wheaton IL : Crossway Books 1991), 307.

[21]Peter Kreeft, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven: But Never Dreamed of Asking.(Ignatius: San Francisco, 1990), 125.  Please note that in quoting this, I am not arguing that sexuality is an inherent characteristic of inanimate objects!

[22]C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), 14-15.

[23]Murray J. Harris, Raised Immortal: Resurrection and Immortality in the New Testament(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983), 125. 

[24]Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, “People of the Body: The Problem of the Body for the People of the Book,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 2, no. 1 (1991): 15.

[25]Plato, The Timawus,90 C; Aristotle, De Anima, Bk. 1, 408b; also Nic. Ethics Bk. 10, 1177b.

[26]St. Thomas 1: Q 93:2. 

[27]John Calvin,Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), I.15.3. This is again, I am sure without Calvin’s intention, reinforcing the Gnostic view of the divine and the world. 

[28]Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1986), Chap. 5.pg. 97.

[29]Bruce Ware, Male Priority in Man and Woman as the Image of God.Paper delivered at the Evangelical Theological Society Nov, 15, 2000. 

[30]Some insect species are hermaphrodites in nature.  

[31]Paul K. Jewett with Marguerite Shuster, Who We Are: Our Dignity as Human (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1996), p. 54.

[32]James Leo Garrett, Systematic Theology: Biblical, Historical, & Theological, Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990], 394-403). Charles Sherlock notes that the image of God in humankind must involve “relationships with God, one another, and creation.” (Charles Sherlock, The Doctrine of Humanity[Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996], 73.); cited in the original manuscript of  C. B. Mitchell. “Persons Beyond Roe v. Wade: The Post-Human Age?”The Southern Baptist Theological Journal, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Summer 2003).

[33]J. D. Zizioulas, “On Being a Person: Towards an Ontology of Personhood,” in Christoph Schwöbel and Colin E. Gunton (eds), Persons Divine and Human[Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991], 33, 45-56. ; cited in the original manuscript of  C. B. Mitchell. “Persons Beyond Roe v. Wade: The Post-Human Age?”The Southern Baptist Theological Journal, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Summer 2003).

[34]Dennis Kinlaw, “Human Personhood & Intercessory Prayer,”  Conversations: A Forum for Authentic Transformation Vol. 2:1 (Spring 2004) : 41. 

[35]Jan Aldredge-Clanton, God, A Word for Girls and Boys (Louisville, KY: Glad River Productions, 1993); cited in “Our Mother Who Art in Heaven: A brief Overview and Critque of Evangelical Feminists and the Use of Feminine God-Language,” by Randy Stinson, Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Vol. 8 No. 2.

[36]Richard and Katherine Kroeger, “Women Elders . . . Sinners or Servants?” (First Presbyterian Church, Pittman, NJ Accessed 20 September 2003); available from http://firstpresby.org/womenelders.htm#Unit1; Internet; cited in “Our Mother Who Art in Heaven: A Brief Overview and Critique of Evangelical Feminists and the Use of Feminine God-Language,” by Randy Stinson, Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Vol. 8 No. 2. 

[37]Bruce A. Ware, “Could Our Savior Have Been a Woman?,”Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood8/1 (Spring 2003): 33; cited in “Reconsidering the Maleness of Jesus,” by Micah Daniel Carter,  presented at the Evangelical Theological Society

Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA November 14-16, 2007. 

[38]Luke 23:43 “Today you will be with me in paradise.”-Jesus 

[39]“Hadës´” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G Kittle and G. Friedrich; English translation by G.W. Bromiley, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1964-1974 ),vol 1. 148.

[40]In the book of Revelations 6:9 and 20:4, the souls of the martyred cry out to God. This implies that there is an intermediate state.  

[41]The doctrine of “Soul Sleep” does not seem to be taught by scripture.  See W Grudem,  Systematic Theology  (Leicester, England: InterVarsity, 1994), 819-821. 

[42]T Aquinas, “Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creatures” q. un., a. 2, ad 5. Compare Aquinas, “Quaestiones disputatae de potentia dei,” q. 5, a. 10; ST supp., q. 93, a. 1. cited in Jason T. Eberl, “Aquinas on the Nature of Human Beings,” The Review of Metaphysics,58, no. 2 (2004).

[43]Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image(Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company 1986), 68.

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