Some Thoughts on Male and Female, the Body, and Human Sexuality

What I want to do here is lay out some thoughts, informally, about male and female, the body, and human sexuality.  I'm not attempting to give a thorough treatise of everything that must be said about these complex issues, just jotting down some important ideas.  My thinking draws from the teaching of the Catholic Church (such as can be found here and here, and which was famously expounded upon in Pope St. John Paul II's well-known lectures on the Theology of the Body), combined with some ideas and observations of my own.

Male-Female Complementarity, Sexuality, and Marriage

God designed the human race to exist in two complementary forms--male and female.  He did this because relationality is a central part of reality.  God himself is a unity, but not simply a unity.  His Being also involves relationality, as he is a Trinity--one God in three Persons.  The very center and pinnacle of reality is the life and love of the Triune God, and creation is simply a spilling over of that love as God manifests his glorious life in the created world and we are brought to share in it.  The complementary nature of males and females in the human race highlights relationality.  Relationships involve the giving and receiving of selves, and the male-female complementarity of humanity allows for an abundance of this sharing of selves.  Of course, this sharing doesn't happen only between males and females, but it happens (at least within the human race) in one of its deepest ways in male-female relationships.

This sharing of selves in male-female relationships is seen most profoundly in marriage--and especially in sacramental marriage.  Marriage (in the Catholic view) is supposed to be a stable, permanent, committed relationship between a man and a woman in which one of the greatest examples of the sharing of selves can happen in the human race.  When we talk about "sharing of selves," we're talking about giving and receiving.  Husbands and wives give themselves in a deeply profound way to each other in the marriage relationship.

The human self involves both body and soul.  These cannot be separated from each other, for we humans are not simply bodies, or souls in bodies, but we are a unit of body-and-soul.  In the marriage relationship, husbands and wives give themselves body and soul to each other.  They give their whole selves to each other in a uniquely profound way.

The body plays an essential role in this.  When husbands and wives give their bodies to each other, this is both a part of and also symbolizes the complete gift to each other of their entire selves.  An essential component of maleness and femaleness is the unique bodily characteristics of males and females.  The bodies of males and females are designed for each other.  There is a physical, biological, sexual attraction that exists between males and females.  Men (generally) delight in the female body, and women delight in the male body.  In the marriage relationship, husbands give their bodies to their wives and wives give their bodies to their husbands, and both husband and wife are fulfilled as they delight in each other's bodies and also delight in the enjoyment their spouse finds in their own body.  This delight and enjoyment are manifested in many ways--enjoying the beauty of each other's bodies, acts of physical affection and intimacy, etc.--culminating in the sexual act itself.  (That's not to say that the sexual act must be the immediate end of every expression of affection, etc.  It's just to say that the sexual act is the pinnacle of all the various ways in which spouses enjoy each other's bodies.  Spouses should find the fulfillment of their sexual attraction to each other in the sexual act, since God designed the sexual act--with its functions of bonding and procreation, which we'll talk about further below--to be the place where sexual enjoyment reaches its fulfillment and climax.)

How does nakedness fit in?  The showing of the whole body is part of and symbolic of the revealing and giving of the whole self.  Being naked in front of someone implies being vulnerable, letting one's inner/deeper self be seen and accessed.  (When the whole body is seen, our private bodily parts are seen, and this is part of and symbolic of our inner selves being seen.  That's why physical nakedness is so often used as a metaphor for other kinds of general exposure of self.  "He could read my thoughts.  I felt naked.")  This is why we wear clothes in general public life.  Trust is required when we bare ourselves, but trust cannot be taken for granted in a fallen, corrupt, sinful world.  If we bare ourselves, we subject ourselves to possible objectification, scorn, contempt, ridicule, abuses, etc., which can damage our inner selves which we want to protect from such things.  People can disrespect our bodies and their private parts, and they can disrespect our inner selves.  This is why Adam and Eve were naked--there was unfallenness, so there was no lack of trust, no possibility of abuse.  And that's why clothes were introduced after the Fall.  So when husbands and wives get naked in front of each other, they are being vulnerable, exercising trust, baring themselves--their private body parts and their inner selves--to each other, giving themselves to each other as a gift, and they want to enjoy and be enjoyed--but as persons, not as disrespected objects.

Also, sexuality is a deeply intimate part of a person's self and life.  In sex, we bare ourselves body and soul in a uniquely profound way.  Our passions are intense and play a more central role in our experience than they do in much of ordinary life, where a more objective reason (hopefully!) tends to have greater influence, and this makes us vulnerable.  (How many times do people do things in the heat of sexual passion they would find absurdly irrational at any other time?)  Sex inclines us body and soul to each other.  Physically, we bond.  Spiritually and personally and in every way, we bond.  Love of that sort creates vulnerability, because when we love, when we bond, we can be hurt.  When we share and unify, we can be hurt.  In many ways, in sex, some of our deepest desires, longings, and concerns are expressed, as we enter into an intimate relationship which bonds us to another human being--what we want, what we love, but which makes us vulnerable.  We keep people at greater distance generally, because it is such a commitment of self to break down those barriers and engage in the intimacy of sex.  (That's one reason why promiscuity is often so painful emotionally, and why casual dating often leads to much heartache.  We are treating as casual something that is wired to be something deep, profound, and permanent.  We are giving our very selves in a way that lacks the protection required for such giving.)  Therefore, the sharing of sex is part of and symbolic of the deep, intimate sharing of selves in general.  It makes sense, then, that the parts of our body that we consider our "private parts" are those parts that have associations with sex to varying degrees.  To be naked, then, is to share our private body parts and our private inner selves, especially those parts connected to sex which is itself an intimate sharing of selves.

Of course, sex is also connected to procreation.  That is its most obvious and immediate function, as is evident biologically.  But procreation is not its only function.  It is also an expression of affection and love, bonding, etc.  But these all fit together, for the love and bonding is indeed designed for the good of the husband and the wife, but also for the making of a family structure in which new life will be brought into the world and raised and nurtured.  Love and commitment lived out in life is the framework needed for the production and nurturing of new human life.  God designed the most intimate and dramatic expression of love between two persons, a male and a female--the sexual act--to be the mechanism by which new life is brought into the world, showing that life and love are intimately bound up together.  Love leads to life, and life is love.  In the Trinity, there is one God in Three Persons.  The relationship of the Father and Son produces the Holy Spirit.  The love of the Trinity is the basis of creation, our very existence, as well as our final destiny as human beings and our salvation.  We are destined to enjoy the Beatific Vision, which is sharing in the Trinitarian life and love.  So human love in general, and especially love between males and females, and especially married love, and the sexual act in particular as a dramatic expression of this love, is made a metaphor and revelation of what reality is all about at the deepest level, what our human destiny is all about, and what salvation in Christ is all about.  Hence, marriage is a created reality, but Christ raised it to a sacrament--a sign and means of grace.

We can see from God's having made marriage a central creation ordinance and a sacrament that he has put a very high value and sacredness on romantic and sexual love and the sexual act.  "Sacramentality" carries the idea of a kind of special communication of the divine.  Of course, this manifests itself in many ways in the marriage relationship in general, but one of the ways it manifests itself is in the very nature of romantic and sexual love and the sexual act.  There is a mystical quality to sexual relationality and the sexual act.  Like many other things--music, art, nature--but in some ways even more profoundly, sexuality is a doorway to experience of the transcendent.  That's one reason it has been so central in human experience and culture.  Much of our poetry, music, stories, etc., are associated with it.  In many cultures, it has even played a role in religious and mystical rituals and experiences.  It has mind-altering effects in some ways similar to that which can be produced by certain drugs or medicinal substances (which have also often been used in religious experiences in various cultures) or by deep meditation and other forms of spiritual or religious experience.  The connection between two persons experiencing sexual attraction or relationships or involved in sexual acts in some ways transcends any other relational connection possible to us in this life.  In this way, it functions as a kind of special appetizer for the Beatific Vision.  It is an immensely powerful experience.  I would not say that sexual relationality is the closest overall we get to the Beatific Vision in this life.  The Eucharist, for example, certainly takes a higher place.  But purely in terms of the mystical experience of relationality, it is no doubt among the highest and most profound that we can have in this life.

(Although my primary focus here is on the body and sexuality, it needs to be said that, of course, the total giving of selves in marriage that sex symbolizes goes far beyond sex itself.  It involves the hard work of loving throughout life, sacrificing one's self for the good of the other, dealing with the ongoing, daily, and sometimes "mundane" aspect of living together--maintaining a household, raising children, comforting in affliction, easing burdens, practicing patience and forgiveness, learning the art of compromise and unselfishness, being faithful through adversity, etc.  The joy of marriage is not just physical, but also spiritual and personal, and marriage involves not only joy in an ecstatic sort of sense but also commitment, sacrifice, penance, hard work, etc., and the fruits and satisfactions these bring.  In all of these things together the love of married couples is fully lived out.)

All of this is why God designed sex to happen only in committed, protected relationships.  It requires the protection and trust of commitment.  To avoid harm, it requires stability--for the sake of the two persons themselves and also for the sake of the family structure that is the context of the procreation and raising of children.  It requires a stable, protected place for love and life to be kept safe and nourished.  And the relationship God designed for this purpose is marriage--which involves the coming together of a male and a female.  Sex in any other context is forbidden, for any other context robs sex of some of its essential elements.  Masturbation, for example, robs it of its association with relationships and the giving of selves.  It becomes simply an activity for personal self-gratification.  Homosexual acts remove it from its divinely-designed context of male-female relationships.  As we've mentioned, God designed sex for the bonding and support of husband and wife and also for procreation.  It should not be intentionally removed from this context, or it is misused, even if some elements of good sexual relationships--a great degree of affectionate bonding, for example--are present.  Sex between males and females but outside of a marriage relationship lacks the necessary support and commitment both for the safe bonding of the partners and also for the procreation and raising of children--a task which requires a great degree of commitment and permanency.  Adultery breaks the commitment of marriage and harms the bonding between spouses and the stable family structure for the raising of children.  And so on.

