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This article is Sequel 3 to From Homo economicus to Homo ecologicus ~ Cultural Evolution During the 21st Century. The first sequel was about conscious evolution, and the second sequel was about human supremacy. This third sequel is about human personhood as it pertains to integral human development and an integral ecology. It is argued that a solid foundation on human personhood, as provided by the Theology of the Body (TOB), is indispensable for a renewal of humanity and new flourishing of human civilization.
According to the dictionary, a person is "a human being regarded as an individual." Human beings are rational animals, Homo sapiens, composed of body (objective dimension) and identity (subjective dimension). Humans are also relational animals, social animals who need community for integral personal development. The intent of the essay is not to elaborate on philosophical elucidations of what it means to be a human person, but simply to consider how persons grow and mature in interaction with other persons and the entire community of creation. "No one grows alone" (Carl Jung).
Human Personhood and Human Ecology
In his encyclical Laudato si' (LS), Pope Francis offers a comprehensive overview of the increasingly deteriorating state of human civilization and the human habitat. Modern techno-industrial society, not globalized, is literally destroying planet Earth, our "common home."
"This situation has led to a constant schizophrenia, wherein a technocracy which sees no intrinsic value in lesser beings coexists with the other extreme, which sees no special value in human beings. But one cannot prescind from humanity. There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself. There can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology. When the human person is considered as simply one being among others, the product of chance or physical determinism, then “our overall sense of responsibility wanes”. A misguided anthropocentrism need not necessarily yield to “biocentrism”, for that would entail adding yet another imbalance, failing to solve present problems and adding new ones. Human beings cannot be expected to feel responsibility for the world unless, at the same time, their unique capacities of knowledge, will, freedom and responsibility are recognized and valued." Pope Francis, LS 118
So humans are animals, like other animals, but also rational animals, conscious animals, responsible for their own wellbeing -- individually and collectively -- and also responsible for taking care of other animals and the concrete totality of natural resources without which embodied life is not possible. It follows that "there can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology." Such as "adequate anthropology" can be found in the Theology of the Body.
Metaphysics and Biophysics of Integral Human Development
This section is about the objective and subjective dimensions of human personhood. The subjective dimension is the inner spectrum of the human person, whereby body and identity and fused into one person, in one body, with one unique identity; and the fusing together of body and identity happens at successively deeper levels of the personal subject.
All human beings, men and women, share one and the same human nature. Sexual complementarity does not cancel natural consubstantiality. For all men and women of good will to effectively contribute to integral human development it is indispensable to sanitize human relations, as much as possible, from the inner disposition of rivalry that is generally manifested as domination/submission struggles. The most universal form of rivalry, succinctly summarized in Genesis 3:16, is the "patriarchal gender binary" of male domination and female submission. But the patriarchal culture, ancient as it is, was constructed by human hands and is not natural. The patriarchal era is passing away, as evidenced by families evolving from male headship to joint father-mother headship. This egalitarian complementarity of man and woman in family and society, rooted in their natural consubstantiality, is bound to gradually propagate to all human communities worldwide. Fostering this transition, away from patriarchy and toward the communion foreseen in Galatians 3:28, is crucial for the future of human civilization.
For all men and women of good will to effectively contribute to human development at any level (global, national, local) it is indispensable to sanitize human relations as much as possible from all manner of rivalry, an inner disposition that is triggered by mimetic desire and induces domination/submission struggles. This means going all the way back to the emergence of Homo sapiens; for the Agricultural Revolution, and more recently the Industrial Revolution and the Information Revolution, have but exacerbated symptoms of human misbehavior that are rooted in primitive human culture but are not intrinsic to human nature. The root cause of social and ecological human dysfunction is cultural, and therefore artificial, made by human hands; not natural.
The Book of Genesis provides a mythical account of human origins that sheds light on human nature. Specifically, Genesis 3:16 points to domination/submission as the most universal form of human struggle, one that affects all men and women. All other forms of human misbehavior encapsulate, and make manifest in different ways, this fundamental corruption of human relations. It is significant that rupturing the original communion of man and woman is revealed as the primary and most universal consequence of the fall from original innocence.
