Thought for the Day: Truly Catholic

Any church that seeks to claim truly catholic standing, truly universal scope, but which bases its self-understanding in anything other than union with and unity in Jesus Christ through the sacrament of Baptism, celebrated and made present in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, has embraced a paradoxical and ultimately false concept of catholicism and universality.

Whether the limiting factor is a set of doctrines to which one must ascribe belief, or a hierarchy one is bound to obey, this limit shifts the understanding of the entity away from the Body of Christ incarnate, to that set of doctrines or assembly of hierarchs.

Some might suggest the thought I'm expressing moves us away from a truly incarnational understanding; but my suggestion is that this confuses incarnation with institution. There are, of course, institutional realities in any church body, but my thought is that the truly universal and catholic church must be more than an institution, and must by its very nature include all those who have become members of that transcendent Body, regardless of their doctrinal or obedientiary particularities. That Body is wounded and impaired by the divisions and arguments that take place between its members, but there is also a real functionality to those members that may serve the larger purposes of the Body in ways we cannot yet fathom. Yet One Body it is, and we are all in this together.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Getting Real

The leadership in the Church of England is in the difficult position of wanting to oppose homophobia while retaining a doctrine that gives homophobia its underpinning. They ran into a similar bind when, in an effort to scuttle last year’s changes in civil marriage, they tried to pretend (contrary to the facts) that they had been supporters of the alternative of civil partnerships. Until the church can free itself both from mendacity and illusion, it will make little progress.

The real problem, of course, is that few in the church are willing to admit that “traditional” marriage does not qualify as one of those things that meets the test of Vincent’s canon (“always believed, everywhere, by all”). Yet it acts is if that were the case, talking about a biblical “definition” where one in fact finds myriad “descriptions” and a long and controverted history of reflection as to what constitutes marriage, and a longer series of equally contesting regulations concerning who can marry whom.

Had they approached the latest proposal (adopted by the state) as simply one more variation in an ongoing symphony, perfectly at harmony with much of the foregoing (though clearly dissonant with much of it as well) there might have been some productive dialogue and thoughtful engagement. But the pretense of a monolithic and unchanging “institution” from the time of creation even to this day is risible to anyone familiar with the Bible or the human history which that Bible in part records, to say nothing of the pilgrimage of the institution of marriage under the church’s care.

Marriage is not a proper subject of dogmatic theology, but at most of moral or pastoral theology. There is no core doctrine concerning marriage, and it is doubtful that the subject warrants a doctrine at all, and at least some of the efforts to construct a theological defense of marriage do more harm to theology than help to marriage. The church did very well without much doctrinal reflection on marriage for centuries. The creeds and classical Anglican catechisms are silent on it. The Articles of Religion refer to it as an estate allowed, and available to clergy as they see fit. There is no settled doctrine of marriage, only changing rules, laws, rites and ceremonies — all of these, as the Articles also remind us, subject to amendment by the church.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Creature Discomfort

Athanasius appears not to have been a cheerful chap. He had a good deal about which to be grumpy, including most importantly the threat that Arianism posed to the Christian faith. In his youth Athanasius attended the Council of Nicea, and he became and remained a powerful opponent of the teaching of Arius that rendered the Son of God a creature. To do this Athanasius had to step beyond the lexicon of Scripture to introduce the word homoousios  to describe the ontological unity of the Father and the Son, being "of one substance," and incidentally meaning just about the exact opposite of what we mean when we say that two things are "substantially the same." (This also demonstrates the principle that the truths of the faith cannot always be completely explained in the language of the Scripture.)

I'm continuing my venture of using living models for some of the early saints for whom no true likeness exists. Athanasius is usually portrayed as a sage elder, but I wanted to picture him more as the stern young man with penetrating gaze and the air of conviction he must have had in Nicea. So I asked my brother in Christ Joseph Basil if he was willing to model, and he agreed. I asked him to give me the hairy eyeball of a stern but concerned RN, and he obliged. So Athanasius is portrayed as one eager to bring the healing that adherence to a strict regimen and protocol provides. (Basil was one of Athanasius' biggest fans, by the way; he called him the "God-given physician of the church's wounds" — so a registered nurse is not too far off!)

Here is the collect for Athanasius:

Uphold your Church, O God of truth, as you upheld your servant Athanasius, to maintain and proclaim boldly the catholic faith against all opposition, trusting solely in the grace of your eternal Word, who took upon himself our humanity that we might share his divinity; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Chaotic Cosmos

There is a crying need for good popular science programing on TV. PBS still manages to come up with it on a regular basis (Nova, Nature) and there are some excellent series out there (Blue Planet, Planet Earth). But much of the cable world -- and you know who I mean -- seems more interested in hot-ticket alien abductions or exoticism of the Mondo Cane sort. When I heard that Neil deGrasse Tyson was involved in a reboot of the old Carl Sagan series, Cosmos, I was optimistic.

Too optiimistic. Tyson has done some good work in the past, and he has an engaging personality and enthusiasm. However, on viewing, I found the first episode chaotic and misdirected, with too many different sub-segments in no apparent logical order. Even Tyson seemed to have lost some of his infectious enthusiasm. Sadly that is the least of its problems. At base, it lost focus on its primary theme as an introductory episode, by getting sidetracked into a polemical cul de sac.

This was in the form of an over-long section on Giordano Bruno, which was deeply flawed for several reasons, most importantly in that it did not present a case for the conflict between the scientific method — which Tyson laid out briefly at one point: observation, experiment, testing, rejection of disproved hypotheses — and religious dogma.

It failed in being a helpful contribution because — as Tyson also briefly and somewhat off-handedly acknowledged — Bruno was not a scientist. He came to his views about the universe on the basis of theological and philosophical reflection (on Lucretius) and an ecstatic vision. The fact that he got a couple of details sort of correct on this basis is of no more import to the history of science than that Hinduism, for example, has had a better sense of the age of the cosmos than the Judeo-Christian tradition does.

Moreover, Bruno was not persecuted primarily on account of his cosmology, but on account of his peculiar doctrinal positions on almost every article of the Creed. He denied the Incarnation, for example, a detail somewhat (though likely unintentionally) reflected in the animated account of his trials by his repulsed turning away from the cross at his execution, an accurate detail based on eye-witness evidence. His reliance on private revelation was also deeply problematical and, of course, he could offer no scientific evidence for his views, since they did not arise from science, but pure speculation.

This was a conflict within a religious context, not one between dogma and reason. Bruno was as much a dogmatic religious ideologue as those who persecuted him. This was not about the scientific method running into conflict with a dogmatic religious institution. So why Bruno was chosen to be highlighted in this first diffuse episode -- rather than the one of the real scientists who ran into conflict not only with the church but other scientists (who can also be very dogmatic) — escapes me. Unless, that is, it was just meant as a cheap and dramatic shot against "religion." In which case, it missed, since Bruno was as "religious" as the church.