Sometimes people these days criticize the Christian doctrine of sexuality--particularly the idea that sex is to happen only in heterosexual marriage relationships--as condemning other expressions of sexuality arbitrarily and for no purpose.  "What's the big deal about sex between unmarried people, or homosexual sex, or masturbation, etc.?"  But this objection ignores all the reasons discussed in the previous paragraph, and it also ignores the deep sacredness of the sexual act.  Contrary to the way it seems often to be treated in our culture, sex is not simply a hobby or a fun extra-curricular activity or a nice way to pass the time.  It is profoundly sacred.  And, like all things, it belongs ultimately to God and not to us.  God designed it for particular purposes and to be used in particular ways, and he puts very high value on it, so when we take it and twist it away from the divine intentions for it and use it however we see fit, we commit a serious act of sacrilege.  We take something holy that belongs to God and treat it as if it is ours to do with as we will, according to our desires and regardless of God's.  Imagine someone coming into your bedroom and, upon seeing some memento of great value to you up on a shelf, after being told by you how important it is to you and how you want it to be treated, declares that all your concerns are "silly" and "arbitrary," takes it down from the shelf, and decides to use it for his own purposes--perhaps as a doorstop, or even in a more serious way but a way contrary to your deep desires for how it should be treated.  Perhaps that can give a bit of a hint of God's point of view when we misuse sexuality.

Male-Female Complementarity Outside of Marriage

But what about male-female relationships outside of marriage?  Does the male-female complementarity of humanity have any function or role in other human relationships or in human society more broadly?  Yes, it does.  There are many ways in which this complementarity plays and can play a role.  It plays a role in the broader society, as men and women contribute their unique points of view, interests, and abilities to the general goal of furthering the good of society.  Men and women can be friends, and, while such friendships partake of the same general nature as friendships between members of the same sex, there are often elements of the male-female complementarity involved.  For example, men often tend to be more empathetic towards women than towards other men, or they feel a greater desire to protect and support them.  Men and women, even outside of marriage, find each other attractive and are drawn to each other's beauty.  (This includes both visible, physical beauty, and also things we might not think of, such as the enjoyment of the sound of the other sex's voice in speaking or singing.)  This can manifest itself in art, such as in the enjoyment of paintings that express the beauty of human beings, both male and female.  Men and women also find the male-female relationship itself beautiful, and they often naturally enjoy illustrations of it, whether drawn from real-life (just think of the excitement of bridesmaids as they help the bride get ready to be married) or from imaginative portrayals (think, for example, romantic comedies).

But what about nudity?  Can it ever be licit for men or women to enjoy any portrayal of the nude body of the opposite sex outside of marriage?  Pope St. John Paul II, in his Theology of the Body, answered yes to this question (though with great caution).  Nudity is not inherently an evil.  The Book of Genesis seems to make this pretty clear, as it portrays the idyllic state of unfallen humanity in the Garden of Eden as a state of nudity.  The danger of nudity in our world comes not from any inherent problem with nudity per se but with the fact that nakedness, in a fallen world, inherently invites corruption--disrespect of the body and the person, and objectification, where a person's naked body is used by someone to gratify their own desires outside of the proper relational context.  General nudity requires a kind of general assumption of righteousness and trust, and a general self-control, which can't be had in this world.  However, in limited and very carefully-controlled contexts, Pope John Paul II said that the beauty of nudity can be enjoyed even outside of the marriage relationship--such as in certain forms of art.  (Think of the nudes in the paintings of the Sistine Chapel.)

All male-female relationships outside of marriage, however, are potentially dangerous, because male-female complementarity naturally tends towards the full gift of soul and body that ought to take place only in a marriage relationship.  Men and women can be friends, but they must always be on their guard against their friendship evolving into a deeper kind of relationship of the sort that only belongs in marriage.  Men and women can enjoy the beauty of the opposite sex, but they must constantly be on their guard against that enjoyment evolving into an attempt to find sexual fulfillment and gratification outside of marriage.  We want to avoid two extremes here.  We want to avoid simply condemning wholesale any male-female relationality of any sort outside of marriage, but we also want to avoid a laziness that does not take proper guard towards protecting such relations from corruption.  We want to avoid a kind of paranoid fear on the one hand, and a kind of moral carelessness on the other.  And relationships within marriage are not void of danger either.  Objectification, abuse, neglect, and many other evils are just as possible within marriage as they are without--some forms even more possible.

Considering these dangers and the extremes we must avoid, how do we draw the lines properly and maintain the proper balance?  As in many areas of life, this requires the virtue of prudence.  There are some clear rules given to us in the moral law, but the application of these rules requires the development of prudence.  Prudence is a gift of God, but it is also a skill that must be learned, and we get better with practice and experience.  In prudential matters, there is often not a one-size-fits-all, easy answer to all questions.  The application of moral principles requires discernment.  We must be aware of the complexities, details, and nuances of particular situations.  We must be aware of ourselves--our personalities, our tendencies, our inclinations, our strengths, our weaknesses, our level of wisdom, etc.  We must recognize relevant cultural issues.  Think of drinking alcohol.  There is nothing inherently wrong with drinking alcohol in moderation.  But should everyone drink alcohol?  No.  Should children drink alcohol?  No.  Should everyone have exactly the same amount of alcohol, or drink it in all the same circumstances?  No.  (Does everyone even like alcohol?  No.  I myself can testify to that!)  With regard to male-female relations, as with many, many other areas of life, we must learn the art of discernment as we prudentially apply moral principles to our lives.  Such diversity of application can exist not only between individuals, but also between cultures, peoples, and ages.  Different cultures often draw the lines somewhat differently.  And different ages have their own emphases and concerns.  (We can think of how a pope allowed Michaelangelo to paint nudes in the Sistine Chapel, later popes had them covered up, and then a later pope had the coverings removed.)  We need to strike the proper balance between thinking for ourselves as we form our own consciences and following the spiritual advice and direction of those who are skilled in moral discernment.  We must, of course, form our consciences by reason and by the revealed Word of God, and we must be guided by the application of God's revelation in the teaching of the Church.  If we are young, we must listen to the counsel of our parents and obey them, and not seek to strike out on our own without them.  We must avoid, on the one hand, an obsessive scrupulosity that is overly afraid of danger and which draws lines too narrowly, and on the other hand an overly lax attitude that does not sufficiently guard against corruption.

Not all people are called to marriage.  Some people are called to be single.  There are those called to various forms of religious life, for example.  There are those who are unable to get married for some reason or another.  There are those who are elderly and who, if they were once married, will not marry again.  Etc.  Does male-female complementarity play any role for people in these callings and situations?  Yes.  I mentioned above that society in general benefits from the unique insights, points of view, sensitivities, and abilities of men and women.  This certainly plays a role in something like religious life.  Religious orders of women, and individual women in religious life, contribute something unique in addition to what is contributed by religious societies of men and men in religious life.  Also, the relationship of single persons to God can tie in to the sacramental meaning of marriage.  Marriage symbolizes the relationship between Christ and the Church, and points back in general to the relationship between God and his people and the relationships within the Blessed Trinity.  Being called to singleness often involves a calling to be specially devoted to God in a more direct and focused way than is often possible in the married life (because the married life involves many worldly cares).  Sometimes those called to the religious life will refer to this as being "married" to Christ.  Priests are sometimes said to have forgone a family so that the whole congregation of God's people can be their family.  We even call them "father."  Those called to the religious life are called to be a witness to all people that there is something more important than the relationships that are a part of this world.  Ultimately, it is our relationship with God that counts.  So the religious life works hand in hand with the Sacrament of Matrimony to point the world to a relationship with God.  (See here for more on religious life and the "evangelical counsels" in general.)  And those who are single for other reasons can also complement those who are married as they live their lives with special devotion to God and in forms of service which are not as accessible to those in married life.  Male-female complementarity, as we said at the beginning of this post, is one expression of the life of love and self-giving we are to practice in community in this world, and this life of love, of giving and receiving, is something that all people, whatever their state and calling, are called to participate in.

Some Practical Tips for Living a Chaste and Virtuous Life

Living a virtuous life is not easy.  As fallen creatures, the path to holiness involves a lifelong struggle to fight against our disordered fallen nature and its natural inclinations to sin and stupidity.  But sometimes we make the journey harder than it needs to be by allowing our thoughts to get confused.  So let me provide here just a few practical tips for a smoother journey towards holiness with regard to male-female relationality and sexuality.  (In Catholic language, "chastity" is basically a condition of virtue with regard particularly to sexuality.)

As Aristotle famously pointed out, a lot of times error and vice are found in the extremes, and virtue is found in the mean between the extremes.  One set of extremes that is often a pitfall for those seeking to live a holy life involves, one the one hand, laziness and carelessness with regard to sin and bad habits, and, on the other hand, an excessive fear, obsession, or even paranoia about these things.  Those inclined towards the former extreme need to be reminded that sin is a serious matter.  The fundamental nature of sin is opposition to God and the moral law, and this attitude is the essence of all wickedness and the fount of all misery (because God is the Supreme Good).  We need to take God with the utmost seriousness, and therefore sin needs to be our mortal enemy.  This is why the Bible is always telling us to "fear" God--that is, to have a proper recognition of the gravity of who God is and to fear being against him as the greatest of all calamities.  To be righteous is to love God above all things, so our ultimate goal in life should be to please him and enjoy him perfectly and eliminate all sin and all tendencies to wickedness in our life.  The more virtuous a person becomes, the less such a person will come to tolerate even venial sin, for the clearer our vision is of the greatness and beauty of God, the more repulsive all sin will seem to us.  This should be the chief aim of our entire life.

