I’m thinking a bit today of a recent series of theology posts floating out there that deal with the relationship between sexuality and humanness. I’m a bit behind the curve but here we go….

Background: It’s basically fisticuffs between Rowan Williams who argues that sexual differentiation is not a definitive feature of human beings and JPII/Barth who think it is. Crude, yes, but we’re trying to sum this up for the sake of getting on our own way. If you want to follow up on the rest of the conversation you can find a good starting place at Faith and Theology.

This is of interest to me because a by-product of being a person with a severe intellectual disability is a constant questioning of your humanity. Many people who experience disability in this way lack a sense of personhood and a lack of sexuality (marriage, family, children) is par for the course.

Hans Reinders Receiving the Gift of Friendship attempts to respond to the personhood of the disabled question. He suggests that John D. Zizioulas, a Greek Orthodox theologian, helps provide a way forward, claiming that true human being “entails that the freedom of the human creature is its most critical component.” But, unlike many other conceptions of personhood, this account is not constituted by intrinsic features. The only truly free act is the gift of being from the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. “In other words, true freedom is grounded in the economy of grace that draws human beings into the communion of the triune God.”

Zizioulas develops this with an eye to Greek theater where the tragic hero disappears behind the mask of his theatrical role. In this role, the person does not participate in “being;” “it does not have ontological content.” Whereas things are real to the extent that they participate in ontological necessity, “personhood individualizes human beings under the aspect of their illusory freedom.” Taking this further into the Trinitarian realm, God the Father alone is free from ontological necessity. He begets the Son and bring forth the Spirit. Our creation is gift, one that no actualized or potential capacity can nullify.

What I found in Zizioulas (at least Reinders rendering thereof) is the begetting and begetted-ness of the Trinity. When I first read Rowan’s quote my response to “why is human sexuality so important” was “kids. duh.” Zizioulas reminds us of Jesus role as a begeter, an originator, not in the creepy Dan Brown way, but by the ordering of the Trinity, a relationality that is implicitly productive. And while I too am leery of a base mimicry of Jesus, I do think it’s fair to say that our God-imagedness leads to our ability to be productive. Sex/uality allows us to be givers of the gift freely given in that this act has the potential to result in children. While this act is implicated in sin, it isn’t negated.

I think there are broader implications for sex in practice implicit in this logic, namely that the restriction of the potential of gift through the use of contraception is morally questionable, although I don’t think this argument necessarily ends with Humanae Vitae (although I suppose this could be the extention). At least it can be concluded that to label the participation in our God-imaged-ness of begetting a “mistake,” “an accident,” or “a failure” would be obscene.

In the end, what I’m imagining may be tautological in that sex does end up mattering for our humanness. It could be that the Catholics are right in the end: we are human because we are born of human ancestry. And to be born someone had to have sex, someone had to say yes, someone had to give the gift (almost) freely given in the same way the Trinity begets.

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