Friday, August 11, 2023

A boundary-overflowing profusion of body types (and therefore sexes) capable of transcending the limits of biblical "kind"

Turning from a brief history of the question, and then from an analysis of the key New Testament passages, and especially 1 Cor 15:35-49 as represented diagrammatically (opposite), according to which bodily variety in time might "cross" with a presumably ever-increasing bodily variety across the aeons of creation, [reconciliation], but in the post-resurrection period of [redemption] most especially, Heß then makes some tentatively constructive moves, moves that strike me as—and that she more than once admits are—more speculative than strictly exegetical:

. . . The "explication begins already with v. 38 [of 1 Cor 15]: God’s newly creative work gives to every creature, 'between the times,' a body of its own, [i.e. a body] appropriate to it (
ἴδιον σῶμα). On earth men, animals, birds, and fish live and move in a profusion of [(in einer Fülle an)] σάρξ, [while] in the heavens sun, moon, and stars shine in the most manifold δόξα. Also, this impressive panorama of metaphors—topologically an exuberant praise of the creation, in fact—can exhibit chronological lucidity [(kann chronologisch Transparenz entfalten)]. Again: the earthly sphere (v 39) for the reality of creation, the heavenly [sphere] for the reality of redemption (v 41): in all aeons of salvation God [(Gott)] maintains her creature [(ihre Kreatur)] in [a] variegated individuality. Presumably the future plurality of bodies will go well [(noch)] beyond [that of] the present, insofar as, with the individual creature [(Geschöpf)], this [plurality], too [(auch sie)], will stand for the first time no longer under the sign of fleshly brokenness, but will appear in perfect clarity. Perhaps such an eschatic clarification [(Aufklarung)] of the bodily manifold of creation will . . . [(ja nicht)] ultimately attain to form in this, that its 'earthly' orientation to [the 'one] kinds' of v 39 [will] sprout, in the heavenly aeon, [out] into a boundary-overflowing profusion of bodies capable of transcending even, beyond that [(noch)], the limits of kind: 'for one star differs from [another] star in δόξα' (v 41).
     "So also [with] the resurrection of—sexed bodies? I would risk the attempt to place the theological accents of 1 Cor 15:35-49, too, within the horizon of our opening question. Vv. 39-41 in particular promise for the eschaton, at any rate, no one (as it were) unified body of a certain fixed kind [(keinen wie auch immer gearteten Einheitsleib)]. Quite the contrary. In this difference [(Gefälle)], the confession that in Christ [there] is (one day) no longer either male or female might then hold out in prospect the absence of a uniform sexuality for th[ose] risen [(keine uniforme Geschlechtlichkeit der Auferweckten)]—be that [as in the tradition (295-301)] either exclusively male or sexually androgynous [(geschlechtsneutral)]. On the basis of vv. 38 and 41 an eschatic plurality of sexed bodies and identities could lie close at hand, in which God allows th[ose] risen to appear on the far side of [the] pre-established limits of the (dualizing) matrix of [the two] sexes [(jenseits vorgegebener Grenzen der (dualisierenden) Geschlechtermatrix)] in accordance with his (previously composed) will in the individuality suited to them: 'But God gives it [(ihm, him)] a body as it [(sie)] has chosen, and (indeed) to every individual seed [(jedem Einzelnen der Samenkörner)] a corresponding body [(einen entsprechenden Leib)]' (v. 38).
     "All in all, therefore, our eschatological search for clues [(Spurensuche)] on the far side of monism [on the one hand] and dualism [on the other] ends in a pluralism of sexual difference characterized by new creation [(neuschöpferisch qualifizierten Pluralismus der Geschlechterdifferenz)].
     "I summarize:
     "The theologically uncontested conception of an eschatic transformation of sexual corporeality can from the New Testament onwards and with significant theological justification [(vom Neuen Testament her durchaus theologisch begründet)] be represented 1) as a fundamentally corporeal re[con]figuration [(Neufigurierung)] of the form of sex [introduced at] creation [(der Schöpfungsgestalt von Geschlecht)] that [is] effected in the Christ-sphere [and] has also de-dualizing and anti-hierarchical consequences for sexual identity and sexual praxis (Gal 3:28; Mk 12:25 and parallels). Such an eschatological transformation of the reality of sex can occur 2) modally as [a] radical shift in perspective that brings with it a curative clarification [(Aufklarung)] of the risen with respect to their sexual existence. In that they obtain [a] share in the perception with which GOD sees them is their at-present-always only-fragmentarily-experienceable corporeality and identity for the first time adequately developed [(zur Entfaltung gebracht)] (1 Cor 13:9-12; 1 Jn 3:2). This transformation of perception might take shape qualitatively in 3) a newly created [(neuschöpferischen)] plurality of risen bodies that would make it possible for every single sexed body to make itself felt individually in the singularity perfectly [(je)] appropriate to it (1 Cor 15:35-49).”