But the other extreme--obsessive fear and obsession about sin--can also be a serious problem, especially for those particularly inclined towards it.  Such people need to be reminded that what really matters is the fundamental choice of our life--are we choosing God as our chief good, or are we ejecting him out of that place in order to put something else there?  Is God the one we choose above all else?  This is not a matter of feelings or the strength of feelings, but of the will.  What do we choose to put supreme value on?  If we choose to follow God as our chief goal, and we orient our lives towards seeking him as our greatest value and ultimate end, then we can be sure that we are in a right relationship with him, a state of grace, and everything will come out fundamentally right in the end.  The only thing that can put us out of the reach of God's salvation is mortal sin--and mortal sin doesn't mean all sin; it doesn't even mean all serious sin (objectively speaking).  Mortal sin involves a deliberate, fully-informed, fully-aware, intentional choice to adopt an attitude or pursue a course of action which involves rejecting God as our supreme value and end in life, choosing instead to break from him fundamentally and go our own way.  Mortal sin is defined by being incompatible with "charity"--that is, with supreme love to God as the choice of our will.  Mortal sin is not the ways in which we regularly slip up and act inconsistently with our chief goal, the bad habits we have that tend to draw us into foolish and sinful actions, the difficulties we face in developing virtuous habits, how many times we tend to slide back into sinful tendencies, etc.  These are all natural and ordinary parts of life in a state of grace as we pursue holiness in this fallen world.  When we understand this, it will help us to relax a bit, to let go of obsessive fear.  We will remember that "there is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear: because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love" (1 John 4:18).  To "fear" God in the biblical sense is not to be obsessively afraid of him, but to recognize his supreme value and importance and therefore to take holiness with the utmost seriousness.  If we love God, and trust God, we need not live in obsessive fear, but can rest confidently in the help of his grace as we grow in holiness.  If we fall into sin from time to time, well, that is to be expected of fallen creatures struggling to be holy.  The Council of Trent actually condemns as false doctrine the idea that people can avoid all sins throughout their entire life.  "If any one saith . . . that he is able, during his whole life, to avoid all sins, even those that are venial,-except by a special privilege from God, as the Church holds in regard of the Blessed Virgin; let him be anathema" (Sixth Session, Canon 23).  When we sin, we don't need to dwell on it.  We can learn what we need to learn from it, get back up, repent, go to confession if appropriate, and then move on--like a gymnast who doesn't fall into despair every time she falls onto the mat, but just keeps getting back up and resuming her practice.  (In fact, overly obsessing about sin often has the effect of making it worse rather than better.  There's hardly a better way to ensure that something will have a strong presence in one's mind than to continually be worrying about how strong a presence it has.)

Another practical tip to make our path to holiness smoother is to recognize the difference between concupiscence and sin.  Concupiscence is the Catholic theological term for our fallen, disordered desires that have a tendency to lead us into sin.  But concupiscence, while it tends towards sin, is not itself personal sin.  Acts of sin involve the consent of the will.  Insofar as our desires happen to us without such consent, they are not sin.  So stop feeling guilty for having such desires.  You can't just banish them away with some strong act of the will.  We will all struggle against concupiscence throughout our entire lives, for that struggle is the pathway to holiness.  Holiness isn't only about avoiding sinful acts of will; it is also about developing virtuous habits and unlearning vicious (that is, un-virtuous) ones.  We are trying to learn not only to avoid individual sinful acts of will in particular cases, but also to develop habits such that we will become more and more naturally inclined towards virtuous attitudes and actions in general and away from vicious or sinful ones.  So even when you are avoiding particular acts of sin, you will still have plenty to work on in terms of building habits of virtue.  Don't be paranoid about that, but just go forward, like the gymnast I mentioned in the previous paragraph.  Keep practicing.  Don't worry if you mess up, or you haven't got a particular skill down yet very well.  Just keep going forward.  You'll keep getting better (but don't get paranoid about your rate of progress!).  You won't get fully where you want to be until after this life, though, so don't be impatient.  Be diligent, but also be tolerant of yourself and where you are.

Another, really important practical tip, one which I think a lot of people struggle with:  Don't make things to be sins that aren't.  There are enough actions in the world that are actually sinful that we don't need to be adding to them.  Reason, Scripture, and Church teaching, understood in light of each other, applied with prudence and wisdom by an informed conscience, will help us know what is sinful and what is not.  What we don't want to do is go beyond these or ignore these and let an overactive imagination add non-sinful things to the category of sin.  With regard to male-female relationality and sexuality, here are some things that are sins (I'm sure I'm not going to think of everything, but here are some things that come to mind):

1. Engaging in sexual acts outside the proper context of such acts--an established, legitimate marriage between a man and a woman.  This includes actions such as masturbation (the deliberate self-stimulation of oneself in order to achieve sexual fulfillment and gratification by oneself), homosexual sexual acts, sexual acts between unmarried men and women, etc.

2. Seeking sexual fulfillment and gratification outside of sex that takes place within a legitimate marriage relationship.

3. Within a legitimate marriage relationship, seeking complete sexual fulfillment apart from a fully complete sex act.  Romantic and sexual affection can certainly be enjoyed outside of sex or the final culminating act of sex, and romantic and sexual activity can and should involve more than just that final culminating act, but there should not be a culmination of the sexual act that hinders, blocks off, or leaves out essential elements of the sexual act--such as by using artificial contraception to block any natural procreative tendencies in a particular sexual act, by engaging in forms of sexual activity that complete the sexual act outside of the body, etc.

4. Reducing the body of another person, or onself, to the level of an object to be used to achieve personal sexual gratification.  While, of course, sexual pleasure and the enjoyment of that pleasure is a valid and good part of sexuality, legitimate sexuality should never be reduced to that, but should always involve love between two persons as persons.  This can be a sinful attitude within or without a legitimate marriage relationship.  This would also include seeking sexual relations apart from the consent of both parties.

5. Intentionally failing to practice adequate modesty.  Modesty is the practice of behaving in such a way as to endorse, practice, and promote a proper view of the body and of sexuality in all our relationships and interactions in the world.  We don't want to promote the misuse of sex or the body, or the objectification of the body, or work to tempt people into sin.  We should make reasonable effort to ensure that our behavior and interactions match and promote our moral beliefs and values and encourage ourselves and others towards virtue.

6. Being wilfully careless about sin or bad habits in these areas.  We should do our due diligence--again, without needing to get obsessive.

Now, here are some things that aren't sins (again, of course, this is not an exhaustive list):

1. Engaging in sex and seeking sexual gratification and fulfillment in its proper context (a legitimate, valid marriage between a man and a woman), with moderation and balance, without objectification, with love and care between the spouses, with consent of both parties, etc., with proper caution.

2. Proper enjoyment of the beauty of the human body, and the beauty of human relationships, romance, sexuality, etc., both within and sometimes even outside of marriage to a degree (going along with our discussion of these subjects earlier in this article)--without engaging in sex or seeking sexual fulfillment outside of marriage, without objectification, with consent, etc. with proper caution.  This is an area where people often go to unhealthy extremes in both directions, I think.  Sometimes people are too careless here.  Other times people are too paranoid.  I talked about this quite a bit earlier in this article.  It is not a sin necessarily to enjoy, to a degree, the beauty of the physical characteristics of another person, even outside of marriage.  It is not necessarily a sin to enjoy the human body portrayed in art.  It is not necessarily a sin to enjoy artistic portrayals of human relationships, including even romantic relationships, to a degree (think romantic comedies, etc.).  It is not even necessarily a sin to gain some enjoyment vicariously from other people's relationships (think of friends enjoying watching other friends "fall in love," get married, etc.).  To what degree, and in what form, such enjoyment can be legitimate, is going to be a matter of prudence and won't necessarily be the same for every person.  There is a clear, objective line, however, at the point at which this kind of enjoyment turns into an attempt at sexual gratification or fulfillment (or, of course, actually engaging in sexual acts).  There is a difficult balance here.  On the one hand, we should recognize that all enjoyment related to male-female relationality and sexuality has a natural tendency towards evolving into sexual gratification and fulfillment and actual sexual acts.  There is a real slippery slope here we must be aware of and consciously guard against.  On the other hand, we should not equate all enjoyment rooted in male-female relationality, or the beauty of the human body or human relationships or sexuality, outside of marriage with an attempt to gain sexual gratification or fulfillment.  For example, there is a point at which the enjoyment of the beauty of the opposite sex turns into an attempt to gain sexual gratification through such enjoyment, and yet it is also true that not all enjoyment of such beauty is, per se, such an attempt.  Enjoyment of beauty in this area, though intrinsically related to the desire for sexual fulfillment, is yet broader than an attempt at such fulfillment.  If this wasn't the case, we would have to equate, for example, someone seeking to gratify sexual desire by means of pornography with a person enjoying a romantic comedy--which seems absurd, and I think it is in fact absurd.  So, again, caution is called for here, but not paranoia.  (For more, see here and here.)

3. Having and enjoying friendships with members of the opposite sex, with proper balance and caution.  I would also include here, particularly for those with homosexual tendencies and inclinations, the enjoyment of relationships with members of the same sex.  While homosexual sexual acts are invalid, along with attempts at homosexual marriage, or seeking sexual fulfillment in a homosexual relationship, yet there can be friendships and relationships between members of the same sex which can involve elements of love, enjoyment of beauty, etc., short of sexual acts or sexual gratification (just as there can be between members of the opposite sex).  For a biblical example, think of the relationship between David and Jonathan portrayed in the Book of 1 Samuel.  I don't think this kind of thing is much on the radar in modern American culture, but it has been recognized at various times and places in human cultures.  (This is probably one reason why people today are always trying to turn David's and Jonathan's relationship in the Bible into a homosexual relationship.  They recognize elements in that relationship which seem to go beyond the sort of male-male friendship common in our culture, and they don't have any category in which to put such a thing except the category of homosexual sexual relationships.  Perhaps we need a greater dose of imagination here.)

4. Desires, thoughts, images in the mind, dreams, acts in dreams, etc., which do not involve the consent of the will.  Again, without the consent of the will, there might be harmful or undesirable thoughts, tendencies, acts, etc., but there is no sin (in the strict sense of a personal sinful act engaging personal culpability).  In some cases, it might be sinful to consent to or willingly cultivate certain thoughts or images in the mind, certain acts, etc., and we can sometimes be guilty of wilful negligence in terms of trying to avoid sin and harm, but the mere existence of such things without the consent of the will is not sin.  Dreams are an interesting example here.  In some cases, a person might be so conscious in a dream that they really do have consent of the will.  But this is not true for everyone.  I don't know how common it is.  In my own personal experience, I never find myself with that level of consciousness.  My dreams go on without ever bothering to ask my will if it consents.  My mind just plays out random scenarios on automatic, without my having any say in the matter.  Of course, one can learn to cultivate habits which can help to some degree to control one's automatic tendencies, but I'm sure no one can ever gain complete control over such things in this life.  In general, again, remember to distuinguish between acts of the will and other acts, and that personal moral guilt can only exist in connection to acts of the will.