Oh, and speaking of religious, he was a friar (Dominican) and not a monk.

I'll return to see the second episode, but I hope it is better than the first, on all counts. Focus, people, focus!

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Asking the questions

Mark Vernon's Guardian column has a great catchline at the head, and while the article as a whole doesn't quite live up to the pugnacity and poignancy of the slug, it is well worth reading. The catchline or slug is,

Why do we have such an unbalanced attitude to doubt, demanding certainty where there is none, and pretending to doubt what everyone knows?

This got me thinking about the level of certainty with which some approach the question of same-sex marriage: they are completely sure it is ruled out by Scripture, in spite of the fact that the evidence is indirect and circumstantial (that is, the Scripture does not rule out SSM in so many words, unlike, for instance Sifra on Aharei Mot in the Jewish tradition); and yet they take a very chary attitude towards the evidence of the experience of those who live in or witness the evident virtues of such longstanding relationships, and dismiss it as if living "experience" were somehow less reliable than their just-possible interpretation of ancient documents, venerable though that interpretation may be.

One can sense this tension in the papers and responses that grew out of the House of Bishops Theology Committee blue-ribbon panel of theologians and scholars, recently published in the Anglican Theological Review. I've just finished reading them and am allowing them to percolate before saying any more in detail, but I did sense, in the "traditionalist" papers and responses a growing awareness of this dissonance between ideology and reality.

The question is, in reference to Vernon's catchline, How long are people expected to submit to an unverifiable requirement when the experience of their own lives and of those closest to them casts more and more doubt on its veracity?

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

WO is me...

I don't often repeat a post on this blog, but given the recent discussions on the Ordination of Women (in particular to the Episcopate) roiling the Church of England, I think it timely to repeat this post from 2007. The Eve of the Dormition seems an appropriate moment.

ONE WAY TO TELL if a proposition is correct or not is to see if the reasons advanced in its favor contradict other propositions already accepted.

It seems clear that one of the reasons the Roman Catholic Church gave up on trying to find reasons for its opposition to the ordination of women — now simply forbidding further discussion of the matter — must be the realization at some level that the reasons advanced against it were leading into erroneous waters.

It took them a while to reach the stonewall position. By 1976, in the official commentary on Inter Insigniores (1976), the leadership had come to realize the shakiness of Fortress Reason: “It is well known that in solemn teaching infallibility affects the doctrinal affirmation, not the arguments intended to explain it. Thus the doctrinal chapters of the Council of Trent contain certain processes of reasoning that today no longer seem to hold.” An interesting confession; yet still they were reluctant to stop trying to defend the position, and soldier on with arguments in support of the faltering cause: “But this risk has never stopped the magisterium from endeavoring at all times to clarify doctrine... Faith seeks understanding, and tries to distinguish the grounds for and the coherence of what is taught.”

Unfortunately, Inter Insigniores itself contains arguments, most of which apart from the unassailable “we’ve always done it that way” have now been dropped in favor of the total stonewall. Let me give an example from this document of the kind of disorder into which rational minds can descend in the interests of maintaining the status quo.

The priest is a sign, the supernatural effectiveness of which comes from the ordination received, but a sign that must be perceptible, and which the faithful must be able to recognize with ease. The whole sacramental economy is in fact based upon natural signs, on symbols imprinted upon the human psychology: “Sacramental signs,” says Saint Thomas, “represent what they signify by natural resemblance.” The same natural resemblance is required for persons as for things: when Christ’s role in the Eucharist is to be expressed sacramentally, there would not be this “natural resemblance” which must exist between Christ and his minister if the role of Christ were not taken by a man: in such a case it would be difficult to see in the minister the image of Christ. For Christ was and remains a man.

Leaving aside the fact that women are as “perceptible” as men, this leads to a kind of sacramental receptionism (in which the believer’s perceptions are what render the sacrament valid). This reduces the sacrament from an objective reality into a subjective experience. It also puts an undue focus upon one aspect of the priestly person: his (or her!) sex. Why, after all, should sex be any more determinative of perceiving Christ — if perception were the sine qua non for the validity of the sacrament — than any other quality. And isn’t a woman more “perceptible” as Christ than a loaf of bread is as his flesh? Personally, I don’t find the figure of a paunchy octogenarian cardinal to be as “natural” or immediate a reminder of Christ as a younger and more ascetical woman.

Which is, of course, my fault. For I should be able to see Christ in every member of Christ’s body, for Christ is in them. It is not Christ’s maleness that is of significance, in the Eucharist or in anything else, but his humanity, which obviously includes his maleness, but just as obviously is not limited to or by it.

Which brings us to the serious doctrine this position contradicts. For it is taught that what is not assumed (by Christ in the Incarnation) is not redeemed. And Christ assumed the whole of human nature. Otherwise how could women be saved? Christ assumed the totality of human nature when he became incarnate, and as the Chalcedonian Definition affirms, he received that totality of human nature solely from his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. And she was, obviously, a woman.

I first noted this contradiction with the Chalcedonian Definition, and the implications for the ordination of women, over twenty years ago. I am very pleased to say that some of the theologians in Eastern Orthodoxy — who hold the doctrine of the Incarnation very seriously and also highly honor the Theotokos — are beginning to see the implications as well. The summer 2002 issue of Anglican Theological Review included a number of essays from an Orthodox/Old Catholic conference that raised this question.

Facing the contradiction

Let’s look at the issue more closely, by asking what relationship sex has to human nature. The nature of any class must be something possessed by every member of that class. As Hooker says, “Now if men had not naturally this desire to be happy, how were it possible that all men should have it? All men have. Therefore this desire in man is natural. It is not in our power not to do the same...” (Laws, 1.11.4) The desire to happiness is thus a part of human nature. But what about sex? “Having a sex” is natural to all human beings. But the actual quality of being male only applies to men; being female only to women. So it is part of the manly nature to be male, the womanly nature to be female. But when human nature is considered as a whole, including both men and women, the specific sex is left to one side as a quality of the individual or of the class of men or women, and only the generic quality of “having a sex” applies to human beings. Maleness or femaleness applies only to individuals, and not to human nature as a whole. So, the “natural resemblance” argument already having been defeated both on objective grounds and on the grounds of a proper understanding of the nature of the sacrament, we are left with an assertion that there is something about maleness, as a human quality, that is required for ordination.

And this is where the conflict with Chalcedon arises: for the Council affirmed that whatever it is in human nature that is of saving importance (since that is the object of the Incarnation) came through a woman — the Blessed Mother of God — and she could not confer what she did not possess. Ergo, the male character is not essential, but accidental. Even if Christ’s maleness was necessary for the fulfilment of prophecy, there is no natural reason to think this carries over to the ministers of the church. To do so is to attach a greater significance to maleness than is warranted.