At a time when religious intolerance and slave ownership are disappearing (slowly, but surely) from human civilization, gender equality is the new horizon for human development. This step forward, dimly envisioned by successive waves of feminism starting in the late 19th century, and more recently fostered by the 2015 Millennium Development Goals and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, requires a profound cultural transition from the "patriarchal binary" of male domination, and female subordination, to practical recognition, in families and all other human institutions, of the "egalitarian complementarity" of man and woman.
Patriarchal Complementarity
Patriarchal gender ideology is based on the "gender binary" of male/female opposites. It fails to recognize that the only essential difference between man and woman is genital. It segregates men and women in every dimension of human life according to the culture of male domination and female subordination that emerged from original sin (Genesis 3:16).
The patriarchal gender binary is not natural. It is a distortion of natural law and a major obstacle to integral human development. What goes around comes around. The patriarchal binary harms men as much as women. The redemption of humanity, male and female, radically overcomes the patriarchal order of things (Galatians 3:28).
Consubstantial Complementarity
A comprehensive exegesis of biblical texts on man and woman, and their unity in one and the same human nature, was developed by Pope John Paul II in his Theology of the Body (TOB). It provides a solid basis for solving the most pressing issues of human sexuality, both in families and in the Church as the family of God, including the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The TOB endorses neither radical patriarchy nor radical feminism, and provides a vision of marriage, and gender relations in general, that can be summarized as unity in diversity ("original unity of man and woman"), individuality in community ("communion of persons") and equality in mutuality ("spousal meaning of the body"). The complementarity of man and woman is for reciprocity and mutual enrichment, not mutual exclusion.
It is noteworthy that, in the TOB, the "male or female" descriptor is always used in reference to the human being as a body, while "male and female" is always used in reference to the human being as a person. The human person is a body, but is more than a body (Genesis 2:7). The body is a sacrament of the entire person, but is not the entire person. Furthermore, being a body is more fundamental to the structure of the personal subject than being somatically male or female (TOB 3:2, 8:1, 21:6). In other words, bodiliness and sexuality are not simply identical:
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HUMAN BODILINESS & SEXUAL DIFFERENTIATION
"Corporality and sexuality are not completely identified. Although the human body in its normal constitution, bears within it the signs of sex and is by its nature male or female, the fact, however, that man is a "body" belongs to the structure of the personal subject more deeply than the fact that in his somatic constitution he is also male or female. Therefore, the meaning of "original solitude," which can be referred simply to "man," is substantially prior to the meaning of original unity. The latter is based on masculinity and femininity, as if on two different "incarnations," that is, on two ways of "being a body" of the same human being created "in the image of God" (Gn 1:27)."
HUMAN NATURE & CONSUBSTANTIAL HOMOGENEITY
"The woman is made "with the rib" that God-Yahweh had taken from the man. Considering the archaic, metaphorical and figurative way of expressing the thought, we can establish that it is a question here of homogeneity of the whole being of both. This homogeneity concerns above all the body, the somatic structure. It is also confirmed by the man's first words to the woman who has been created: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" (Gn 2:23).(15) Yet the words quoted refer also to the humanity of the male. They must be read in the context of the affirmations made before the creation of the woman, in which, although the "incarnation" of the man does not yet exist, she is defined as "a helper fit for him" (cf. Gn 2:18 and 2:20). In this way, therefore, the woman is created, in a sense, on the basis of the same humanity."
Source: Original Unity of Man and Woman, Pope John Paul II, General Audience, 7 November 1979. The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan, Pauline Books, 1997, pages 43-44; and Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, Pauline Books, 2006, pages 157 (section 8:1) and 160 (section 8:4).
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According to this translation, there was a human being in "original solitude" before sexual differentiation. This is the first human being created from the dust (Genesis 2:7) before sexual differentiation provides a "helper" of the other sex (Genesis 2:18-23). This key text is translated a bit differently in the 2006 edition, but includes the original emphasis in italics for a key phrase, and the same key point is made that embodied human nature (in complete body-soul integrity) precedes humans embodied as male or female:
"Bodiliness and sexuality are not simply identical. Although in its normal constitution, the human body carries within itself the signs of sex and is by its nature male or female, the fact that man is a "body" belongs more deeply to the structure of the personal subject than the fact that in his somatic constitution he is also male or female. For this reason, the meaning of "original solitude," which can be referred simply to "man," is substantially prior to the meaning of original unity; the latter is based on masculinity and femininity, which are, as it were, two different "incarnations," that is, two ways in which the same human being, created "in the image of God" (Gen 1:27), "is a body."" The Meaning of Original Unity, Pope John Paul II, 7 November 1979. Source: Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, Pauline Books, 2006, page 157. See also note 12 in page 158.