5. Having romantic or sexual desires or experiencing romantic or sexual attraction.  This is not a sin, nor is it even, per se, an example of concupiscence.  The capacity and tendency to experience these desires is a normal part of being human and there is nothing wrong with it.  It is true, however, that, in a fallen world, these normal desires often become immoderate and extreme, or they end up leading us towards something wrong or harmful.  But, as we said earlier, even when natural desires turn concupiscential, there is no sin unless the will consents to something that is wrong.  To make this more concrete, we can give an example of each of these "levels":  A. A person experiences sexual desire, or is attracted romantically or sexually to another person, but in a way that does not distract them away from a virtuous life or try to lead them into sin.  This is a natural part of human psychology and physiology, and there is nothing wrong with this.  It is a good and beautiful part of human nature.  B. A person experiences such strong sexual attraction that they are tempted to fulfill that desire through inappropriate means.  Or a person is attracted to someone they ought not to seek a romantic or sexual relationship with, such as someone who is married to someone else, and they are tempted by their desires to commit sin with that person - say, for example, adultery.  In these examples, normal human desire has crossed over into the realm of concupiscence because now the desire is ordered towards something wrong and is trying to draw a person into sin.  But even here, there is no sin unless the will consents to do something wrong.  Choosing to do what is right in such a situation is not only not sinful, but is a powerful expression of virtue.  C. A person is drawn by desire to commit adultery, and they freely choose to follow through on that desire.  Now we have actual sin.  This person needs to repent of their sin, do what they can to make up for the harm they have caused, and work to live a more virtuous life going forwards.  But at any rate, my main point here is to say that having sexual and romantic desires and attractions is normal and not something we should feel guilty about or concerned about.  Even if our desires go the way of concupiscence, we have to recognize that that is a normal part of being human in a fallen world and is still nothing to feel personally guilty about.

Someone once asked me, "How can I avoid giving in to temptation?"  There is, of course, a whole host of good advice that could be given in response to this question.  But here is what I said to the person who asked me this:  "What kind of person do you want to be?"  First of all, figure out what you believe to be true.  Given those beliefs, what is truly good and valuable, and what does it mean to be a good person?  Do you want to be a good person?  Do you want to be the sort of person who embodies, as well as you can, a living example of your beliefs and values?  If you don't, then why are you trying to avoid temptation?  The fundamental motive to avoid evil ought to be a love of what is good.  If you do want to be a person who lives out what you believe to be good and right and beautiful, then that is your strongest defense against temptation.  How do you avoid temptation?  By being motivated by the positive desire to be a different kind of person.  Looking at things this way, I think, helps us to focus on what is truly central to our choices, our attitudes, and our behaviors and to avoid the kind of fruitless efforts to avoid temptation that arise from feeling external pressure to avoid certain sins without really wanting to avoid them or to embody any opposing virtues that we ourselves truly value.

Well, much more could be said, but that's enough for now.

Published on the feast of the First Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church.

Some Musings on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

Below are some musings regarding sexual and gender identity and how we tend to think about these issues these days.    I'm not really interested here in trying to provide a complete philosophical or scientific case for my ideas, though I think what I'm saying is philosophically sound and consistent with what we really know from science.  I just want to plant some thoughts and suggestions that might provide an impetus for thinking through some of these things more deeply.

Until recently, the mainstream "liberal" or "progressive" party line on homosexuality was to portray it as a kind of inevitable genetic/biological binary.  There are two sorts of people one can be born as - "gay" or "straight."  One is pretty much either one or the other, for the most part.  And if you are born one of these, that's what you are.  It's determined by your biology and not at all a product of cultural influence, and it is unchangeable and clear.  Once one figures out which one is, one will be determined by this identity and unable to escape from it.  I'm oversimplifying a little bit, but not much.  This is, by and large, pretty much how most liberal or progressive people tended to think about it.  Many promoters of the ethicality of homosexual acts have tried to bolster their case by arguing that people don't choose to be "gay" or "straight."  They are just "born that way," and what can anybody do about it?  It's just who they are.

My own take on this view is that it is unrealistic and too simplistic.  I'm sure that there are biological and genetic factors that influence sexual orientation, but I think that a much larger role is probably played by cultural factors than people have wanted to admit.  To think about this, it helps if one has a good degree of self-awareness about one's own sexual psychology and potentialities and is aware of how human psychology in general works in this area.  Sexuality in human psychology is very flexible and can naturally be drawn in lots of different directions.  I think that a large number of people are quite capable of being drawn to lots of different kinds of sexual practices and expressions--including sexual experiences with both males and females.  A lot of this, I think, depends on the cultural and moral expectations and values one has imbibed, as well as one's personality and how inclined it is to stick within cultural norms.  Within Western history, until recently, anything other than monogamous heterosexual sex has been considered morally abhorrent and even repulsive, and this has no doubt influenced a lot of people over the centuries.  Most people would have felt a strong sense of inappropriateness, guilt, and even revulsion if they found themselves contemplating sexual acts with a member of their own sex.  They would have tended to close off such pathways in their minds and viewed themselves as in accord with the heterosexual norm.  In recent times, this has changed, as homosexuality has been mainstreamed to a great degree, as well as other sexual practices frowned upon in previous generations.  Young people today do not carry the same cultural antipathy to such things, and they are even encouraged by the culture to explore these areas of their psychology, to look inside themselves and ask questions like, "Am I attracted to men, or to women, or to both?", etc.  They are encouraged also more and more to experiment in various ways with these kinds of things.  They are therefore finding that they are capable of finding pleasure and attraction within same-sex sexual relationships or experiences or in other forms of what historically would have been considered "sexually deviant behavior."  But I don't think that these modern people are, for the most part, all that different in their psychological sexual potentialities than people in the past.  I think that a great many people through history have had similar sexual potentialities.  The difference is that, because of changing cultural views and norms, modern people feel more comfortable allowing themselves to explore these potentialities, and so they have been able to find and admit these things in themselves in a way most people in the past would have found unthinkable.  Again, I don't deny that there are probably significant biological/genetic factors involved in same-sex attraction.  I'm sure that some people are more naturally drawn to and satisfied with same-sex sexual acts and relationships than others.  But I think that this potentiality is more widespread than those who explicitly identify as gay or lesbian or who practice homosexual acts.  It is probably a matter of degree rather than "you have it or you don't."

In recent times, up until just the past few years, the "liberal" party line was to look at sexual orientation as a deterministic biological binary for the most part, and this, I think, influenced how people identified themselves.  Most people felt that they must be either "gay" or "straight," and they eventually locked themselves into one identity or the other.  I'm sure some of the reasons for why some identified one way and some another had to do with biological/genetic tendencies, but I'm pretty sure a lot of it had to do with quirks of individual personality and cultural development as well.  That is, I think it highly likely that a lot of people have had the capability of finidng pleasure and attraction in same-sex acts and relationships, to varying degrees, but different people have developed these potentialities differently based on a whole host of personal and cultural influences, with some of them ending up identifying as "gay" while others identified as "straight."  Over the past few years, however, the lines of the gay-straight binary have been blurred, and people have more and more started to think of sexual orientation as manifesting itself in a wider variety of ways, often along a kind of spectrum.  I think this is why we've seen a growth in people identifying as "bisexual," "pansexual," etc.  I think that a lot of these people would have identified simply as "gay" or "straight" if they had come of age a few years earlier when the "progressive" viewpoint was different.  But now they are encouraged to explore their sexual potentialities more widely, and so they are discovering that they are capable of sexual excitement and attraction in a whole lot more ways than they probably previously would have realized.  The cultural norms have changed so as to allow and encourage them to explore their psychology and to experiment in more directions.  (I'm not saying that there weren't recognized "bisexuals," etc., in the past, but it was less frequent.  There was more of a binary and less of a spectrum kind of view, and sexual orientation was viewed more rigidly and less fluidly.)  People are typically highly influenced by prevailing cultural trends and ideas, and this cultural "zeitgeist" can influence and even determine to a great degree what people are able and willing to find in themselves and how they interpret their characteristics and experiences.

I think a lot of these same kinds of observations are also relevant with regard to the modern "trans" movement.  Males and females (using these terms in the classic way as referring to biological and anatomical characteristics oriented towards playing certain roles in reproduction) have a lot of diversity within their ranks.  The spectrum of attitudes, interests, behaviors, ways of thinking, etc., within the broad categories of "male" and "female" is a vast one.  In the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the feminist movement worked hard to break down stereotypes regarding alleged general differences between males and females.  They attacked ideas such as that women are fit only for certain social roles, or that they are more emotional than men, or that their minds work in fundamentally different ways, or that they must have certain interests (like women being attracted to makeup, dresses, dolls, etc., while men are supposed to be attracted to cars and trucks, beer, sports, etc.).  In this regard, I often think of a line from the 1989 made-for-TV movie, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, in which Keisha Knight-Pulliam played the main character, Sir Boss, who had come to medieval Camelot from the future (1980s) United States.  At one point, when Queen Guenivere is trying to give King Arthur governing advice, Arthur says to her, "These are things for a man's mind."  Guenevere replies, "But Sir Boss says there is no difference between a man's and a woman's mind."  From the perspective of 1980s liberalism, this was a very progressive thing to say.  Guenevere was challenging Arthur's quaint, sexist medieval view (as the show-writers obviously saw it) by means of wisdom coming from the more-enlightened future.  Today, however, with the rise of the trans movement, Guenevere's statement seems almost as antiquated and offensive as the medieval view she was challenging.  The party line has changed, becoming, in some ways, almost the reverse of what it was before.  Trans ideology has to insist that there are meaningful differences between men and women other than the traditional biological, anatomical, and reproductive differences, for otherwise trans ideology is dead.  A lot of trans ideologists frequently appeal to differences in the mind to justify the currently-popular attempt to divorce "gender" from "biological sex."  They also, ironically, often try to bring back stereotypes that earlier feminists worked hard to root out.  If a young boy is found wanting to play with dolls, or to do other "girly" sorts of things, or to associate with girls, or if a young girl is found wanting to play with cars or trucks, be "tom-boyish," etc., the progressives today often want to use these as grounds for suspecting that the young boy might actually, in reality, be a young girl (in identity and in the mind, even if not in biology or anatomy).