Some twenty years ago, I wrote the following brief comment in the style of Richard Hooker, addressing these questions. I think it still holds up, and so I offer it here, for the first time in the blogosphere:

They say that women may not receive the benefit of the sacrament of order. But how is this; seeing that they may receive the benefit of both of the sacraments ordained by Christ, and may be, as they will admit, the ministers of baptism, which is the prime sacrament of the church’s very being; and seeing that they may alike receive the benefits of the other sacramental rites of the church, in confirmation, penance, matrimony, and unction; wherefore then are they incapable of receiving benefit of this one only sacrament of orders? Is it that they are incapable of receiving this grace, as if they were a material unfit to receive the impress of a seal? What is the grace? and what that receives it? Is there somewhat in male humanity that exists not in the female? Is it not rather that male and female are qualities of the individual person, and not of collective human nature? For humanity as a whole is neither male nor female, but each individual is either one or the other. To say otherwise were an error, since we know that all that is of human nature in woman comes from man, as Eve was taken wholly out of Adam; and further, all that is in human nature resides in woman, for Christ’s humanity came to him wholly by way of his blessed mother, and she could not bestow that which she did not possess: and finally both man and woman come from God as made in God’s image. (1Cor 11.12) So if they say that either humanity or divinity is the form or image that a woman cannot possess, they are mistaken, for she has it both by nature of birth; and further by the grace of baptism whatever of the divine image is marred or obscured in man or woman is restored to its original likeness. Finally, we hold that the grace of the sacraments comes not from the ministers who perform the rites associated thereunto, but from God; and that the lawful performance of a sacramental rite assures us of its validity and of the grace imparted thereby.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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A Distinction to be Made

I would like to highlight one source of confusion in the present debates on marriage and sexuality (in the classic sense of a mixing together of various things).

That is the subtle distinction between Holy Matrimony and Marriage. The terms really ought not be used interchangeably, though they often are. However, marriage, properly speaking, is a human phenomenon (as part of the creation; and as many believe, thus instituted by God). Even given that source, there is wide variability to the form of marriage in many cultures and countries, through time and space, including the Jewish tradition out of which the Christian tradition grew. In many respects the Christian understanding of marriage was as much influenced by prevailing Roman custom (and law) as it was by Jewish understandings.

Holy Matrimony, or “Christian Marriage” is a particular subset of these various forms of marriage. The Canons of the Episcopal Church (I.18.1) attempt to preserve this distinction, limiting Holy Matrimony to marriages that are “entered into within the community of faith,” that is, within the church. (As a side note, I will point out that the BCP rubric, page 422, allowing “Christian marriage” in which only one of the parties is a Christian, pushes the envelope considerably, and is arguably discordant.)

The Exhortation at the opening of the Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage, on the other hand, supports the distinction, noting that “marriage” has existed since the Creation, but that what the assembled body has “come together” for is Holy Matrimony. The Catechism, page 861, continues this clarification by stating, “Holy Matrimony is Christian marriage.” (I will also note that the Catechism is one of the formal elements defining the Doctrine of the Church according to Canon IV.15. This is as “official” as one can get.)

Thus our church recognizes the existence of marriages which do not come under the law of our church as Holy Matrimony. This includes civil marriages as well as the religious marriages of non-Christians. We do not deny the legal reality of civil marriages, nor do we require the members of our church to have been married in a church wedding, or to participate in the “Blessing of a Civil Marriage,” in order to be considered married. (To some extent this reaffirms the ancient doctrine that the ministers of marriage are the couple, and the church serves to witness and bless the marriage.) This is, needless to say, not the case in all Christian traditions, and this is just one more example of the discontinuities that exist between those various traditions.

In the Episcopal Church, clergy are required by Canon I.1.18 to abide by the law of the church concerning Holy Matrimony and the law of the state concerning marriage. Where these are in conflict, it seems to me that preserving the distinction between Holy Matrimony and marriage is a helpful factor in determining what to do — or refrain from doing — in particular cases.

I hope raising this distinction will be helpful in continued discussions of the interaction between church and state, and within the church.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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William Reed Huntington

Today is the transferred feast of William Reed Huntington, the 99th anniversary of his death. He was renowned for a number of his writings and his patience as a pastor and teacher. Perhaps best known as the creator of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, he was an optimist about the possibilities of the church holding varying views together in dynamic tension. I don't know what he would say about our present state of affairs, other than to deplore the divisions and to appeal for unity in spite of differences of opinion. Here is a brief passage from his 1891 book, Popular Misconceptions of the Episcopal Church, from the chapter, "That it is a house divided against itself..."

The great need of American Christianity is unification. The civil system of the country has been so knit together that we are able proudly to declare it "an indestructible Union of the indestructible States." Our commercial system also has become so completely welded, part with part, as to defy breakage. It is in the ecclesiastical system alone that we note the mortifying lines of fracture. One people as respects the administration of law, one people as respects the transaction of business, we are still many peoples as respects the endeavor to win supremacy for the faith of Christ. In religion, disintegration is our curse.

The new consciousness beginning to dawn in the heart and mind of the Episcopal Church is the consciousness of a special call to play an intercessory and mediatorial part in the needed work of a general reconciliation. What makes it possible for an Episcopalian to take this line of remark, without subjecting himself to any just charge of arrogance, is the fact that he bases his peace-making effort wholly upon historical, and not at all upon personal grounds. He does not say, "Trust us as reconcilers because our ecclesiastics are so much more astute, our theologians so much more profound, and our communicant members so much more devout, than yours." He simply says: "Look at the history of Anglican religion, as a history, and judge for yourselves whether it do not give evidence of a greater power of inclusiveness, a more promising facility at comprehending a large variety of types, both of character and of action, than any rival system..."
. . . . .
The unity of which American Christians are in search is a "live and let live" unity. They perceive that the shutting-out policy is what has brought us to our present broken estate. What they are reaching after is the Church that shall be intolerant of these two things, and of only these two things — first, wickedness; secondly, the denial of what is confessedly central to the faith. Purity of character, as estimated by the ethical standards of the New Testament; purity of belief, as tested by the primitive Creeds — these are the only points upon which a united American Church would find it needful to insist.

But the overtures ventured by the Episcopal Church in the matter of unity are met with merciless ridicule, on the ground that the theological divergences and party differences within its own borders are so marked as to have become notorious. "Physician, heal thyself!" Is the not unnatural rejoinder of those to whom Churchmen address their affectionate invitations to reunion.

I propose to meet this rejoinder by taking the ground that it is the existence of these very divergences alleged, and the continuance of their existence within the Anglican Communion, that gives to that communion its best right to make a plea it does....

I hope at some point to post the entire essay. For now, especially in light of the Lambeth Conference now in session, this should provide us enough food for thought.