     "III.
     "What we will be has in fact not yet appeared. The biblico-deconstructive inducements [(Anstöße)] to a de-dualized eschatology of sexual difference are understood, first, as [a] decidedly future-eschatological contribution. And so they are constructed, obviously, on the foundation of [some] very complex [(vielschichtigster)] theological problems that cannot [(nicht konnten)] be considered here explicitly.
     "But how goes it with their real-world [(lebensweltliche)] workability in particular? Does the idea of the eschatologically 'last things' issue, perhaps [even] necessarily, in an unpolitical quietism that [it] would be right to challenge from the standpoint of feminist theology? I think not. Pauline theology knows already of a specific mutual entanglement of [the] already now and [the] not yet, of present and future eschatology, of reconciliation and redemption. Thus, the baptismal formula of Gal. 3:28 puts its anticipated eschatological conclusions [(Urteile)] in the indicative. As incorporation into Christ’s sphere of influence, baptism brings with it already revolutionary [and] newly creative [(neuschöpferische)] transformations, [such that] in Christ the 'new creature' has already appeared (Gal 6:15; 2 Cor 5:17 ). And yet its qualitative transformation into ultimate perfection is still to come (1 Cor 15:35 ff. ). It is important not to fall short of this productive tension theologically. Within its horizon the future impetus of eschatology appears not as [a] reactionary scenario of consolation, but as [a] potential for a 'utopian anthropology' that does not leave to [present] reality in its self-sufficiency the last word. 'If . . . inherited [(tradierte)] certainties are placed in question, then ever-new fields of activity and life-plans [(Lebensentwürfe)] become possible as well.' As [a] universal perspective of hope, this doesn’t just open up[—to hope—]alternative and therein perhaps more authentic ways of existence to the individual; it opens up—to hope—new fields of increasingly plural [(pluralerer)] sociality in the here and now.
     "Naturally, one could [(kann)], speaking epistemologically, banish the considerations outlined here to the curiosity-cabinet of dogmatics with ease. Yet wholly apart from the pressures that Holy Scripture all by itself [(nun einmal selbst)] exerts [(gibt)], one certainly does not in this way, however, get rid of the questions that have [been] thrown open [(aufgeworfenen)]. If sexuality does in fact stamp human experience unavoidably, but the eschaton involves [(meint)] a personal event, then it may be impossible to avoid thematizing also the question of sexual identity eschatologically. And if the culturally-generated production of the sexual binary [(Zweigeschlechtlichkeit)] is accompanied by repressive trimmings of human bodies and identities, [then] one will also have to reflect upon the question of sexual transformation in the eschaton at the very latest. The theological tradition has not shrunk from this concern. Incidentally, we have yet to grasp that the problem of the sexuality of the resurrected body may be in and of itself in no way more unclear and speculative than many other theological topoi, indeed, ultimately, [even] the Christian faith itself in specific ways.
    "'It does not yet appear what we shall be.'
     "For this reason my comments can and want to be but provocations [(Anstöße)]. As such, the have obviously a theological potential that is wholly personal in nature: 'No proof is furnished; the point is simply to create room for thought.'
     "I would not like to exclude [(möchte nicht ausschließen) the possibility] that we could appear in the revelatory fulfillment of the eschaton as authentic and mutually reconciled men and women. But perhaps our redeemed (sexual) bodies will appear for the first time in their unmediated peculiarity [(un-vermittelten Eigen-artig-keit)] so variously that the interpersonal desire for [(zwischenmenschliche Begehren nach)] reductionistic dualizations [(reduktionistischen Dualisierungen)] of every kind will have been, in view of this fullness in God’s name, done away with. What we will be will then—if God wills and we live (Js 4:15)—appear in [all of its] splendor."

     Ruth Heß, "'Es ist noch nicht erschienen, was wir sein werden.'  Biblische-(de)konstruktivische Anstöße zu einer entdualisierten Eschatologie der Geschlechterdifferenz," in Alles in allem:  eschatologische Anstöße:  J. Christine Janowski zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Ruth Heß and Martin Leiner (Neukirchen-Vluyn:  Neukirchener Verlag, 2005), 320-323 (291-323), translation (and every misunderstanding) mine.  E.g. I must confess that I haven't yet figured out what to do with the ja nicht near the end of that first paragraph (on p. 320).

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