There has been a significant increase in young people identifying as "trans" or as "gender-fluid" or "non-binary" when it comes to gender identification.  As with homosexuality, the current party line is that these people have found in themselves--or have had found in them by others--a kind of clear, absolute, unchangeable trans identity which they have to acknowledge as objective reality and which will determine their destiny.  Modern progressives take this so seriously that they are often pushing for dramatic and permanent surgical and hormonal treatments even for young children in order to try to allow them as much as possible, and as soon as possible, to "turn into" the gender they have decided to identify with.  What is the cause of this trend towards more and more young people identifying as trans?  Is it because being trans is a clear, objective state of being and there are more objectively trans people these days?  Is it that there have always been this large a number of trans people but in the past (due to the unenlightened state of the culture) they have not been able as easily to identify themselves?  I suspect, rather, that what we have here is similar to what I described above with regard to homosexuality.  While I'm sure there are, at least sometimes, biological/genetic factors that cause people to find themselves prone to identifying with the opposite gender, I think it highly likely that cultural influences are playing a large role as well.  In the 80s, or 90s, or 2000s, a young person who found themselves drawn to actions or interests associated with the opposite gender would simply have been viewed, and would have viewed themselves, as an example of the large amount of diversity that exists within the boundaries of being male or female.  Feminist ideologists would have made (and in fact did make) use of such persons and such experiences as arguments against stereotypical gender norms.  That's how the cultural ideology of the day would have led them to perceive and interpret these kinds of characteristics and experiences.  Today, however, the cultural "zeitgeist" has changed.  Now, among the most "progressive" segment of society, these same sorts of experiences tend to be taken as indicating that the young people who have them actually belong to the gender opposite the one historically associated with their biological sex.  If Johnny likes to play with dolls, or acts in more "girlish" kinds of ways, etc., instead of seeing this as an evidence of the diversity inherent in "maleness," the tendency now is to see it as evidence that Johnny, in the deepest sense, is not really male at all.  Objectively speaking, "Johnny" is the same now as he would have been if he had been born in the 1980s.  What has changed is the prevailing cultural ideology, which has caused Johnny's chraracteristics and experiences to be seen and interpreted in light of a different set of expectations and norms.

One really interesting dynamic all of this has caused is the conflict we are seeing now between trans ideologists and people still holding to the older gay or feminist ideologies.  We are seeing splits within the "liberal" or "progressive" ranks.  Some gay activists are opposing trans ideology partly on the grounds that it is seen as threatening gay identity.  This article by gay activist Andrew Sullivan, for example, argues that trans ideology is dangerous to gay kids because it encourages them and their caregivers, with regard to signs that previously might have been taken as indicating that a child is gay or lesbian, to instead read those same signs as indicating that the child might be trans.  If my analysis above is correct, this of course makes perfect sense.  Is a young person attracted to members of the same biological sex?  In the past, that probably meant they were gay or lesbian.  It showed the breadth of sexual orentation possible within the categories of "male" and "female."  Now, however, such attraction is increasingly taken to indicate that the young person actually belongs to the opposite gender, regardless of their biological sex.  After all, girls like boys and boys like girls, right?  So if I like girls, I'm probably a boy, and vice versa.  Instead of seeing homosexual attractions as indicators of just how broad and unstereotypical males and females can be, now the trend is to assume those previous stereotypes and use them to argue that the young person may be or even is likely to be the opposite gender.  (Of course, if one wanted to irritate pretty much everyone, one might suggest, as I have done above, that both the homosexual and the trans intepretation of same-sex attraction is an attempt to force something more fluid into artifically rigid categories.  Perhaps what we really have are simply a bunch of human beings with the potential to experience a great deal of sexual diversity depending on beliefs, values, cultural influences, personal background and experiences, genetic/biological traits, etc.  A spectrum, rather than a strict "gay-straight" binary.  And a greater diversity within the categories of "male" and "female" rather than rigid, more simplistic definitions of "male" and "female" requiring us to assign a person to the other gender if they don't fit into such stereotypes.)

We are also seeing more traditional feminist ideologists reacting against the trans movement for similar reasons.  (Think of J. K. Rowling's recent run-ins with the guardians of ultra-progressive orthodoxy.)  Trans activists are trying to restore gender stereotypes that feminists worked for decades to break down.  Those stereotypes were an obstacle to feminist ideology, which wanted to recognize variety inherent in males and females in order to break down differences between the sexes, but those same stereotypes are beneficial to trans idelogy, which wants to find ways to define "male" and "female" that are not dependent on biological sex.

One important implication of these musings is that thinking along these lines can challenge both homosexual and trans ideologists in terms of their tendency to see homosexual or trans identities as clear, objective, absolute, and unquestionable or unchangeable.  If sexual potentialities and proclivities are not necessarily the result of rigid, clear, objective forms within particular people but can be manifestations of the elasticity of human sexual psychology and potentiality, influenced by both biological and various cultural factors, then people who find in themselves these sorts of attractions, tendencies, characteristics, etc., need not be forced by these observations to choose some clear and rigid identity--like "gay" or "trans"--and to feel a need to commit themselves irrevocably and firmly to it.  They might find that they have the sexual elasticity to allow a greater role for their own choice in terms of what sort of sexual or gender orientation they will conform to, practice, experience, and enjoy in their lives.  They might not need to cut themselves off from the possibility of enjoying more ordinary, classical, heterosexual relationships, or of identifying with the gender historically associated with their biological sex.  They need not regard their sexual proclivities as necessarily inevitable or unchangeable or uninfluenceable.  Of course, this will be different from person to person.  I'm not saying everyone will or must take the same route.  There will probably be some people who, because of biological/genetic traits, cultural influences, or a combination of factors, may never be able to be attracted to or succeed in a classical heterosexual relationship, or be entirely comfortable with their own native gender.  What I'm doing is simply challenging the rigid, fatalistic categorizations that pretty much all modern "progressives" seem determined to apply to sexual orientation and gender-identity and to suggest that human psychology and potentialities may be more fluid and flexible than most people these days feel they can allow themselves to believe.  (And perhaps, ironically, the recent push to widen the spectrum in these areas--as manifested by increasing emphasis on categories like "pan-sexual" and "gender-fluid"--might end up having the effect of helping to make this same point in the end.  If there is more variety, fludity, and flexibility in human sexual psychology than our culture has previously tended to believe, then perhaps people who experience "sexually-deviant" desires or who find themselves at odds with gender stereotypes or expectations may not have to conclude from these things that they cannot live according to the gender associated with their biological sex or allow their beliefs and values to influence the direction in which their sexual orientations and proclivities develop.  They need not necessarily be slaves to the rigid identities the culture has tried to force them into.)

For more, see here, here, and here.

ADDENDUM 11/21/22:  I recently came across an article from the University of Sydney which indicates that research is starting to come out on sexual orientation as something more fluid and versatile, and sexual flexibility more common, than people have recently been inclined to think.  This is exactly what I'm talking about in this article.  I predict we will see more and more of this sort of research being released.  I think we could have seen such research earlier, but it's only more recently that people in mainstream culture have been willing to consider that the old, strict, gay-straight binary is not as strict and rigid as has been assumed in recent decades.  We often cause ourselves to only be able to see what we think we should see, especially when it comes to highly-charged social issues like homosexuality.  But now the culture's growing interest in "pansexuality" and seeing more fluidity and diversity in sexual expression, and the growing sense among people that it is good and healthy (and perhaps a source of social acceptance and popularity?) to find evidence of "sexual deviance" within oneself, is creating a platform where the culture is more and more allowing itself to see human sexual proclivities more realistically.  I think we are going to come more and more to realize and admit that what has locked people into rigid "straight" or "gay" categories has not been so much biological necessity but rather social structures that lock people into certain modes in terms of what they feel themselves allowed to find in themselves.

The Relationship between Pantheism and Theism

I wrote the following paper back in 2008 as an attempt to explore with greater metaphysical precision the relationship between theism and "pantheism." A careful, metaphysical look at the nature of God in classical theism raises the issue of how classical theism relates to pantheism and to religions that have often been labeled “pantheistic,” such as eastern religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. The paper was written with a philosophical audience in mind.

The relationship between pantheism and theism is of immense importance philosophically and religiously, and the two are often compared and contrasted with each other. However, in my experience, these comparisons and contrasts typically tend to leave the definitions and analyses on a metaphysically superficial and imprecise level. I would like to attempt to help remedy this situation by providing a metaphysically deeper analysis of the similarities and differences between theism and pantheism. I will then show how this deeper analysis helps to elucidate the nature of theism in such a way as to help theists respond to certain philosophical objections to theism that have frequently been proposed by pantheist and atheist thinkers and to articulate a better critique of the pantheistic worldview.

Where Pantheism and Theism Agree

The form of theism I will be discussing is classical theism, which is the form that has been articulated and defended (with more or less consistency) by all the major branches of historic Christianity--Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and most Protestant traditions. This is the form of theism that has given rise to the classical arguments for the existence of God (such as the cosmological and ontological arguments).

The word “pantheism” has been applied to more than simply one monolithic philosophical perspective. For the purposes of this paper, “pantheism” can be defined as “the belief that all reality is one metaphysically simple unified being and that all distinctions between particulars are ultimately illusory.” This definition accords well with central strands of prominent Eastern religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, which are usually considered to be “pantheistic.” “Theism,” on the other hand, as I am using it in this paper, can be defined as “the belief that there is one metaphysically simple unified being (God) who is the source and ground of all created reality but that the created particulars are not identical with but are truly distinct from the simple divine being.” So the question is, “Where do these two philosophical/religious perspectives agree, and where do they disagree?” My contention is that classical theism, when examined with metaphysical strictness and developed to its full logical conclusion, will be found to agree with the first half of the definition of pantheism but to disagree with the second half. Thus, classical theism agrees that “all reality is one metaphysically simple unified being” but disagrees with the claim that “all distinctions between particulars are ultimately illusory.”