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Furthermore, the somatic homogeneity of man and woman (TOB 8:4) shows that sexual differentiation, while undoubtedly being a gift, is also a limitation of embodied human nature. A man is bodily a man, and a woman is bodily a woman, but they are both equal in human personhood because they are both "body-persons" (i.e., "body-souls"). The entire TOB is a deconstruction of the patriarchal binary:
- Having a body is more fundamental than being male or female (TOB 8:1)
- Man and Woman are fully homogeneous in their "whole being" (TOB 8:4)
- Corporality, not sexuality, is the primordial sacrament (TOB 19:4, 96:6)
- Imbalance of male domination/female submission must be corrected (TOB 31:2)
- The spousal meaning of the body is not limited to patriarchal analogies (TOB 33:3)
- The spousal bond of Christ-Head and Church-Body transcends patriarchy (TOB 91:1)
- The language of the body, male and female, is the language of the liturgy (TOB 117:5)
Natural Consubstantiality
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From the beginning, the human person, man and woman, was created as a "body-soul" reality that subsumes the "body-gender" reality, which in turn subsumes the "biophysical body" reality, which in turn subsumes many other realities such as biological sex, the five senses, the color of the skin, etc. All men and women are made of the same created dust, the same created flesh, animated by the same kind of created soul. All men and women are naturally consubstantial, with unity in diversity in the image of the Trinity. That the second person of the Trinity became incarnate as a male means that God assumed all the limitations of the human condition ("like us in all things but sin") without in any way ceasing to be a divine person.
This diagram, like all models, is a simplification of reality, but attempts to deconstruct the over simplistic sex/gender binary of the patriarchal culture. Basically, it means that each human being is a body animated by a soul (gray circle). All men and women are fully homogeneous, made of the same dust, of the same substance, of the same flesh; and share one and the same human nature (brown circle). The body of each person is sexually differentiated, and is male *or* female *or* intersex (pink, blue, and purple circles). So, again, the body is a visible sacrament of the entire person, but is not the entire person. The physical body makes visible the invisible metaphysical person, but is not the entire person.
Sex is biophysical. It is constitutive of the person, but does not exhaust the person. Gender (gradient pink-blue circle) is psychosomatic, a personal synthesis of somatic constitution and cultural conditioning. Sex and gender are constitutive of the human person more deeply that other, more superficial attributes such as skin color, height, and weight; but all men and women are homogeneously constituted of the same flesh in one and the same human nature. The sexual complementarity of man and woman does not limit them to mutually exclusive roles except when they come together to share the gift of love and the gift of life. Modern science (biology, psychology, neurology) has shown ancient cultural stereotypes to be unnatural. In contrast to the patriarchal mindset of male domination and female subordination, a healthy complementarity of man and woman actually requires their joint participation in most human activities and the reconstruction of their interpersonal communion as fully equal partners in the nuclear family, and in the Church as the family of God, including apostolic succession.
Other than genitally, the complementarity of man and woman does not mean mutually exclusive roles in any dimension of human life. Such mutual exclusion of gender roles is a heritage from radical patriarchy, not divine revelation. All humans are consubstantial in one and the same human nature. Jesus Christ is consubstantial with all humans in his humanity. The Eucharist is the flesh and blood of Christ. Metaphysical "transubstantiation" happens when the priest consecrates the bread and wine, but is really consummated in the flesh when the person who receives the Eucharist becomes "eucharist" in sacrificial service to others.
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Cultural anthropology is the comparative study of human societies and cultures and their development. Cultures develop by imitation, learning, and socialization. There are cultural variations that are local or regional, and lead to ethnical cultures. We are dealing here with primitive cultural development that gradually propagated worldwide but is still artificial (made by human hands) and not intrinsic to the natural law.
