Thread by @sometimesalight

A couple more thoughts for those pondering yesterday's thread on gender identity via imago Dei:

Part of the difficulty is our resistance to paradox. Human maleness & femaleness in image of God is, at root, a paradox--two realities that at first seem contradictory.

How can humanity be represented in two disparate embodiments? And yet, to be man is to be human and to be woman is to be human.

Predictably, we try to resolve the paradox either by setting the two realities in opposition to each other or uncoupling the paradox altogether.

In first case, we handle male & female as antonymns. To be male is to not be female and to be female is to not be male. In second, we deny male & female as realities. Gender is simply a social construct.

But neither preserves the paradox. Neither preserves the "both, and" of human identity. As embodied image bearers, we are sexed, and yet, both man & woman are human.

When you preserve the paradox, however, you end up with possibilities like this:

"Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way... because you are coheirs of the grace of life."

IOW, respect and honor your sexed differences BECAUSE you share the same father, the same life, the same hope of glory.

Respect and honor your unique embodiment as originating from the same source, tasked with shared calling, and destined for same hope.

It's this ordering that allows us to see our gendered lives as parallel rather than competing embodiments. This ordering allows us to see ourselves as neighboring sexes, rather than sexes defined primarily in opposition to each other.

This does not mean the sexes are not different but that their source of difference is not with each other. Their differences emerge and are defined by God.

So that as image bearers, both bring forth life, albeit in different ways. As image bearers, both have agency, manifesting & utilizing it in distinct ways. As image bearers, both rule over creation, in the ways their bodies equip them to.

This is what I meant when I wrote that our gender theory must be rooted in imago Dei. To be human is to be a living paradox.

I would also add that rooting gender theory in the imago Dei saves us from social Darwinism that reduces m/f interaction to sexuality. And ultimately from defining gender by laws of jungle.

Natural law & embodiment are really significant part of gender convo, but w/out commitment to divine calling of humanity, it collapses into animalistic passions & behavior. Imago Dei calls us to use our maleness & femaleness for different ends. That's part of the paradox, too.