Tobias Haller BSG

Thought for 06.30.08

Just as we Anglicans regard the Scripture as "sufficient for salvation"¹ so too we regard the Nicene Creed as "the sufficient statement of the Christian Faith."² Neither tells us everything about the world or the church, nor about God; but they tell us enough. Isn't it interesting that God, through and with the church, appears only to provide us enough daily bread to keep us hungry for the eventual enjoyment of the heavenly banquet?

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1. Articles of Religion, VI
2. Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral

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Tobias Haller BSG

Good as Gold (1)

The Place of the Golden Rule in a Spirituality of Ethics
Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
A decade or so ago I took part in a discussion on morality in which I asserted that the Golden Rule was a sufficient standard for determining moral behavior. An interlocutor asked, “Is the Golden Rule really adequate?” I responded glibly that we had the assurance of Jesus to that effect. On further reflection I continue to believe in the sufficiency of the Golden Rule as at least a touchstone for moral discernment and at its best a call to moral action that stretches our capacity. In short, it represents a spiritual response to the call for an ethical life. In this paper I will examine salvation history and explore the Golden Rule in its context, origin and implications. In conclusion, I will examine the morality of judgment in the light of the spiritual system articulated.

The Nature of the Good: God, the Universe, and Everything

I begin this exploration by observing that the account of the Fall in Genesis is not history — certainly not natural history — but sacred story. Much theological thought, even in the post-Darwinian era, and even among non-Fundamentalist thinkers, has been hampered by neglect of this distinction. This does not mean that the story is to be discarded or disregarded; language, which is based on symbols, is essential to communication. The moment we move from things themselves to the names we give them we have stepped into a symbolic world; how much more with larger concepts for which no underlying “thing” can even be said to “exist.” We cannot escape the story, nor should we, as long as we are aware that it is to be used as story and not pressed into use as natural history. The “freedom from myth” agenda of some theologians is both doomed (as language itself partakes of symbolism) and to some extent pointless, rather like translating poetry into prose. Poetry bears truths that prose cannot articulate; but at the same time, to press the symbols into service as facts is to mistake their purpose and their meaning.
Natural science assures us, beyond reasonable doubt, that there was no age of perfection from which humans fell through sin. Rather than seeing the Genesis accounts in that way, it is more helpful to see the story of origin, as other theologians on closer reading have done,⁽¹⁾ as a kind of “upward” fall from innocence through knowledge: the place where the wages of sin and the cost of freedom merge. Seen in this light, there is a deep truth behind the sacred story (or rather stories) portrayed in Genesis, consistent with the truths revealed in natural history, and the two ways of knowing shed light upon each other, as I will demonstrate.
A summary of the argument
God (who is Self-Giving Love), begins that creation by allowing that-which-is-not-God to come-to-be. The culmination of that creativity is in God’s bringing to being creatures made in the image of God. In accomplishing this goal God was constrained by a limiting condition: God would not coerce beings into this likeness. Since God is loving and free, the creatures bearing God’s image would have to become capable of love and freedom. So God created a universe in which selfless love might arise, as it must, only from selfishness: only creatures that are self-interested, that become aware of that self-interest, and — through the life of God in the world, in the Incarnate Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit — become able to set that self-interest aside, have achieved the other-interested, self-giving love characteristic of God. They become children of God fashioned after the express image of God, Jesus Christ (Col 1.15). For God to create free creatures, the world needed to be placed under bondage to self-interest first. (Rom 8.21)
The Trinity as Basis for All Creation
Within God the Trinity-in-Unity, the One-who-is-Good (Mk 10.18, Lk 18.19), the intimate self-giving of the Persons to each other subsists in perfect unity without confusion: the Three are One and yet remain Three.
In the beginning, God created the universe of beings. This is the self-giving of the Father through the Son and in the Spirit. These created beings are good in their being (Gen 1.31) — that is, they need not do anything in order to be good. The creatures are sinless (unconscious of sin, void of will), and praise God simply in their being. (Ps 148.1-10) The moment these beings begin to act, they act with self-interest, although not conscious of self; this initial self-interest is entirely innocent and completely passive. The first creatures (energy and matter: Gen 1.3-10) endure and have identity solely because they possess two interrelated properties: identity, because the universe is not infinitely divisible but has a quantum structure; and endurance, because in accord with physical laws they cease to exist upon physical dissolution.⁽²⁾ The principle of self-interest or perpetuation-of-self is solely physical at this point, coalescing in stars, planets and waters, and only governs the object itself: the physical self endures so long as it is recognizable as self, that is, as an entity. This principle governs the formation of simple objects, and more complex entities such as crystals. The survival of the physical self is determined solely in the relation of structure and material with the environment. Forms that are better suited to the conditions of their environment will survive longer under this principle.
In the second stage, entities evolve that not only form enduring structures, but are capable of replicating these structures. This is the beginning of what may be called, even in its simplest forms, life. In sacred account, this is represented by vegetation, the simplest form of life known to the Genesis author. (Gen 1.11) The primary law that governs evolutionary self-perpetuation through self-interest takes effect at this point: the living self endures in itself and in its generative and regenerative capacity to sustain and replicate itself. (Of course, replication produces not the self itself, but another self, another entity.) Living things survive because they are suited to and take advantage of the environment in which they live, and those better suited and better equipped to take advantage have a higher statistical opportunity to survive and reproduce. That they reproduce means that they can replace themselves over time with their progeny. With the emergence of life (and reproduction) comes death: a sacrifice in individual endurance more than compensated for by the capability of self-replication in progeny. Survival and evolution at this primitive stage is still driven entirely by external and environmental factors. There is no libido dominandi at this point (or at most a libido far below the level of intent; a drive without a driver, if you will), simply the tendency for living things to continue living and reproducing, those best adapted to the environment tending to dominate only in the statistical sense.
The third stage is the period of sensation, arising in some plants and the simplest animals, in which creatures begin to take active part in their own survival through the sensation of pleasure and (primarily) pain, though they would not be identified as such (there being no consciousness present to so identify them).⁽³⁾ The sensing self operates on the basis of pleasure and pain to maximize its survival and the survival of itself-as-species. The sensing self reacts to the physical world automatically — no consciousness is posited: the higher plants turn towards the sun; the hydra’s tentacles withdraw at the touch of a needle. In the second half of the third stage animals with more developed nervous systems evolve, and complex behavior and instinct emerge, and with them the first intimations of consciousness. This period also marks the emergence of what physiologists call “the serpentine brain” — the neural structure comprising much of the brain in primitive organisms, but which has endured in the core of the human brain, in such processes as the limbic system. The conscious self operates on the basis of choices still largely determined by biological drives conditioned by pleasure and pain, now identified as such.
The fourth stage marks the dawn of consciousness-of-consciousness, or self-consciousness.⁽⁴⁾ This is the point at which the self first becomes aware of itself-as-self, eventually leading to awareness of the other-as-other-self. It is also the point at which the human takes on the image of God, patterned after the Second Person of the Trinity, the logos who represents the capacity to discern self and other, to reason, and to love. The Latin term equivalent to logos, ratio, is helpful here, for a ratio requires at least two terms: in this case the self and the other.
But this is also the moment of open potential to the Fall. With the recognition of the great division between the self and the other, the pang of disunity comes to birth, and with it the awareness of the libido dominandi. To pick up the earlier analogy, a driver finally takes the driver’s seat. This is also the point of the arising of the divided mind, or the sense of duality (the mind driving the body: an image common to psychology and philosophy alike, and returned to again and again in imaginative literature and art.⁽⁵⁾)