I suspect that the way I have gone about delineating the line of agreement/disagreement between theism and pantheism will seem very strange to many theists, many of whom might wonder how I can say that theism agrees that “all reality is one metaphysically simple unified being.” But the fact of the matter is that classical theism requires such a view in light of its assumptions, beliefs, and arguments. Classical theism has always taught that God is an absolutely unified, simple being who is the foundation and source and explanation for all of reality and who is outside of all space and time, not subject to change, not affected by anything ultimately distinct from him or independent from him. One of the most comprehensive statements on the nature of God in classical theism (from a Christian perspective) can be found in John the Damascene’s book, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, written in the eighth century AD:

We believe, then, in One God, one beginning, having no beginning, uncreate, unbegotten, imperishable and immortal, everlasting, infinite, uncircumscribed, boundless, of infinite power, simple, uncompound, incorporeal, without flux, passionless, unchangeable, unalterable, unseen, the fountain of goodness and justice, the light of the mind, inaccessible; a power known by no measure, measurable only by His own will alone (for all things that He wills He can ), creator of all created things, seen or unseen, of all the maintainer and preserver, for all the provider, master and lord and king over all, with an endless and immortal kingdom: having no contrary, filling all, by nothing encompassed, but rather Himself the encompasser and maintainer and original possessor of the universe, occupying all essences intact and extending beyond all things, and being separate from all essence as being super-essential and above all things and absolute God, absolute goodness, and absolute fulness : determining all sovereignties and ranks, being placed above all sovereignty and rank, above essence and life and word and thought: being Himself very light and goodness and life and essence, inasmuch as He does not derive His being from another, that is to say, of those things that exist: but being Himself the fountain of being to all that is, of life to the living, of reason to those that have reason; to all the cause of all good: perceiving all things even before they have become: one essence, one divinity, one power, one will, one energy, one beginning, one authority, one dominion, one sovereignty, made known in three perfect subsistences and adored with one adoration, believed in and ministered to by all rational creation , united without confusion and divided without separation (which indeed transcends thought). (1)

The logic of the classical theistic view of the universe and the nature of God implies that all things exist in God, by participation in the being of God. This has frequently been recognized by classical theologians. Once again, John of Damascus makes this quite explicitly clear:

That which is comprehended in place or time or apprehension is circumscribed: while that which is contained by none of these is uncircumscribed. Wherefore the Deity alone is uncircumscribed, being without beginning and without end, and containing all things, and in no wise apprehended. (2)

Thomas Aquinas provides us with another example of this way of thinking:

It must be said that every being in any way existing is from God. For whatever is found in anything by participation, must be caused in it by that to which it belongs essentially, as iron becomes ignited by fire. Now it has been shown above (Question 3, Article 4) when treating of the divine simplicity that God is the essentially self-subsisting Being; and also it was shown (11, 3,4) that subsisting being must be one; as, if whiteness were self-subsisting, it would be one, since whiteness is multiplied by its recipients. Therefore all beings apart from God are not their own being, but are beings by participation. Therefore it must be that all things which are diversified by the diverse participation of being, so as to be more or less perfect, are caused by one First Being, Who possesses being most perfectly. (3)

Since in classical theism there is only one God, who is the fullness and source of all of reality and who explains all of reality, there can never be any more being added to reality than there is to begin with. To suggest that created beings, by being created, add more being to reality than there was before is to make God a finite being, circumscribed by a greater common reality that contains both him and the created beings. If the “stuff” we are made of is truly separate from God and in addition to his substance, then it cannot ultimately be explained as having come from God and been created by him. God can only give what he has; he cannot give what he has not. The concept of creation ex nihilo is not the idea that new being can come from absolutely nothing, which is logically absurd. To describe creation as God increasing the overall “substance content” of reality is to make it an irrational, magical concept. It is a principle of logic that one cannot get more than one has to begin with without adding something in from outside, but when we are talking about God and ultimate reality, there is no outside, nothing to add from. Rather, creation ex nihilo is the idea that created beings are not made from a preexisting substance, which would make them to some degree independent from God, but are entirely derived from God, so that they are entirely and utterly dependent on God for the beginning and the continuation of their being.

If we were to think of created beings as adding to the substance of the universe and actually existing “outside” of God, rather than existing in him and by means of a participation in his being, then we would be turning God into one particular among other particulars in a greater common reality. One of the most compelling arguments for God is the need for a common, unifying reality to explain the diversity of the universe. To put it another way, what is it that puts the “uni” in “universe”? Theists have often argued that the existence of a universe implies that there must be a simple, uncompounded being who is the source of all reality. If there were no common source or ground for the particulars in the universe, they would be utterly independent of each other and could share no common reality at all, which would be impossible and logically meaningless. If their common source and ground was a compounded being, a being with parts, that common ground would itself be made up of particulars that would need a common unifying reality to explain them. So we need a simple being as the foundation of all reality. But if created beings are truly, ultimately distinct from God, so that, in metaphysical strictness of language, they exist as an entirely distinct and additional substance (or substances), then God can no longer be the simple, common reality that unifies all things. If created things are not rooted in participation in the being of God, then they are independent entities, and the common reality that includes both God and his creatures would not be an uncompounded, simple reality. This would leave us either with no simple, common reality at all, which would be logically absurd, or we would have to look back further for another simple being that could explain both God and created beings, and that would be the real God.

Also, if we are truly, ultimately, metaphysically separate from God and are additions to the basic substance content of reality, then it seems that we must inevitably bring into our conception of our relationship with God the concept of space. If we are not in God, nor exist by participation in his being, how can we be distinguished from God except by being in a separate location, not taking up the same space? We must inevitably picture God and created beings as existing side by side, both having to move over, so to speak, to make room for the other. But it is absurd to think of God as existing in space, as classical theologians have always recognized, because a spatial object cannot be the common reality that explains all the particulars. A spatial object is inherently a finite being, divisible into parts.

If we are created by God and derive our being from him, as all classical theists believe, then this implies that we must exist “in God,” as in some sense an aspect of his being. If God is a simple entity, then it is impossible to participate in him without somehow being an aspect of his simple being. The only alternative would be to have some spatial picture involving created beings taking some of God’s being and then moving off with it to some alternate location where God is not, as if God could give us pieces of himself, or as if God were like an extended flow of electricity that we could somehow feed on as an appliance feeds on electricity through an electrical outlet, or as if God’s being were like sap flowing through a tree which we as branches could “suck out” and live on. These analogies are not necessarily bad in every respect--indeed, the latter is biblical--but we are interested in developing a metaphysically strict account of things, and we need to be precise. Therefore, we are left with no other conclusion but that classical theism requires that created entities derive their being from God, exist in him and by participation in his being, and thus in a very real sense exist as aspects of God’s being.

While describing created entities as “aspects of God’s being” is very odd-sounding in a theistic context, I want to stress that it does not really add anything to the notion that we exist “in God” and “by participation in God.” As I am going to argue below, saying that we are aspects of God’s being is very different from claiming that we are God, or claiming that God and created beings are identical, or any such thing. This is where the fundamental difference between theism and pantheism comes into the picture. But what I have said so far, though in the interests of being metaphysically precise I have opted to use somewhat daring language to express it, is no more than has always been at least implicit, and sometimes explicit, in classical theistic thought. It is expressed in the very language of the Bible, as well as being implied in everything it says on the nature of God. (4)  Speaking of God to the Athenian philosophers on Mars Hill (and quoting, approvingly, their own poets) in Acts 17:27-28, Paul says that God “is not far from each one of us; for in him we live and move and have our being.” In Colossians 1:16-17, Paul says of Christ (as God the Son), “All things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and in him all things consist.” I have already quoted John of Damascus, who could be said to represent Eastern Orthodoxy, and Thomas Aquinas, who could be said to represent Roman Catholicism. Let me add to these quotations a couple from Jonathan Edwards, who, as a prominent Reformed theologian, will suffice (at least for the purposes of this paper) to show the presence of these ideas in historic Protestantism as well. In The Nature of True Virtue, Edwards argues that there can be no true virtue without love to God:

Therefore, he that has true virtue, consisting in benevolence to being in general, and in benevolence to virtuous being, must necessarily have a supreme love to God, both of benevolence and complacence. And all true virtue must radically and essentially, and, as it were, summarily, consist in this. Because God is not only infinitely greater and more excellent than all other being, but he is the head of the universal system of existence; the foundation and fountain of all being and all beauty; from whom all is perfectly derived, and on whom all is most absolutely and perfectly dependent; of whom, and through whom, and to whom is all being and all perfection; and whose being and beauty are, as it were, the sum and comprehension of all existence and excellence: much more than the sun is the fountain and summary comprehension of all the light and brightness of the day. (5)

Edwards explicitly acknowledges, in the same book, that “God himself is in effect being in general.” (6)

Where Pantheism and Theism Disagree

Now, having shown that classical theistic doctrine entails the conclusion that all created entities are aspects of God’s being, rather than something strictly metaphysically separated from him--which is the claim of the first half of the definition of pantheism--I will now show that this fact does not at all imply the second half of the definition, namely, that “all distinctions between particulars are ultimately illusory.” In other words, I am going to argue that the fact that all created beings exist in God and are aspects of his being does not imply at all that human beings are God, that God is human beings, that flowers and rocks are God, that flowers and rocks are human beings, that God is flowers and rocks, etc. There is a true distinction between God and the creation, and there are true distinctions between the various created entities. Furthermore, these distinctions are crucial for understanding the nature of God, the nature of created entities, and the relationships between God and the creation and between created entities and each other.

First of all, we can observe the simple, obvious fact of these distinctions. I can reason to the existence of God, and I can reason from the existence of God to the fact that I must exist in God as an aspect of his being; but it is equally evident to my reason that I am not God. God and I have very different characteristics that distinguish us quite conclusively. For example, God is omnipotent; I am not. God knows all things; I do not. I stubbed my toe a few days ago; God has never stubbed his toe, not having a toe to stub. I am guilty of sin; God is not. I have a body which physically limits me; God does not. And so on.

It is also evident to my reason that I am different from, say, a rock. A rock has no consciousness (at least as far as I can see); I do have consciousness. A rock does not feel pain; I do (as I was reminded of when I stubbed my toe, not God’s toe, the other day). Rocks and I are made up of different substances combined in different ways. And so on. I could go on to show that God is different from rocks, but I suspect this is not necessary.

So reason leads me to believe both that I am an aspect of God’s being and that I am emphatically not God. How can this be? Let’s consider an analogy: Let’s say I were to write a novel. In writing this novel, I invent an entire fictional world. This world is real enough in its own sphere, and my thinking of it gives it some reality, but not a reality external to myself. In creating this fictional world, I invent various characters with different personalities who engage in various activities within the flow of the novel. Let’s look at one of these characters--we can call him Bob. Now, what is the relationship between Bob and myself? Well, Bob is a very dependent being. He is entirely derived from me, from my thinking, and is entirely dependent on me for his initial as well as his continued existence. Bob exists “in me,” in my thoughts. He exists by participation in me and my thoughts. We could say that “in me Bob lives and moves and has his being” and that “in me all things in Bob’s universe consist.” Bob is not metaphysically separate from me. His thoughts and feelings exist as participations in my thoughts and feelings. Bob therefore could accurately be described as an aspect of my being. And yet it would be absurd to equate Bob with myself. Bob and I are very different. Bob is a character; I am the author. Bob is dependent upon me for existence; I am not dependent upon Bob for existence. Bob likes cauliflower; I hate cauliflower. Bob is an accountant; I am a philosopher. And of course I could go on and on. In fact, not only are Bob and I truly distinct, and our distinctions are very important with regard to understanding the two of us, but I can even enter into a relationship with Bob. I could write into my novel a section in which I, the author, speak to Bob and strike up a conversation with him. Bob, upon learning about me, might wonder how we are related. He might reason that he is in some sense an aspect of my being. However, if he concluded from this that therefore he was the author, or that he was not dependent on anyone else but himself for his existence, Bob would be very seriously mistaken.