In the patriarchal culture, the male or female "incarnations" of human persons are understood as practically constituting two different human natures. In theory, both men and women fully share one and the same human nature but, in practice, the biblical curse of male rule and female submission prevails in most cultures worldwide. This is visibly manifested, via body language, in all dimensions of human relations. The "male gaze" and the "female gaze" are symptomatic of this reality, and not only in cinematography but in families and both social and religious institutions.
Surely, men and women are different. But it is a difference in equality, an equality that is not only a matter of equal dignity but a full equality in embodied personhood, both men and women fundamentally being "body-persons." It is an "egalitarian complementarity" in which differences are for reciprocity and mutual enrichment, not arbitrary exclusion. Humanity is "male and female," not "male or female." This has crucial repercussions for social and ecological justice, as evidenced by the feminization of poverty and the feminization of nature, both tightly coupled to the current ecological crisis.
Humanity and the Human Habitat
"Valuing one's own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment." Pope Francis, LS 155
But how can this happen as long as the feminine genius is excluded from roles of responsibility and authority in social and religious institutions? Reconstructing the natural mutuality of man and woman has enormous implications for integral human development and social-ecological justice. There is by now an overwhelming consensus that "human development, if not engendered, is fatally endangered."
The ancient Old Testament exemplifies patriarchal bias in many ways, notably by the metaphor of woman coming out of man. This is corrected in the New Testament, notably by making the explicit statement that God became incarnate from a woman. Not insignificantly, this seemingly innocuous clarification follows the summary of the cultural progression that is now attainable, but yet to be fully attained, in human history: "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Objective evidence confirms that the patriarchal binary is an oversimplification of reality. From reproductive biology we know that, at the instant of conception, the human body is one androgynous, sexually undifferentiated cell (zygote), and subsequent sexual differentiation happens via inactivation of one X chromosome, resulting in a cell with XX (female) or XY (male) chromosomes. From modern psychology we know that there is woman in man (anima) and man in woman (animus), so female and male polarities are invisible partners in every man and every woman during their entire life. Critical analysis of biblical texts reveals a progression from male dominance in the Old Testament to male-female partnership in the New Testament as the intended divine plan for human relations.
In brief, as long as the patriarchal binary prevails, subjective human development remains defective, with pervasive repercussions in human relations as well as human-nature relations. There can be no fully integral human development as long as both the objective and subjective dimensions of the body-person are not taken into account. There can be no fully integral ecology as long as humanity behaves as the dominant male and treats nature as a submissive female. There can be no lasting social justice, and there can be no lasting ecological justice, as long as human behavior is driven by the patriarchal mindset.
Cultural Evolution or Cultural Revolution for an Integral Ecology?
Consider:
"All of this shows the urgent need for us to move forward in a bold cultural revolution. Science and technology are not neutral; from the beginning to the end of a process, various intentions and possibilities are in play and can take on distinct shapes. Nobody is suggesting a return to the Stone Age, but we do need to slow down and look at reality in a different way, to appropriate the positive and sustainable progress which has been made, but also to recover the values and the great goals swept away by our unrestrained delusions of grandeur." Pope Francis, LS 114
The "bold cultural revolution" we need in the Catholic Church is to dismantle the patriarchal scaffolding of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. A hierarchy is indispensable for unity, continuity, and apostolic succession. But the hierarchy does not have to be a patriarchy. Consider:
1. Jesus Christ is the Redeemer, God made flesh, not a patriarch.
2. God the Father is a person, but not a male.
3. God the Son is a person, but was not a male before the incarnation.
4. God the Holy Spirit is a person, but not a male.
5. The Trinity is a communion of persons, not a patriarchate.
6. The "Son of Man" is God made flesh, not a patriarch.
7. All men and women are fully consubstantial in one and the same human nature.
8. Bodiliness and sexuality are not simply identical.
9. Being a body-soul is more fundamental for human nature than sexuality.
10. The body is a sacrament of the entire person, but is not the entire person.
11. The priest acts in the person of Christ, not in the masculinity of Christ.
12. All men and women are ontologically homogeneous in their whole being.
13. All men and women are of the same flesh in their somatic structure.
14. The complementarity of man and woman is enabled by their consubstantiality.
15. All men and women are fully consubstantial with Jesus Christ as to his humanity.
16. For the redemption, the masculinity of Jesus is as incidental as the color of his eyes.
17. Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life, not the male of life.