To return to the language of our sacred story, it is as if all of Genesis 2 and 3 are compacted into one moment, “the fruit with its seed in it” (Gen 1.11). First comes the human recognition of isolation (Gen 2.20), the optimism of union with the other (Gen 2.23), the sorry realization that inner self-interest is still alive in the serpentine brain (Gen 3.1), the tragic impossibility of seeking to become like God (who is Perfect Self-Giving, Perfect Love) at the prompting of self-interested motives (3.5-6), and the shame of exposed imperfection and separation, for which self-conscious nakedness is the powerful symbol (Gen 3.6-10). This is the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The self experiences for the first time the guilt and shame of the choice for self-interest, which is the root of sin falling from likeness to the perfectly self-giving God.⁽⁶⁾
It would be wrong to mark the drive to self-interest as inherently evil (in the popular sense of the word), however. Not only is it to some extent a necessary felix culpa, but, as I have shown, a necessity in the development of complex organisms capable of achieving freedom, and it is an integral part of God’s creation, and hence good. The Rabbis (Genesis Rabbah 9:7) believed that the human being had both a good and an evil inclination (the yetzer-ha-tov and the yetzer-ha-ra‘), both of which were declared “very good” by God (Gen 1.31). To explain how the “evil” inclination could be good, the Rabbis answer, “If it were not for this inclination, a man would neither build his house, marry a wife, father children, nor conduct business.” As we have seen, the inclination to self-interest has been behind the process of evolution prior to and leading to human life. But in spite of the positive outcomes of self-interest, the self (upon self-consciousness) also becomes tragically aware of the urge towards an asymptotic altruism and self-sacrifice, goals towards which it is called but which it can never achieve on its own, an inner awareness of what will eventually be recognized as “the divine likeness” (as humans begin to apprehend God’s self-revelation) combined with a realization of how far short the unredeemed self has fallen. The self-conscious self is no longer governed by purely physical or biological forces, but though incapable of escaping them, becomes responsible for its actions and aware of the discontinuity in itself.
Because of the heritage of evolution, the self-conscious self will always to some extent incline to choose for itself rather than the other, experiencing guilt and shame as a consequence, but incapable of fundamental alteration. At this point the concept of law as custodian or fence against abuse emerges (Gal 3.23). This law is not “natural” in the sense of describing how things happen (as the “law” of gravity); on the contrary, law is inherently unnatural for it points not to what is but to what should be. (Rom 7.9-10) The natural law of gravity governs the fall of objects; the natural law of self-interest — even as it guides the rise of more complex and ordered forms in concert with the pressure of the physical law of entropy leading to chaos — governs how far short falls the humanum from the divine image of perfect self-giving. These natural laws are, strictly speaking, non-moral in themselves. There is no “natural” moral law.
This principle was long ago recognized by Maimonides (The Eight Chapters, VI): there is no natural or “rational” moral law, though there may be generally accepted principles, which are cultural constructs or divine ordinances. All so-called law is given, whether by God or human reason, and hence is positive.⁽⁷⁾ Two arguments against this view can be raised. First, Kant states that “self-love” cannot be a universal law, because a person in suffering might choose suicide on its basis, and if this were applied as a categorical imperative universally life would cease. (Groundwork, 53-54) This argument fails as a reductio ad absurdum which assumes a case in which all are suffering and choose escape through suicide. It also ignores that death is an ineluctable part of the functioning of the law of self-interest among living things, and that life evolves and develops through the means of selective death, in accord with the physical law of entropy.⁽⁸⁾ Second, it is argued, on the basis of Rom 1.20, that Paul regarded the prohibition on idolatry as an exception, since nature teaches that there is a creator-God behind the visible world. However, knowing God does not necessarily render illicit the worship of lesser gods. That principle was established in the positive law given at Sinai, expanding upon what may be “naturally evident” — that God is one — by limiting worship to this One alone. The Rabbis generally held the prohibition on idols not to be natural, but to have been among those laws given to Noah, an event recorded in the Oral rather than the Written Torah. (Mekilta on Exod 19.2, Sifre Deut 40, Sanhedrin 56a) The Rabbis are firm in stating there can be no sin nor crime unless an explicit warning and prohibition has been given in advance, i.e., a positive law: “The Lord does not punish unless he has previously declared such-and-such an action to be an offense.” (Sanhedrin 56b)
The problem with law, and its failure in bringing about unity among people, and between people and God, has already been exhaustively explored by Paul in Romans and Galatians, and Jesus in his tirades at the “Pharisees,” and need not be discussed at length here. Paul and Jesus were well within their religious tradition. The idea of the heteronomous law as ultimately ineffective without inner and autonomous conversion lies at the core of Ezekiel’s image of hearts of stone and hearts of flesh, (Ezek 11.19-20) and Jeremiah’s “law written on the heart” (Jer 31.33). The Rabbis too looked to a day when even Torah would pass away: when Messiah would come. (Niddah 61.b, Avodah Zarah 9a), the written Word of God would be fulfilled in the Living Word of God. The law could be a custodian and a guide, but more than law would be needed to lead humanity from the serpentine coils of self-interest into the gracious light of self-giving. The law would always be a well to which one would have to return time and again after each fall and repentance; what was needed was a means of grace like a spring of water welling up from within, so that one might never thirst again. (Jn 4.13-14) The law could only supply a sacrificial system that involved daily repetition of the same rites (Heb 10.11), which could never do away with the fundamental discord that sounds through human history like a cipher on an organ. What was needed was an intervention that would alter the system “once and for all.” (Heb 7.27)
So the fifth stage is punctuated by the Incarnation/Crucifixion/Resurrection, the “Christ Event” that marks the central point in salvation history, empowering the Flesh-Restrained-By-Law to be reborn in the Spirit (Rom 7-8). From an eternal standpoint, which is to say, God’s standpoint, God only performs a single mighty act of self-giving which to us (in the world of time) appears as a sequence of acts. The act of kenosis which begins Creation finds its definitive exposition in the Incarnation and its telos in the Cross, the ultimate Self chooses (and chooses to become one with) the ultimate Other — the creaturely order, particularly in the human — and experiences death-to-self, which is the antithesis of all that the evolutionary process has been built upon. In the Incarnation/Crucifixion/Resurrection we behold the self-giving of the Son in obedience to the Father by the power of the Spirit, the hinge point of the universe, the At-One-ment where God’s self-giving in Christ opens the way for transformation of a universe that until this point has known only self-assertion, self-preservation, and self-interest. This is, to return to our sacred vocabulary, the flowering of the Tree of Life, the Cross of Glory, balancing the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In the eschatological sign of celibacy (Mt 19.12) Jesus overcomes the natural law of biology (self-in-progeny) and in the sign of the Cross overturns the natural law of self-preservation by giving himself for the life of the world.
In the Resurrection/Ascension the selfish universe is offered a Way towards redemption, by incorporation of the human (as the universe’s organ of self-perception) into the Body of Christ; as the old patristic tag stated it, “God became human that humans might become divine.” Following quickly, with Pentecost comes the self-giving of the Spirit from the Father through the em-Bodied Son (the Church), and the Christ-conscious self is enabled to self-sacrifice through incorporation in Christ, and the charismatic indwelling of the Spirit. The Christ-conscious person has put on Christ (Rom 13.14) so that it is no longer the old self that lives, but Christ that lives within one. (Gal 2.20) By incorporation into Christ, the human creature enters the life of the Trinity, where each member becomes one as the Father and the Son are one in the Spirit, (Jn 17.20-21) without division and without confusion or duality. (Col 3.10-11; 1 Cor 15.28)
This first section has demonstrated that only self-interest could build the world of the flesh through EVOLution; and that only perfected other-interest could build the world of the Spirit through LOVE. The maxim of other-interest given by Christ is summed up in the Golden Rule, which I will examine in the next section of this essay.