Classical theists of all stripes have commonly understood God’s purpose for creating the world to have been God’s desire to express and manifest his glorious perfections. Thomas Aquinas had this to say about God’s goal in creating the world:

Every agent acts for an end: otherwise one thing would not follow more than another from the action of the agent, unless it were by chance. Now the end of the agent and of the patient considered as such is the same, but in a different way respectively. For the impression which the agent intends to produce, and which the patient intends to receive, are one and the same. Some things, however, are both agent and patient at the same time: these are imperfect agents, and to these it belongs to intend, even while acting, the acquisition of something. But it does not belong to the First Agent, Who is agent only, to act for the acquisition of some end; He intends only to communicate His perfection, which is His goodness; while every creature intends to acquire its own perfection, which is the likeness of the divine perfection and goodness. Therefore the divine goodness is the end of all things. (7)

With this doctrine traditional Eastern Orthodoxy and most historic Protestants would agree. Calvin, for example, called the world a theater for God’s glory. The Westminster Confession, a classic Reformed statement of faith, has this to say about God’s end in creation and providence:

It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all things therein whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days; and all very good. (8)

God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy. (9)

This doctrine leads us to a very natural understanding as to why the created world, and the created entities in it, exist as aspects of God’s being. The created world is an aspect of God’s knowledge of himself. God delights in the manifestations of his own perfections as he exercises them in his works of creation, providence, and redemption. In the Westminster Confession’s language, “the glory of [God’s] wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy” are displayed in the creation and history of the created universe. Part of God’s display of his glory to himself and his delight in that glory takes the form of God’s authoring a world, a world dependent on him and existing by participation in him, and yet not identified with him. In this world, he displays his attributes. He displays his power in creating, upholding and sustaining this world. He displays his wisdom in its vast and incomprehensible coherence. He displays his justice as a response to the evil rebellions of his creations. He displays his wisdom in his using their evil for his own good purposes. He displays his mercy in the salvation of his chosen people. He displays his power, wisdom, and goodness, by contrasting it with man’s weakness, foolishness, and wickedness, and by causing his creatures to go to him and to him alone as the ultimate supplier of power, wisdom, and goodness. Those who cut themselves off from the all-sufficient source of life die. Those who, by his grace, come to him live through him and through him alone. So we can see that it is crucial to understanding the very purpose for our existence that we understand both our participation in God and also our distinction from him. In fact, these two are inseparable and merge together to describe our true character as creatures--beings who are utterly dependent on God. The concept of “dependence” includes both the idea of our participation in God and of our distinction from God.

One possible misconception needs to be addressed before we move on. If we are aspects of God’s being in some sense, does that make us “part” of God, and therefore in some sense partly divine? No, it does not. We have already seen that created beings are not God. Nor is it possible that they should be “part” of God in the sense that they could be 10% of God, 1%, .0001%, or any other percentage. The God of classical theism is a simple, uncompounded being; he has no “parts” or “pieces.” He is inherently indivisible. Therefore it makes no sense to speak of anything as constituting a certain percentage of him. If I were to say that I am, say, .0000000001% of God, that would imply that if one keeps on adding more and more beings like me to the equation, enough of us would eventually add up to 100% God. But this is absurd. God is not the sum of all the particulars in the universe. No amount of addition of particular entities can even begin to add up to a simple, infinite being. God is the undivided being who is the foundation of the being of the particulars, but he is not the particulars themselves. The particulars exist in him and by participation in him, but he must be considered distinct from them all, even as a group. Therefore, not only are we not God, but we are not even partly divine. In God we live and move and have our being, but that being that we have must be considered to be nothing in comparison to the being of God (much as Bob in my novel, while adding up to something in his own sphere--the world of the novel--yet is nothing in comparison to me, and you can never even begin to add up to me simply by adding more and more Bobs). One could continue to add more and more Mark Hausams together forever and one would never come any closer to adding up to God than with only one of me or none of me. This makes sense in the context of God’s goal of displaying his glory in the creation. God displays his all-sufficiency by virtue of the entire dependence of the created beings on him, which involves the understanding that the created beings are in themselves nothing and therefore must look outside of themselves to God for all their needs. The role we play in God’s display of his glory, which is an aspect of his knowledge of himself and love of himself, is that of those whose lack contrasts with God’s fullness--we are the backdrop, so to speak, for God’s fullness--and also those whose inherent nothingness is filled up by God’s inherent fullness by his grace alone, and therefore to his glory alone. We provide the emptiness which allows God’s all-sufficient fullness to be seen in all its glory and power. Therefore, although our being is in God, our identity as creatures is characterized by our nothingness in comparison to God’s fullness. (10)

Analysis of Buddhism from a Metaphysically-Sophisticated Classical Theistic Point of View

Having now established that classical theism agrees with the first half but disagrees with the second half of the definition of pantheism, and having shown to some degree the importance of this for understanding our identity in relationship to God, I now want to show how a proper and precise understanding of theistic metaphysics in this area helps theists to launch a successful criticism of the pantheistic worldview, and also to respond to some common philosophical objections to theism coming from both pantheists and atheists.

Most theistic arguments against pantheism are on the right track, I believe, but having a more precise understanding of theistic metaphysics and how they relate to pantheistic metaphysics can significantly boost the theist’s articulation of his case. As we have seen, pantheists are in a way half right. Significant portions of their belief system are quite true and accurate. When theists can recognize where pantheism goes right, they can use this as a platform for making a convincing argument as to where pantheism goes wrong. Let me give a concrete example of this. In Buddhism, there is a strong emphasis on “getting away from one’s self.” The big problem human beings have, according to Buddhism, is that we don’t recognize the reality of the Undying, Unborn, Unchanging behind the flux and flow of our spatio-temporal universe, and so we come to identify ourselves with ourselves alone and to become attached to our selves and to the objects of the self’s desires. But the reality is that the self is ultimately only an illusion, and so are all the particular objects we become attached to, and therefore they cannot satisfy--this is the cause of human suffering. The reality behind the illusion is the Unchanging Infinite. What we need to do is to come to see things in the right way and to learn to think and live accordingly. We need to see that the Unborn, Undying is the reality and attach ourselves to that, recognizing ourselves and the particulars as illusions and giving up our attachments to these. If we can identify not just with ourselves but with Infinite Being, we can find that which is truly real, permanent and satisfying, and therefore find true happiness. Theists ought to recognize a lot of truth in this--that God is the ultimate reality, and that we should look outside of ourselves to him for our happiness. We should learn to get beyond ourselves and our petty desires and try to adopt an “eternal perspective.” However, in calling the self and the spatio-temporal universe an “illusion,” and in talking about “identifying oneself with the Infinite,” Buddhism lets in some fundamental ambiguity that clouds Buddhists’ understanding of the truths that they have in their system. Although there is some truth in calling this world an illusion, in the sense that it is nothing compared to God and does not represent the ultimate level of reality (or anything remotely close to it), yet it is a misleading term. The world is not unreal--it may not be ultimate reality, but it is real in its own right. And we are real as well, although we are infinitesimal when compared to God. I do indeed need to learn to “identify with God” in the sense of seeing things from his eternal, objective perspective, but I must never forget that I am not myself God. Buddhism (and other Eastern religions) tend to get confused here, thinking that since I am not ultimate reality while the Infinite Being is, and since I am an illusion, therefore I should think of myself as the Infinite Being. But this contradicts the good start these religions have when they begin with telling us to move beyond ourselves. If I am really nothing and must move beyond myself towards God, this realization and goal are contradicted by subsequently telling me that in fact I am God and I must look within. Here is an example of how the murkiness of Buddhism in this area leads to some erroneous conclusions, from an introductory book on Buddhism written by a Zen Buddhist monk and teacher, Rev. Daizui MacPhillamy:

The principle of there being no soul is actually so fundamental to Buddhism that it is given a name (‘anatta’), and placed on the same level of importance as the principle of universal change (‘anicca’). It is regarded, in other words, as a basic property of how the universe works. Although the first thing that we tend to think of when confronted with the concept of there being no soul is its implications for death and the afterlife, it actually has consequences that are more far-reaching than that.

One of these consequences has to do with just how much ‘at one’ we really are with the flow. A soul, being inherently a separate sort of a thing, would actually place a limit upon that oneness. No soul and no self, no limit. If neither self nor soul is ultimately real, then in truth we are, right at this very moment, completely one with the unborn, undying, unformed nature of reality, whether we recognize and experience this or not. Now, various schools of Buddhism do different things with this fact of absolute oneness. Some simply observe that it exists, while others give it a name and a prominent place in their teaching, using words such as, “we are all Buddha”, or “all people have Buddha Nature.” . . .

As a guide to practice, the understanding that we all have Buddha Nature influences practice away from trying to get something (to achieve a goal of nirvana, for instance) and towards removing the obstacles to realizing what we already have. This is an important but subtle shift. So long as one is doing Buddhist practice as a means to a goal, the effort is inevitably tainted with some degree of desire: a very noble desire, but a desire nonetheless. . . . When an individual adopts the view that he or she is already innately Buddha, all of this can be dropped and practice can be done simply for the sake of practice. . . . This gets back to the ‘goal of goallessness’ that was mentioned in the section on right effort.