18. The substance of the Eucharist is BODY, not XX or XY chromosomes.
19. The substance of the Eucharist is FLESH, not testosterone.
20. The Church is "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic," but not necessarily patriarchal.
21. Patriarchy is a disordered attachment to the supremacy of masculinity.
22. The Church is a communion of persons, not a patriarchate.
23. The Church is the body of Christ, not a woman with a male head.
24. The Virgin Mary is the "type" of the Church, not a woman with a male head.
25. The Virgin Mary precedes the sacramental economy as Mother of the Eucharist.
26. The Marian dimension of the Church precedes the apostolic dimension.
27. Apostolic succession is contingent on redeemed flesh, not on masculinity.
28. The nuptial mystery of Christ and the Church is not a patriarchal marriage.
29. Canon 1024 is an artificial contraceptive and abortifacient of female priestly vocations.
30. Catechism 1577 reduces the priesthood of the New Law to priesthood of the Old Law.
31. Catechism 1598 declares that ordaining only males is a choice, not a dogma.
32. The exclusively male priesthood makes invisible the "feminine genius" in Christ.
33. The Christian/Catholic/Orthodox faith is not intrinsically (dogmatically) patriarchal.
34. The conflation of patriarchal gender ideology and Christian doctrines is a disgrace.
35. Institutionalized ecclesiastical patriarchy is an abuse against Christ and the Church.
36. It is time to discard the patriarchal scaffolding that obscures the Catholic faith.
37. Male headship is an ancient but entirely artificial cultural custom, not natural law.
38. After the resurrection, nothing requires that apostolic succession be exclusively male.
39. The first "transubstantiation" in history happened in the Blessed Virgin Mary's body.
40. Transubstantiation can happen via women ordained to act in persona Christi.
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As long as the Catholic Church remains a patriarchy, it contributes to perpetuate the mindset of domination -- of male over female, of humans over nature -- and is thereby an obstacle to integral human development and an integral ecology. It is lamentable to see a patriarchal church exemplifying the very cultural mindset that has brought about the current social and ecological unraveling. Like everyone else, religious institutions must lead by example; else, preaching fraternity and "ecological conversion" has no credibility, and few can be expected to become "acting persons" in fostering social and ecological survivability.
A symposium on the anthropology of vocations and the fundamental theology of the priesthood was held at the Vatican, 17-19 February 2022. The elephant in the room is the ordination of women, but they don't want to see it. The program did not include any formal presentation about the ordination of women. It included one round table on "woman and ministry, status questionis." The usual condescending platitudes about women being important members of the church, the common priesthood of the faithful rooted in baptism, etc. Nothing about the personhood of women in Christ. Apparently they are refraining from fabricating more silly rationalizations in defense of the exclusively male priesthood, so now they are proposing some buzzwords, like "clericalism" and "synodality." The official line is that the main problem with the ministerial priesthood is clericalism, not patriarchalism; and the future is synodality, which is expected to somehow cure clericalism while sticking with patriarchalism. Nothing official about the possibility of ordaining women to act in the person of Christ in the foreseeable future. In other words, the Vatican is blinking, but chooses to remain in willful blindness. Tentative inferences, hopefully to be proven wrong:
"Clericalism" is a buzzword to evade challenging patriarchalism.
"Synodality" is a buzzword to kick the can down the road.
Nevertheless, going forward on the evolutionary the journey, the encyclicals Laudato Si' and Fratelli Tutti are good guidance for conscious evolution by all men and women of good will. The Laudato Si' Action Platform and the Laudato Si' Movement are recommended as a most effective means, especially for 1.2 billion Catholics, to play a part in conscious cultural evolution for the renewal of humanity and human civilization:
Study the encyclicals Laudato Si' and Fratelli Tutti.
Explore the Laudato Si' official website.
Another good resource is the Laudato Si' Research Institute.
Click the image for more information about the Laudato Si' Action Platform.
Consider becoming active in the Laudato Si' Movement.
Goals of the Laudato Si' Action Platform:
(1) Hearing the Cry of the Earth
(2) Hearing the Cry of the Poor
(3) Ecological Economics
(4) Adoption of Sustainable Lifestyles
(5) Ecological Education
(6) Ecological Spirituality
(7) Community Resilience and Empowerment.
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