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Notes
Note 1. Charles Williams’ He Came Down From Heaven is one such eloquent examination of the “wound of knowledge,” the creation of “otherness” and the miracle of love as the source of healing. Note as well Bonhoeffer’s analysis of the cost of coming to the “knowledge of good and evil.”[^]
Note 2. An analogous “creation” at the human level is the Great Pyramid: it endures precisely because its design encourages its endurance — well-designed pyramids don’t fall down, and their shape is ideal for resisting wind erosion. The pyramid builders no doubt based their structures on the sand dunes whose identity and endurance served as a model. I note in passing that the identity of an entity does not (as in the case of a sand dune or an ocean wave — or a human being) reside in the material of which the entity consists at any one moment; but in the enduring interrelation of many changeable parts in an identifiable whole over time. One of the most valuable insights of process theology lies in this distinction.[^]
Note 3. It can be observed that for one period in the history of the world Jeremy Bentham was perfectly correct in his assessments.[^]
Note 4. It is impossible to determine exactly at what point the fourth stage is entered. While it has been traditional to limit this fourth stage to humanity, questions raised by science and as yet unanswered to universal satisfaction concern when “humanity” begins, and whether other advanced creatures are self-conscious as we are. At this point there is, as far as I know, no firm evidence of consciousness-of-consciousness among other animals, however intelligent they may appear. It is important to avoid anthropomorphism, and reading “altruism” where there may only be an instinct to preserve the species, as in the behavior of the lapwing which “sacrifices” itself to protect its nest. It is, however, incumbent upon us in our treatment of all animals that we at least accord the possibility they may feel and be aware of more than we know.[^]
Note 5. The twentieth century was notable for its contributions to the artistic analysis of the divided mind. A recent example is the film “Being John Malkovich.”[^]
Note 6. This notion departs from Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the primary separation recognized as between “man” and God; I view the primary separation leading to the sense of sin to be between the self and the other. I would suggest that self-consciousness emerges in human history before God-consciousness develops. The first humans could not conceive of God before they could conceive of themselves and their fellows-as-others. This is the one point at which the Genesis-myth does disservice to the actuality of human history: there was no Eden in which God and humanity enjoyed easy familiarity, and which the Tree of Knowledge undid. Consciousness of (and hope for and faith in) God as unity only comes out of the pain of disunity.
I am also attempting to steer clear of the “privation of being” language used in Thomistic theology, and adapted in some modern ontological-existential theologies (i.e.,Macquarrie). My focus is on God not as Being but as Love, Giver-of-Perfect-Gift (Jm 1.17), most especially God’s Triune Self poured out in creation, redemption, and sanctification. Moreover, my philosophical roots do not permit me to see “being” as a quality of which an entity can have more or less.[^]
Note 7. See also Rom 1.32, Acts 17:30-31 for the positive nature of so-called natural moral law.[^]
Note 8. The importance of extinction in natural selection, and selective cell death in embryonic development are well-attested examples of this seeming paradox at work.[^]

Courtship

The California Supreme Court decision on the issue of same-sex marriage includes this observation:

While retention of the limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples is not needed to preserve the rights and benefits of opposite-sex couples, the exclusion of same-sex couples from the designation of marriage works a real and appreciable harm upon same-sex couples and their children.

One would think this to be a simple and obvious fact. Yet the foul cry has already gone up that such a broadening of recognition will in fact have impact upon either those mixed-sex couples already married, or those who might contemplate it. I'm sorry, but this begins to sound a bit like, “I don't want to be part of a(n) _________ that allows _________ to join.” Fill in the blanks as you will. It also begins to sound an awful lot like some couples want “special rights” reserved, rights and privileges that only apply to them and not to other couples. Stay posted as the effort to write these special rights into the California Constitution presses forward.

Meanwhile, it appears that, yes, Virginia, you are not alone in wanting to maintain your diocesan authority and trusteeship (in the name of The Episcopal Church) over Episcopal churches. According to a report from Episcopal Café, a whole slew of other churches (and the other dioceses in the state) have joined those already in the Diocese of Virginia's Friends List. They make a compelling case that state intrusion into the inner workings of any church constitutes an unconstitutional interference with the religious right to order a church according to its own beliefs and doctrines. Again, stay tuned for what is bound to be an important court decision.

Tobias Haller BSG

Thought for 05.05.08

I realize that I am at times like the annoying child for whom “Because!” is an insufficient answer to my persistent question “Why?”

Tobias Haller BSG

Thought for 02.22.08

Given that "all of us make many mistakes" (James 3:2) — and that this applies to the church as much as to individuals (Articles XIX, XXI) — autonomy is preferable to hegemony, in order to encapsulate error while allowing opportunity for healthy developments to arise and be tested locally before being accepted globally.

Tobias Haller BSG

Presiding Bishop Defends Slavery

Here, therefore, lies the true aspect of the controversy, and it is evident that it can openly be settled by the Bible. For every Christian is bound to assent to the rule of the inspired Apostle, that "sin is the transgression of the law," namely the law laid down in the Scriptures by the authority of God -- the supreme "lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy." From his Word there can be no appeal. No rebellion can be so atrocious in his sight as that which dares to rise against his government. No blasphemy can be more unpardonable than that which imputes sin or moral evil to the decrees of the eternal Judge, who is alone perfect in wisdom, in knowledge, and in love....

