Deacon, thanks for the correction. Perhaps instead is what I was trying to convey is that there is a complementarity to male and female. Each bring something to the intellectual, societal, and of course, sexual, table. As the French like to say, vive la difference!

George, the idea that there are two opposing principles like yin and yang permeating the created order is plainly pagan and not Christian. The Fathers more often stressed the shared nature of the sexes — “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh” — just as they always stressed the shared nature of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Talk of yin and yang inevitably takes us where we don’t want to go — to defining God as “male” compared to creation and the Son and the Holy Spirit as “female” compared to the Father. There is a better way to think of these things, as I’ve explained in SVTQ.

I kinda like the Taoist idea of the “yin and yang” which in its cosmology, permeates the created order. I think that even if there had been no Fall and no need for sexual intercourse, that male and female would have brought different and complimentary things to the table so to speak. That’s why I believe that in the Resurrection we will still recognize our sexual differences but they will be idealized to such an extent that we won’t see them in a distorted fashion as we do presently (as we do when we objectify the opposite sex through erotica and the like).

Just a guess though.

Michael, I think I see what you mean, but take a look at my article “The Problem with Hierarchy: Ordered Relations in God and Man” in the fall 2010 issue (Vol. 54, No. 2) of St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly. There’s another way to look at things that relates sex/gender to other relationships without ascribing it to those other relationships. In that other way, we can make more sense of many things and avoid having to say that God is male and creation is female.

Dn Brian,

Sorry for the confusion, I simply mean that gender synergy can and does occur without overt sexual (flirting to intercourse) activity. The biological differentiation is part of that, is a reflection of that. Not the other way round.

There is also a sense that we are all female before God IMO.

Yes, definitions are needed. My my vantage point, sex (biological differentiation) is ‘built into creation” — you see it with your own eyes after all, and gender is the construct.

Well, now you got me. I can understand “biological” sexual differentiation as a “sub-set” (or rather aspect, component) of gender. But you seem to allow that there such a thing as gender that is not sexual. For me to understand you, I need discrete definitions of sex and gender. As I understand them, I would have to disagree with you.

Now, in my own understanding, there is a difference between the sexes/genders that reflects other differences between persons, all based on the archical relationship of the Persons of the Trinity. But sex/gender only pertain to one category of such difference. There is no difference of sex or gender within the Trinity, nor any difference of sex or gender between a father and his son, between a king and his people, or between a priest and his parish.

Dn Brian, I do not mean “biological sexual differentiation” Gender is built into creation and allows for a particular type of synergy. Sexual differentiation is a sub-set

I myself do not feel that the distinction of sex and gender is clear enough to be useful yet. We could, of course, agree to define them a certain way and go from there, but we can’t assume that anyone outside our agreement would understand them they way we’ve defined them. To most people, gender just means what sex used to mean and still sometimes means: the difference of male and female, whether biological or otherwise.

Does Michael really mean “the purpose of biological sexual differentiation” when he says “the purpose of gender”? I don’t know, but I can see an important purpose to the difference of male and female that is not related to biological differentiation. The man and woman are meant to relate to one another in a way that reflects relations within the Trinity — that is, they were meant to relate to one another “archically,” the man being the source or beginning (“arche”) of the woman. This is, interestingly, the only difference between the man and the woman mentioned in the creation account of Genesis chapters 2 and 3. It is also the only basis the Apostle Paul mentions for the head-and-body relationship of husbands and wives, which he says is analogous to the Father and the Son.

So we can’t hang too much on the difference of biology. The greater mystery is the way the man and woman are meant to relate, and the body’s part in that relation is more to assign the roles than to define the roles. It’s up to us to define the roles and impress them upon the young. Each society will define them a little differently, and their definitions will change over time. Nevertheless the healthy society will maintain the basic archical, head-and-body relationship between the roles. Feminists may dismiss all sex roles as mere “social constructs,” but the truth is that traditional sex roles are ordained by God and that our construction of them is part of our complicity with God in our salvation.

The purpose of biological sexual differentiation (biological sex) is to….

“Gender” is a term we use these days to define what the term “sex” used to mean, ie: biological differentiation. Sex is fixed (forget trans-“gender” tampering for the moment). “Gender” actually refers to how sex is expressed culturally and thus deals with social constructions, and “sex” with biology. In dropping the term “sex” from the common vocabulary (“make love” morphs into “have sex”), our concepts about biological differentiation are perceived to be social constructs as well. Anything goes, even “trans-gender.” I wonder how soon before we discover “multi-gendered.”

STOP THE PRESSES!

On a hunch I decided to check out my idea and Googled “multi-gender.” It’s already here.

Well, yes, but the UN is not be the proper forum in which to either explain or provide and apologetic for the Catholic view. As I see it, he is trying to head off the criminalization of any criticism of homosexuality, or at least any resolution to that effect. (You wonder if Hillary is working to that end in the background.)

On further reflection, I wonder how Tomasi’s distinction of action and being squares with the Thomistic identification of the essence of God as “Pure Act,” but not being well-versed in RC theology, I can only wonder.

I see your point, Father, but after very carefully distinguishing between sexual “thoughts and feelings” and sexual “behavior,” Tomasi then begins talking about “human sexuality,” which he defines only in terms of behavior (“activity”). He also fails to define “identity” and “being.” Someone well-versed in Roman Catholic anthropology might know what he’s talking about, but he’s not talking to people well-versed in Roman Catholic anthropology.

But the purpose of the statement is not to provide a moral treatise on homosexuality, but to distinguish between the regulation of thoughts and behavior. If the distinction between thoughts and behavior collapses, then the criminalization of motives (“hate-crime” legislation and such) that the gay-lobby and other leftists seek becomes inevitable.