Tag Archives: sex change

The Abolition of Creation and the Gender Revolution (Part One)

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Why This Series?

Recently a group of ministers from one of the most secular regions of the United States asked me to present a series of lectures on the challenges contemporary secular culture poses to the church, specifically the popular hostility toward the moral vision of life taught in the New Testament and treasured by the church for 2000 years. Some of them had read my 14-part critical review (September and October 2021) of Karen Keen, Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships* and wanted me to follow up with a more comprehensive treatment. I proposed to address the topic under four headings:

The Abolition of Creation

The Abolition of the Biblical Text

Reclaiming Creation

Reclaiming the Biblical Text

In the next few posts, I want to develop these topics in preparation for my presentations. Perhaps readers can help me refine my thought.

The Darkening of Creation

From July 22 to August 6, 2021, I wrote a five-part review of Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to the Sexual Revolution (Crossway, 2020). Trueman explains the origin and agenda of his book in this way:

“The origins of this book lie in my curiosity about how and why a particular statement has come to be regarded as coherent and meaningful: “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body” (p. 19).

Like Truman, I am curious about how this change occurred. What factors led people to abandon the moral significance of the order of nature? How could so fundamental a distinction as the biological difference between male and female be completely disengaged from human identity?** Truman began his study with Jean Jacques Rousseau and traced the sexual revolution from the 18th to the 21st century. I will interact with some of the same thinkers as Truman did, but instead of beginning with Rousseau I will begin with Galileo and the scientific revolution. Truman did not describe extensively the premodern understanding of nature and natural law. But I think it is important to explain how Plato, Aristotle, and later Christian philosophers understood and experienced nature. Only then, I think, can we understand what forces led to the abolition of creation as a source of moral guidance and spiritual inspiration. This essay will be devoted to describing the view of nature’s moral order that modern thinkers dismantled and replaced with subjective human feelings.

The Way Things Were

Before 1500, people saw nature as a unity containing different kinds of things, living and nonliving, plants and animals of different shapes and colors. Each individual thing is an organic whole, a unity, an identity. And this inner unity—a mystery in itself—reveals itself in its outer manifestations: that is in the total impact of its color, shape, smell, texture, taste, sounds, and for animals, also in their behaviors. This way of experiencing nature is a matter of common sense, which everybody possesses. Such philosophers as Plato and Aristotle, however, asked theoretical questions about our common-sense experience: what is the inner basis of the distinct identities of things? What accounts for their unified, spontaneous, and purposeful activity?

In common sense we perceive unreflectively the unity of the being and activity of living things, but stop at that unexamined perception. Practical necessity demands no more. Plato and Aristotle—each in his own way—designated the inner principle of identity “form.” And they named the power for unified, spontaneous, purposeful action “soul.” Designating the inner principle of identity as “form” assures us that this principle is intelligible or mind-like; for that is the only way to make sense of the perceptible differences among things. Matter alone cannot account for the order and qualities that differentiate one kind of thing from another.

Even though forms are too complex for us to grasp in one act of understanding in the way we can grasp a simple mathematical idea, they must be intelligible, if only to the divine mind. Likewise, the inner power for unified, spontaneous, purposeful action (soul) must be nonmaterial. Note here that the doctrine of forms and souls postulates a likeness between our inner world of mind, will, and life and the inner world of things in nature. To anticipate future posts, the scientific revolution shattered this likeness and drove a wedge between the human reality and nature.

Admittedly, giving the names “form” and “soul” and “nature” and “substance” to the inner principles of things adds nothing to our common-sense understanding of things. For what information does it add to the appearances of things to postulate a hidden cause of those appearances? But it does articulate our confidence that our ordinary perceptions of the distinct identities of things are perceptions of something real in itself, that is, the invisible reality in things that shows itself through the appearances. The appearances of things are revelations of the inner reality of things. They are not deceptive.

The Christian thinkers Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas took up the concepts pioneered by Plato and Aristotle and incorporated them into the Christian doctrine of creation. The creation as a whole and all creatures within it embody ideas and purposes that find their archetypes in the mind of God. Augustine and Aquinas used such concepts as ideas, forms, souls, and natures to designate and explain our common-sense perception of the inner unity and reality of things and of their inner power for spontaneous, purposeful action. Like the forms and souls of Plato and Aristotle, their Christian adaptations add nothing to our perceptions of the appearances of things. Nevertheless, they assert our confidence that through the appearances our minds make contact with the intelligible inner reality of things.

There is more, however, because the Christian doctrine of creation also assures us that in knowing the forms of things through the appearances, our minds also contact the mind and will of God. Thereby, our ordinary common-sense experience of nature is drawn into the religious and moral sphere. The glory of God and the nature of the good is at least partially revealed in the appearances of creatures.

Observations and Anticipations

1. Hence, we can see clearly why people living before scientific revolution of the seventeenth century would find the statement “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body” (Truman, p. 19) not only false but incomprehensible. Laughable even. For if a human being appears to the senses as male, we can be certain that his inner reality (or form) is male. Forms do not deceive us by appearing in bodies as something they are not in themselves.

2. The traditional Christian doctrine of creation adds another dimension. Because the forms that give each creature its identity find their archetypes in God’s mind and embody God’s good will, they demand our respect. They are revelations of God’s wisdom and goodness. It would have struck a person living 400 years ago as impious, ungrateful, and irrational to reject one’s sex.