With entire correctness, therefore, your letter refers the question to the only infallible criterion -- the Word of God. If it were a matter to be determined by my personal sympathies, tastes, or feelings, I would be as ready as any man to condemn the institution of slavery; for all my prejudices of education, habit and social position stand entirely opposed to it. But as a Christian, I am solemnly warned not to be "wise in my own conceit," and not to "lean unto my own understanding." As a Christian, I am compelled to submit my weak and erring intellect to the authority of the Almighty. For then only can I be safe in my conclusion, when I know that they are in accordance with the will of Him, before whose tribunal I must render a strict account to the last great day....

First, then we ask what the divine Redeemer said in reference to slavery. And the answer is perfectly undeniable: He did not allude to it at all. Not one word of censure upon the subject is recorded by the Evangelists who gave His life and doctrines to the world. Yet, slavery was in full existence at the time, throughout Judea; and the Roman Empire, according to the historian Gibbon, contained sixty millions of slaves on the lowest probable computation! How prosperous and united would our glorious republic be at this hour, if the eloquent and pertinacious declaimers against slavery had been willing to follow their Savior's example!

-- The Rt. Rev. John Henry Hopkins, Bishop of Vermont and Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, writing in 1861 in A Scriptural, Ecclesiastical, and Historical View of Slavery, from the Days of the Patriarch Abraham to the Nineteenth Century, pages 5-12 passim

Apparently Docetic

In my post of last week I was having a bit of fun when I wrote, "Their teachings aren't really docetic; they just appear to be." But lo and behold through my letterbox today slid the latest issue of The Living Church, with an article by the Reverend Hugh C. Edsall on the foundations of the faith. For a foundational article, it gets off to a shaky start. The first paragraph reads:

Any presentation of elements of the faith needs to begin with two urgent questions: does God exist? Is Jesus Christ God in human nature? If the answer to either of these questions is "no," then the existence of churches and the practice of the Christian religion is in vain. (Emphasis mine.)

The article closes with this assertion:

We further believe that Jesus Christ is precisely who he said he is — God in human form.

Of course, the orthodox teaching is that the divine and human natures are united without confusion in the one person Jesus Christ, and that Jesus was not simply God in human form, but truly God and truly human, Son of God and equally and fully Son of Mary. I certainly don't accuse the author of either confounding the natures or of docetism; any more than I would accuse Gerard Moultrie of doing more than "deriving without his poetic license" on account of his adaptation of an eastern Orthodox liturgy into "Lord of lords in human vesture..." I imagine we are dealing here with slips of the tongue; and that, in both cases the slips are amenable to correction, and the bulk of Fr. Edsall's article attests to his essential orthodoxy, centered, I am happy to say, on the Resurrection. I look forward to the next installments.

However, all of this does go to show that when doing theological writing one can't be too careful, and sticking to the language of the Creeds is the safest course of all! And, saints preserve us, I know I've stumbled into the unintentional theological thicket myself from time to time. Which is one reason blogs have comments...

Tobias Haller BSG

For an interesting discussion of "heresy" in the hymnal from last year, as well as my suggested amendment to Hymn 324 visit Creedal Christian's blog.

Discord and Dissension: The Early Years

One of the prevailing myths of Christianity is that the Church was more or less of one mind until the Reformation. Like unto this, the Reformation myth is that the Scripture itself is a seamless garment, and it is bad form to point out or make anything of the contradictions or tensions within it.

However, neither myth will serve us well in addressing reality: the reality of our present tensions and disagreements. On the contrary, it is helpful to make use of the disagreements in the apostolic Church, attested to in Scripture, and hold them up as a mirror in which we may helpfully see our present controversies reflected, and take heart that the Church survived.

One can point to the tensions between Peter and Paul, or Paul and John Mark as obvious points of disagreement, leading to sharp words and separation in mission. (Paul does seem to have been at the center of a good bit of dissension, doesn’t he?)

Obviously the greatest controversy of those days concerned the place of Gentiles in the Church, and what was to be required of Gentile converts. After much ad hoc and informal argument and a few tussles, a Council was called. After hearing reports, and consultation, the Council reached a decision and issued a Communiqué: (1) Gentiles allowed; (2) circumcision not required; (3) a list of required moratoria on a number of practices, including eating meat offered to idols, enacted.

One might have thought that would settle it; but no. The Scripture attests that the circumcision party continued to demand more than the Council required. Saint Paul stood in strong opposition to the conservatives in this regard, in particular in his correspondence with the Galatians. But on the Council’s decision on food offered to idols, Paul took what might best be called a revisionist view when he wrote to the Corinthians. It really ought not be forbidden, he said, but in the interest of harmony why not oblige? Don’t let such unimportant things as food (you and I know they are unimportant) disrupt the Church.

This kind of accommodation was seen by others as both disrespectful of the Council, and really quite contrary to what that Council intended: that eating meat offered to idols was a serious matter, and no trifle. John the Divine may have had Paul or someone like him in mind when he excoriated the people in Pergamum for tolerating those among them who held “to the teaching of Balaam” and “ate food sacrificed to idols.”

And so the conflict went, until the issue of food offered to idols finally disappeared in a generally Pauline direction — although it seemed important at the time, in the long run it really wasn’t a core doctrine after all.

Does any of this sound familiar — I don’t mean from your knowledge of Scripture but from the current goings-on in the Anglican Communion? It seems that Councils (or Conferences) never have settled the dissension they are designed to address, at least not completely. There will still be hardliners at one extreme and progressives at the other.

But the good news is that the Church muddles through. The hot issues of each age do eventually burn themselves out, and the ashes are blown away by the wind of the Spirit.

Tobias Haller BSG

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Thoughts for 1.2.08

Assumptions unchallenged soon become beliefs; habits indulged become customs, then traditions. Testimony not given or not heard lies bleeding at the roadside.

Tobias Haller

Atonement

A certain strand of Evangelicals lay claim to a particular doctrine of the Atonement as if it were the only explanation for the phenomenon of salvation. At our last General Convention this emerged in a strangely-worded resolution that was rejected — not because the Episcopal Church rejects the doctrine of the Atonement, but on the contrary, because we are, as a church, loath to pin its undeniable efficacy to one particular theological explanation.

My thinking on this endlessly rich subject has some sympathy with a number of the various propositions — including the substitutionary one dear to Evangelicals. I am also in sympathy with them in placing the crux (pun intended) of the act of salvation at the cross — although I take the wider view that this is the climax and not the entire drama.

