I received an email recently that asked for clarification in light of a concern that regularly appears in complementarian criticisms of egalitarian theology — that egalitarianism presumes that there simply are no differences whatsoever between men and women. Behind this also lurks another unspoken (but sometimes spoken) criticism — that egalitarian theology inevitably leads to various kinds of sexual anarchy and licentiousness. (I don’t suggest that the writer harbors this assumption.)

The email’s title was: 

“Looking for ontological exploration of men and woman from an egalitarian worldview”

“Most of the books I have read state that Egalitarians do not believe that men and women are exactly the same, but I haven’t found a book yet that offers any theories or descriptions of the categories of men and women from a mutualist/egalitarian perspective. I haven’t yet found an egalitarian that explores the difference (traits, purposes within those traits distinct between the two) in light of equality.”

“I was wondering if you had any writing on the subject or any guidance on where I might find such an exploration.”

Mxxxxx,

I have not been able to spend much time on these issues for the last year or so as I have been working on other things. I need to get back to addressing some of these questions.

Since your subject title concerns ontology, I would refer you to chapter 14 and the conclusion of Icons of Christ (Baylor University Press, 2020) where I lean on Roman Catholic philosopher Norris Clarke’s trinitarian ontology, Karl Barth’s relational understanding of sexuality, and on Dorothy L. Sayers’s essay “Are Women Human?”

Crucial to Clarke’s position is (as he titles an essay) “To Be Is To Be Substance-in-Relation,” in Explorations in Metaphysics (University of Notre Dame Press, 1994). Also see his Person and Being (Marquette University Press, 1998), which I cite in ch. 14.

According to Clarke, every being has both an itself dimension (substance) and a toward other dimension (relation). For human beings, substance is tied both to rationality and embodiment – Aristotle: “the human being is a rational animal” – and it is this element of rationality on which Boethius focused in his definition of personhood – “an individual substance of a rational nature.” However, one of the great contributions of patristic christology and trinitarian theology is that it is crucial to distinguish person and nature – something lacking in Boethius’s definition.

Drawing on Trinitarian theology, all persons have a rational nature (Boethius) but to be a person simply is to be in relational orientation to other persons. In the Trinity, the Father simply is the one who generates the Son and who with the Son brings forth the Spirit through procession. The Son simply is the person who is generated by the Father and who with the Father gives being to the Spirit, and the Spirit simply is the person who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

Applied to humanity, in the realm of substance or essence, there can be no ontological difference whatsoever between men and women as it is the common essence of rational embodiment that makes human beings human. If there were any ontological difference of essence/nature/substance as far as humanity, men and women would each be a distinct species, and the Word would have to have become incarnate twice (once as a male and once as a female) in order to redeem humanity. The orthodox doctrine of the Incarnation is not that the Word assumed a male human nature but that the Word assumed a human nature common to men and women; however the manner in which the incarnate Word exists as human is as the male Jesus of Nazareth.

As with the Trinity, I would suggest that the fundamental ontological distinction between men and women exists at the level of relation, not substance (or essence). To be a human being means to share in the common rational equality that is essential to human nature, but to be a male human being is to exist as relationally oriented to the female, and to be a female human being is to exist as relationally oriented toward the male. To be a human being means to exist either as a male or as  a female and to exist in equal partnership in relation to the other.

There are of course physical differences between men and women (accidents not substance) with the consequence that only men can be fathers and only women can be mothers — I mention this several times in the book —  and there are differences in the relations between fathers and children and mothers and children in that mothers experience a close physical bond with children not only during pregnancy but also while breastfeeding. This no doubt has significance for how males and females mature. Sons have to learn to differentiate themselves from their mothers and identify with their fathers. Daughters have to learn not to differentiate from but to identify with their mothers while nonetheless having a distinct identity of their own. Notoriously, adult sons tend to get along with their mothers better than daughters do, and I suspect this has something to do with the mutually distinct processes of identification and differentiation.

There are also hormonal differences between men and women with the consequence that (generally speaking) males are more aggressive and competitive while females tend to be more nurturing and strive for harmony, but I think we need to be very careful about drawing any specific conclusions from this. To say for example that men are “more rational” and women “more emotional” applies only broadly and in specific cases. There are very rational women and very emotional men.

In broad discussions of sexuality, positions tend to move in opposite directions. I myself have focused on equality and similarity between men and women. In the conclusion of Icons of Christ, I draw on Dorothy L. Sayer’s essay “Are Women Human?” (334-338). As Sayers points out, the key thing about women is that they are human and that they are more like men than they are like anything else.

Sayers also points out that the question of distinctiveness is always asked only of women. This is a point I make throughout the book. For evangelical complementarians, men can do anything women can do, but women have the one distinct “role” of always being subordinate to men.

Contrary to my approach are those who want to emphasize differences between men and women (ironically both among feminists and anti-feminists). On the last page of Icons of Christ, I mention Carol Gilligan’s book In a Different Voice (Harvard University Press, 1982) which argues (from a feminist perspective) for significant emotional and social differences between men and women. I would also mention Valerie Saiving Goldstein’s 1960 essay “The Human Situation: A Feminine View,” The Journal of Religion, Vol. 40, No. 2, (Apr., 1960), pp. 100-112, in which she argues that traditional understandings of original sin represent masculine temptations (pride and power) while the temptations of women are more toward triviality, distractedness, and over dependence on others.

Perhaps one can make such broad distinctions, but again, I think we need to be very careful. The conclusion I draw at the end of Icons of Christ is that if there are such psychosocial differences (broadly speaking) between men and women, this is not an argument against egalitarianism, but rather a need to recognize that men and women will express basic equality in different ways, and that, for this reason, the church needs to recognize and value the unique gifts of both men and women in ministry. As do women authors (like Dorothy L. Sayers), a woman preacher might contribute different insights and notice different things when she preaches from the pulpit than a man might. A women presiding at the Eucharist more accurately represents the symbolic role of the presiding minister as acting in persona ecclesiae (in the person of the church), and thus representing the church as the Bride of Christ. This is not an argument against but rather for recognizing the unique gifts of women in the church. As Paul says in 1 Cor. 12, one part of the body cannot say to the other, “I have no need of you.”

My point is that if we are going to take our fellow humanity seriously, we cannot speak of “distinct theories or categories” (your term) for men and women. I do not think that Scripture attaches “distinct theories or categories” to the sexes in this way, a point made by Tikva Frymer-Kinsky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (Macmillan, 1992), which I cite (66-67). Where such distinct categories are introduced (for example during the Hellenistic period [Frymer Kensky, 203-12]), they always prove to the detriment of women: women are foolish, less intelligent, overly emotional, etc.

Finally, I am not aware that those who are opposed to egalitarianism have themselves been able to describe “distinct” ontological categories, either, especially to the extent that they now insist that they do not believe in the inferiority of women to men. The complementarian expression “roles” does not actually specify any such actual differences between men and women except to insist that men are in charge and women are to submit to male authority.

For a superb philosophical critique that the complementarian notion of “equal in being, unequal in roles” is fundamentally incoherent, see especially Rebecca Merrill Groothius, “Equal in Being, Unequal in Roles: Challenging the Logic of Women’s Subordination” in Discovering Biblical Equality, Ronald W. Pierce, Cynthia Long Wesfall, Christa L. McKirland, eds. (InterVarsity, 2021), 3^rd edition, 393-428