3. Before the modern era, common sense, the doctrine of forms, and the Christian doctrine of creation together provided a strong foundation for the conviction that a moral law is woven into the fabric of creation. Some activities are good and some are bad. Some are right and some are wrong. And these moral distinctions can be discerned by reason and common sense. For Augustine and Thomas Aquinas or any of their contemporaries, it would have seemed as irrational as it is wrong for a human being to live as an animal or a male to live as a female or a female to live as a male.

Next Time: We will see how the architects of the scientific revolution—Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, et al.—destroyed confidence in the reality of forms and souls and replaced them with atoms, space, and machines. The appearances no longer reveal the reality of things. Creation is emptied of spiritual reality, meaning, purpose, moral law, and beauty, all of which are transferred to the inner subjective world of the human mind.

*Subsequently published in revised form as Ron Highfield, The Choice: Should the Church Affirm LGBTQ+ Identities and Ways of Living (Keledei Publications, 2024).

**If you want to think about the true nature of the biological distinction between the sexes, I recommend reading Tomas Bogardus, The Nature of the Sexes: Why Biology Matters (Routledge, 2026). Bogardus is a philosopher colleague of mine. I will say more about this book in a later post.

“Dignitas Infinita” (Infinite Dignity): A Recommendation

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Today I would like to recommend reading the full text of the just released declaration of the Roman Catholic Church’s Dicastery [from a Greek word meaning congregation or assembly] for the Doctrine of the Faith on “Dignitas Infinita” (Human Dignity). Popular media focuses on paragraphs 48-50 on Surrogacy and 55-60 on Gender Theory and Sex Change, ignoring the Declaration’s treatment of the theological foundations for these and other practical applications. But this narrowing of focus to “hot button” issues is unfortunate, because the Declaration’s sections on contemporary issues are incomprehensible and unpersuasive apart from its theological sections.

Every sentence, indeed almost every word, of the Declaration is rich with theological meaning and historical associations. A full commentary would run hundreds of pages. In this post, I will make only a few observations designed to whet your appetite to read it for yourself. The Declaration is a beautiful example of theological reasoning and courageous application. In an age of confusion and irrationality, I welcome its clarity and rationality. In a time wherein Scripture and tradition have been replaced in many hearts by subjective experience, I appreciate its submission to these normative authorities. The Declaration is relatively short, containing 17 pages of text divided into 66 paragraphs followed by 7 pages of footnotes. It is divided into 7 sections under the following headings:

Presentation

Introduction

1. A Growing Awareness of the Centrality of Human Dignity

2. The Church Proclaims, Promotes, and Guarantees Human Dignity

3. Dignity, the Foundation of Human Rights and Duties

4. Some Grave Violations of Human Dignity

Conclusion

In what follows I will highlight the main thrust and some significant points from each of the seven sections.

Presentation

In the Presentation, Víctor Manuel Cardinal Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, tells the story of the Declaration on “Infinite Dignity” from its beginnings in 2019 to its approval by Pope Francis on March 25, 2024.

Introduction

The Introduction clarifies the concept of infinite human dignity. Human dignity is “infinite” in the sense that at no point between conception and death and under no circumstances in between may a limit be placed on the worth of a human being. The first paragraph of the Introduction is worth quoting in full:

Every human person possesses an infinite dignity, inalienably grounded in his or her very being, which prevails in and beyond every circumstance, state, or situation the person may ever encounter. This principle, which is fully recognizable even by reason alone, underlies the primacy of the human person and the protection of human rights. In the light of Revelation, the Church resolutely reiterates and confirms the ontological dignity of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God and redeemed in Jesus Christ. From this truth, the Church draws the reasons for her commitment to the weak and those less endowed with power, always insisting on “the primacy of the human person and the defense of his or her dignity beyond every circumstance” [Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum (4 October 2023)].

In a subsection (“A Fundamental Clarification”), the Declaration attempts to clarify the confusion in contemporary thinking surrounding the phrase “the dignity of the human person.” For the word “person” is often used in a way that excludes the objective and ontological reality of human beings and focuses only on the individual’s capacity for self-determination. Consequently, “Dignitas Infinita” distinguishes among four aspects of the concept of dignity: ontological dignity, moral dignity, social dignity, and existential dignity. Whereas “ontological dignity” is objective, essential and inalienable, moral, social, and existential dignity vary with circumstances. We have a duty as individuals and societies to promote the moral, social, and existential dignity of all people in view of their ontological dignity.

1. A Growing Awareness of the Centrality of Human Dignity

Like every good treatise in theology, “Dignitas Infinita” places its doctrinal conclusions in historical context. Whereas classical antiquity made some progress toward the concept of human dignity, only with the biblical doctrine of creation—especially its declaration that God created human beings in God’s image—the teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus, the apostolic message of salvation in Christ and the hope of eternal life does the fullness of infinite human dignity come to light. The document continues with a brief look at Thomas Aquinas, who building on the work of Boethius defined “person” as “what is most perfect in all nature—that is, a subsistent individual of a rational nature” (Summa Theologiae, I, q. 29, a. 3). This section also touches briefly on developments in the Renaissance, in the Enlightenment thought of Descartes and Kant, and in twentieth-century Personalism. It quotes approvingly the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which speaks of “the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.” The section on the historical development of the concept of human dignity ends with the Second Vatican Council, which urged acknowledgment of the “sublime dignity of the human person, who stands above all things and whose rights and duties are universal and inviolable.” According to “Dignitas Infinita,” during the course of the history of the concept of human dignity,

The Church’s Magisterium progressively developed an ever-greater understanding of the meaning of human dignity, along with its demands and consequences, until it arrived at the recognition that the dignity of every human being prevails beyond all circumstances.

To be continued…