For anyone interested in a reflection that represents my thinking, not as a theological tract, but in a more discursive form, I commend the sermon I preached yesterday at my parish, The King and His Cross. As I say, it is a sermon, not a treatise. But I hope that in it I make my general position clear: that I see the Atonement as effecting a real change in the universe through the exercise of a faculty that exists in the universe only by the grace of God, and which, in itself, reflects and literally embodies the nature of God.

Tobias Haller BSG

Still Orthodox after all these years

Take the Eucharistic Theology Quiz. Thanks to Jared.

Eucharistic theology created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Orthodox You are Orthodox, worshiping the mystery of the Holy Trinity in the great liturgy whereby Jesus is present through the Spirit in a real yet mysterious way, a meal that is also a sacrifice. Orthodox 81% Catholic 81% Luther 44% Calvin 44% Zwingli 25% Unitarian 0%

4. True Union (2)

In the previous section of this continuing reflection, I examined the biblical concept of “one flesh” using the biblical text itself in an effort to unpack the meaning of this phrase. From that effort, I conclude that fleshly unity is not to be seen as good in and of itself, but only within the context of a loving relationship, including union of heart and mind as well as of flesh.

As few (I hope) doubt that persons of the same sex can enjoy unity of heart and mind in companionship with each other, the question remains as to whether a same-sex couple can experience a form of bodily union. Some of those opposed to any recognition of same-sex relationships argue against this possibility, largely on the grounds of what they usually refer to as the “complementarity of the sexes.” I now turn to begin to examine this assertion.

Complementarity defined

As I noted in my critique of Some Issues in Human Sexuality, the definition of complementary and complementarity often shifts in the course of these discussion. In normal English usage, however, “complementary” applied to two things means that one makes up what is lacking in the other, or that both together make up what is lacking in each. In mathematics we say that a 60-degree angle is complementary to a 30-degree angle, because together they make up a right angle.

There are, from my perspective, two faults with applying this concept to human beings and their relationships. First, it requires that the individual human being be seen as lacking something — as essentially incomplete or defective; secondly, it implies an essential difference between men and women, whereby only a man and a woman can compensate for what the other is lacking, or (as I think is more commonly held) one of them (the man) makes up for what the other (the woman) lacks.

As in Adam

It is sometimes asserted that one is not a complete human being unless coupled.
But human beings are not complementary in this sense; and to assert so is a defective anthropology and a misreading of Genesis. It also flies in the face of the doctrine of the Incarnation.

Philosophy ratifies the concept of the dignity of the human person in acknowledging that an individual human being is a complete human being. Individual human beings may suffer from loneliness, however, and human society provides a number of compensations for that human need. But loneliness is an emotional state, not a defect of personhood or humanity, or the lack of an essential attribute of the human person. Solitude, and the loneliness to which it gives rise, are situational and circumstantial, not essential.

This does not mean that solitude is not a real problem for human beings. The second creation account in Genesis 2 assures of that Adam’s solitude was the only thing “not good” in creation. The intent of Genesis 2 is to tell us why it is that “a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife” — a recognition that this is a primary way in which human beings overcome the pang of solitude. But if marriage were the only way to counter solitude, then celibacy would have to be ruled out as an approved state of life.

As I pointed out earlier in this series of reflections, such was a predominant view in rabbinic Judaism, in which celibacy was held to be gravely defective, not only because it failed to implement the commandment to be fruitful and multiply, but because an unmarried man is“incomplete.” It is thus fair to acknowledge that this passage presents us with the only text that might be conceived to speak of “complementarity” of the sexes. Rabbinic tradition holds that Adam’s incompleteness is only healed by marriage, based on Eve being created by a partial removal from Adam.

There are, I think, a few points to challenge that point of view, even within rabbinic Judaism, and also the degree to which we should receive this interpretation of the Genesis 2 account. First of all, this view shares some features with Aristophanes’ account of the origin of the sexes and sexual desire — although Aristophanes includes the origin of homosexual desire as well — in Plato’s Symposium. It is important to note that this “completion” of the man by the woman is not understood, even in rabbinic Judaism, along the lines of Aristophanes, or the Taoist concepts of yin and yang — it is not about a synthesis of opposites, nor even simply the restoration of something previously divided — for Adam and Eve remain themselves even after they have joined. Above all, it cannot be understood as a marker of an essential, as opposed to a situational, defect in the human person.

For along with this reading of Genesis 2, there are other rabbinic interpretations. The Rabbis used Genesis 2 as the source for the full and complete dignity of the individual human being, “A single man was created in the world to teach ... that whoever saves a single life it is as if he saved the entire world. ” (mSanhedrin 4:5)

A return to the original text is also helpful: God created Adam as a solitary gardener, and first tried to assuage his loneliness by making animal companions for him. Only after Adam rejected the animals did God take something from him later to restore it in“built up” form as the Woman he could receive as flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, as someone like him (as opposed to the animals, who were unlike him). This is not about complementarity, or the union of opposites, but of similarity or identity. Eve is a human being; as a later church synod (Douzy, 860) would say, Eva ipse est Adam. Eve is herself Adam.

Finally, we have to note that the church later corrected a narrow reading of Genesis 1 as well, where the rabbinic interpretation required procreation in order to give due honor to celibacy. “The single state” — an “estate” like matrimony, is honorable, though having no more ontological significance than marriage has. As Aquinas pointed out (contrary to the Rabbis), the commandment to be fruitful and multiply was addressed to the whole species, not to individuals (Summa Theologica II.2.Q152.2).

Moreover, the Church affirmed that the New Adam, Jesus Christ, is also fully and completely human, and that this full humanity derives entirely from the Virgin Mary. She could not bestow upon him that which she did not possess, so it is clear on this basis that maleness or femaleness is merely accidental to human nature, and not essential to it. The doctrine of the Incarnation makes clear that the humanum is complete in the individual person. Human nature is something each human possesses. There is no “complementarity” at the level of human nature.

In addition, human society (even apart from sexuality) does not necessitate complementarity. To assert its necessity not only effectively denies the possibility of same-sex partnerships, but of periods of chastity between married couples, the goodness of friendship, and the fellowship of celibate partnership in community evinced in the cenobitic life.

Thus I am forced to reject the notion that individual human beings are only completed or constituted into human or social reality by sexual relationship with a person of the opposite sex, and to reject interpretations of Genesis 2 along those lines.

This brings me to the second assertion, that there is some complementarity of male and female which renders such pairs uniquely capable of pairing. In the next section of this reflection I will respond to two questions: Are men and women actually complementary on a physical basis? (we have already seen that they are not complementary on a human or social basis) and Is complementarity a necessary component of a committed sexual relationship?

Tobias Haller BSG

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Further Update: This post and those that follow, expanded and supplemented with much additional material, form part of Reasonable and Holy, published by Seabury Books and available on order from Church Publishing Incorporated.