Will we remain male and female in heaven?

Duke Divinity School

". . . sexual difference is not, or should not be, a matter of theological indifference.  Genesis 1 suggests that sexual difference has something to tell us, not just about human beings, but about God in whose image they are made, male and female.  The unresolved question, then, is:  Where, why, and how does sexual difference make a difference? . . .
     "But is sexual difference then without theological importance?  Can we return to our tradition of sexual monoculture, of sexual 'indifference'?  I think not. . . .
     ". . . God is three in one, unity in difference.  Human beings in their createdness mirror this divine procession of love in being more than one, male and female.  Christian theology must affirm that all human beings are in the imago dei and that women are different from men.  This means that women were not made for men any more (or any less) than men were made for women.  The as-yet unsung glory of Genesis 1:26-27 is that the fullness of divine life and creativity is reflected by a humankind that is male and female, encompassing if not an ontological then a primal difference. . . .
     ". . . Sexual difference is a primordial difference, a template for the fruitfulness that can come not when two are the same, but when they are different.  For human creatures, as for sea and dry land, light and dark, fecundity is in the interval.  And this is why sexual difference is not just instrumental to marriage or even to the family.  It is good in itself.
     ". . . we will never know what man is until we can say, as Irenaeus obviously intended, 'The glory of God is woman fully alive.'"

     Janet Martin Soskice, "Imago Dei and sexual difference:  toward an eschatological anthropology" (orig. 2007), in Rethinking human nature:  a multidisciplinary approach, ed. Malcolm Jeeves (Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 2011), 302, 304-306 (295-306).  This is as close as Soskice gets to the "eschatological" she inserted in to the title of this piece.  Which is to say, she does not come right out and reject "the more orthodox view that the resurrected body will be 'sexless'" rejected by Augustine (302), with whom she clearly sides.  Yet despite the reference to "marriage or even . . . the family," this seems to be an implication of her insistence that "Sexual difference is" "if not an ontological [(304)] then a primal[,] . . . a primordial difference."

Benedict XVI on the "pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation"

". . . the family [i]s the authentic setting in which to hand on the blueprint of human existence. . . . [T]he question of the family is not just about a particular social construct, but about man himself – about what he is and what it takes to be authentically human. The challenges involved are manifold. First of all there is the question of the human capacity to make a commitment or to avoid commitment. Can one bind oneself for a lifetime? Does this correspond to man’s nature? Does it not contradict his freedom and the scope of his self-realization? Does man become himself by living for himself alone and only entering into relationships with others when he can break them off again at any time? Is lifelong commitment antithetical to freedom? Is commitment also worth suffering for? . . .  [O]nly in self-giving does man find himself, and only by opening himself to the other, to others, to children, to the family, only by letting himself be changed through suffering, does he discover the breadth of his humanity. When such commitment is repudiated, the key figures of human existence likewise vanish: father, mother, child – essential elements of the experience of being human are lost.
     ". . . the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper. While up to now we regarded [1] a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that [2] the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question. [The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim] quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: 'one is not born a woman, one becomes so' (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient). These words lay the foundation for what is put forward today under the term 'gender' as a new philosophy of sexuality. According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society. The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious. People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God. This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: 'male and female he created them' (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defence of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man."

     Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), "Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI on the occasion of Christmas greetings to the Roman Curia," 21 December 2012.