Another consequence of the principle of no soul is that where there is no soul there can be no sin. Many religions define sin as the deliberate turning of the soul away from God, but if there is no soul, that can’t happen. And if we are inherently one with everything and we are Buddha by nature, what can be turned away from? The absence of a sense of sin is another major difference between Buddhism and most other great religions of the world, and it has many implications. If there is no sin and no soul, there can be no guilt, no judgement, no atonement, no absolution, no damnation, no salvation. There really can’t even be any such thing as evil, in the way it is normally thought of. (11) 

We can see a number of problematic conclusions in this selection from Rev. MacPhillamy’s book. First, it does not follow from the fact that there is an ultimate reality that is infinitely greater than the soul, in which the soul lives, and compared to which the soul is nothing, that there is no soul or self at all. Whatever I may be in relation to God, I still exist. Otherwise, there would be no “I” to be involved in this conversation. Rev. MacPhillamy’s erroneous conclusion here, which is common in pantheistic systems, leads him to other false conclusions. He concludes that because the self is an illusion, therefore the real “me” is the Buddha Nature itself (a Buddhist term for the Infinite Reality). Therefore, since I am myself already Buddha, I need really have no goals at all. I already have all that I seek. Of course, despite Rev. MacPhillamy’s attempt to salvage it, this concept makes nonsense out of Buddhist practice, since nothing at all can be done, including Buddhist practice, without some goal in mind. If I truly have all that I seek, why am I still seeking? More importantly, Rev. MacPhillamy’s reasoning leads to the conclusion that there really are no goals whatsoever we should have. If everything is an illusion except the present reality of the Buddha Nature, then as Rev. MacPhillamy himself points out, there is really no such thing as evil. Everything is ultimately as it should be. Calling one’s self and all the spatio-temporal world an illusion undercuts the importance of the reality of this world and the particulars in it. It clouds our recognition of the reality of evil and suffering in this world, and therefore guts our motivation for service in trying to do good. Yes, everything exists by participation in God, but everything is not God. Yes, everything is ultimately under the control of God and a part of his plan, but everything is not in itself pleasing to him, and therefore there are things we should fight against and ideals we should strive after. It is because the biblical worldview recognizes both our participation in God and also our distinction from God that it is able to recognize evil in the world and exhort us to do good.

Related to this issue is Rev. MacPhillamy’s reasoning that since the soul or self is an illusion, therefore there can be no sin. If sin is turning away from God, and I am God, obviously there can be no sin. But the problem here is that I am not God. Yes, I exist “in God,” and am an aspect of his being in some sense, but my identity and characteristics are fundamentally distinct from his. Therefore, there can be real relationship between myself and God (and between myself and other people), and that relationship can go wrong in the sense that I can turn against God and make him my enemy. In fact, Christianity recognizes that this is exactly what has happened, and therefore my salvation does not consist in my realizing that I am God and don’t need to be saved; it consists in my recognizing my sin, looking outside of myself to God for my salvation, and being saved by his grace through the redemption of Christ. If the soul is real, there can be sin; and if there is sin, there is wrath and justice, a need for an atonement and forgiveness, a need for cleansing, a need for reconciliation, etc. By confusing our metaphysical participation in God with the idea that we are God in our identity, Buddhism makes itself unable to recognize and deal with certain fundamental truths about God, about ourselves and our relationship with God, and about the universe in general.

A theist who understands the metaphysical implications of theism can say to a Buddhist, “You are right about a number of things--about the reality of an Infinite realm of Ultimate Reality behind the spatio-temporal world we inhabit, about the fact that we all exist by participation in that Reality, about the fact that I am nothing compared to that Reality and that I must move beyond myself to relate rightly to it. But you then forget all this and identify yourself with the Infinite and turn your focus back into yourself for your happiness. This makes no sense upon your own principles. If I am nothing, how can I be identified with the Infinite? If my basic problem is that I am ultimately attached to myself and not to the Infinite--I worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, to put it in Christian terms--and my hope is in getting beyond myself, why do you then move away from the solution and compound the problem by telling me I have the Buddha Nature within and therefore causing me to think that the source of my happiness can be found within myself?” The theist can agree with the arguments for a metaphysical unity grounding all things, and yet point out that this fact does not lead to an ignoring of the reality of the distinctions that exist. Thus the theist, by recognizing the truths in the Buddhist pantheistic system, is able, on the very basis of those truths, to expose the errors in Buddhist thinking, errors that not only put Buddhism out of touch with reality but out of touch with many of its own accurate observations as well. The theist therefore has a point of contact from which he/she can offer a critique of Buddhist pantheistic thought from within, in a sense, and therefore better understand and be better understood. (12)

A Metaphysically-Sophisticated Classical Theism Responds to Objections

A clearer understanding of the relationship between theism and pantheism can also help to answer certain criticisms and objections against theism raised by pantheists and atheists. Pantheists have often accused theism of being metaphysically naïve. Theism is pictured as belief in some super-entity sitting in the sky somewhere who may be more powerful than human beings but who is still a particular within the spatio-temporal universe, and this deity is thus seen by pantheists as something that needs to be transcended just like every other particular. Since theists never transcend their God or seem aware of the need to do so, they strike many pantheists as being metaphysically naïve, not recognizing the reality of an Infinite behind the particular entities of the universe. Theists fuel this objection when they convey the impression that they perceive God as entirely metaphysically distinct from the creation and fail to acknowledge the metaphysical unity that binds all things together in the being of God (without obliterating the importance of the distinctions). To the extent that theists do not recognize this metaphysical unity, they are indeed metaphysically naïve, and although their naiveté is not warranted by the classical theistic tradition or by biblical revelation, they bring both into disrepute through their associating them with such naiveté. Being more metaphysically precise can help avoid this criticism and reason for rejection of theism among pantheists or those attracted to pantheism.

Some philosophers have criticized the doctrine of creation ex nihilo as logically absurd. It seems to violate the principle of the conservation of matter/energy/substance. This is not merely a scientific principle but a logical one as well. If one starts out with a certain amount of something, one cannot increase that amount without adding to the system from without. If this is so, how can God increase the amount of substance in reality? Also, theists say that God is infinite and unbounded. How can an infinite and unbounded being be bounded by the existence of other entities/substances in reality? If God is not all there is, then he is not infinite. Theists say that God fills all things, being omnipresent; and yet if there are other substances, they can only be conceived to exist by imagining that God is not where they are--in other words, God does not fill them and therefore does not fill all things. And where would the additional substance come from, if there were other substances? It couldn’t have come from God, contrary to the idea of creation, since it is in addition to all that God is and has. There is nowhere it can have come from. All of these very rational objections can be answered only by pointing out that, according to a metaphysically sophisticated theism, created entities do not add to the overall substance of reality because they exist in God and are an aspect of his being, without themselves being identified with God. The very real and very important Creator-creature distinction does not require a naïve, disunified metaphysical view of reality.

In this paper I have tried to develop a more coherent, precise and thorough understanding of the metaphysics of classical theism in the context of its relation to pantheism. While I have therefore adopted some language that is a little unusual for typical theistic articulation and have made explicit certain metaphysical implications of classical theism that have often been left hazy, I want to stress again the fact that all that I have said is really nothing new; these elements have always been inherent in classical theism. I think that one of the reasons the development of some of these points has been a bit hazy in theistic thought is a fear common among theists of getting too close to pantheism. Theists have always recognized something wrong with pantheism, and have often defined themselves and their views in the context of a strong motivation to make sure they are adequately distanced from pantheism. There has been some fear that developing certain lines of thought tends to lead in pantheistic-sounding directions, and so those lines of thought have been under-emphasized. Another reason for this metaphysical haziness has been simply a lack of awareness on the part of some theistic theologians of the need for more metaphysical precision in these areas. Yet another reason is that there has been a strong movement among many theistic theologians over the past couple of centuries away from classical theism and towards non-classical forms of theism that advocate entirely different metaphysical views of reality. Some of these non-classical theologians have accused classical theism of being pantheistic or at least of tending towards pantheism, and this in turn has helped to fuel the fear of getting too close to pantheism among classical theologians. But this fear is unjustified. In becoming more metaphysically precise in these areas, classical theists can indeed avoid pantheism; and they are able to advocate a more consistent philosophical theistic perspective, understand pantheistic systems better, and better show why theism, and not pantheism (or atheism), is rational and true.

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1    John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book I, Chapter VIII (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/33041.htm - accessed on 6/3/08).

2   Ibid., Book I, Chapter XIII.

3     Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Question 44, Article 1 (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1044.htm - accessed on 6/3/08).

4    I am assuming here that the correct interpretation of the Bible is the classical theist interpretation.  I am, of course, aware that this is a controversial assumption, but it is beyond my scope to argue for it here.

5    Jonathan Edwards, from “The Nature of True Virtue,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume One, revised and corrected by Edward Hickman (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 125.

6    Ibid., 141.

7    Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Question 44, Article 4 (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1044.htm - accessed on 6/4/08).

8    Westminster Confession, Chapter 4, Section 1 (http://opc.org/wcf.html - accessed 6/4/08).

9    Ibid., Chapter 5, Section 1.

10    Besides the terms “pantheism” and “theism,” the term “panentheism” has been used to describe views that do not want to equate God and the created universe but want to affirm that the created universe exists “in God” in some way.  Is the view that I am advocating here a form of panentheism?  If we take the word itself, in its bare etymological meaning--”everything in God”--my view could be seen as a form of panentheism.  However, this word is usually used in much more specific ways; it is usually associated with non-classical forms of theism such as process theism which are diametrically opposed to my classical metaphysical views.  So while the word itself might not be a bad description of what I am advocating, the word in its actual common usage I reject as referring to ideas that are fundamentally different from and fundamentally opposed to my own.  My views do not involve a rejection of classical theism but rather a following through of certain logical implications of classical theism.

11    Rev. Dazui MacPhillamy, Buddhism From Within: An Intuitive Introduction to Buddhism (Mount Shasta, CA: Shasta Abbey Press, 2003), 79-80.

12   I should note that although I have characterized Buddhism as pantheistic, it would be more precise to say that Buddhism and other Eastern “pantheistic” religions, such as Hinduism, often vacillate between pantheism and theism.  They are not always consistently pantheistic.  The extent to which the Eastern religions really differ from theism and are truly pantheistic is a complicated subject that is very much worthy of more thorough study.  I think that this issue should be a focus in dialogues between theists and practitioners of Eastern religions.  For an example of this vacillating, see “Zen is a Religion,” by Zen Master Rev. Jiyu-Kennett.  It can be found online at https://berkeleybuddhistpriory.org/2020/02/26/zen-is-a-religion/.  The essay is from a collection of oral teachings published as Roar of the Tigress by Shasta Abbey Press.  Here is a sample from the essay:  “And do not suffer from the notion that Zen training will make you anything other than a human being.  Accepting our own humanity is one of the hardest tests of all-acceptance.  There is a great difference, you know, between thinking you are God and knowing that what is in you is of God.  ‘I am not God, and there is nothing in me that is not of God,’ is the way in which one has to think about it.  The reason for Zen practice is to find the Eternal.  On finding the Eternal, we call it ‘enlightenment’.   To know the Eternal (and you really do know It once you have had this experience) is to know how infinitesimal you are in the scheme of things: to know that you are ‘no-thing’: even a grain of sand is miles too big.  When you forsake self in this way, then you are the universe, and, if you’ve done it right, you might behave like it.”