Doctoral Thesis

by Rev. Carter H. Griffin

Directed by

Rev. Prof. Robert A. Gahl, Jr.

Supernatural Fatherhood

through Priestly Celibacy:

Fulfillment in Masculinity

A Thomistic Study

Pontifical University of the Holy Cross

Faculty of Theology

Washington 2011

Imprimatur

Vidimus et approbavimus ad normam statutorum

Prof. Dr. Robert Gahl

Prof. Dr. Laurent Touze

Imprimi potest

Prof. Dr. Angel Rodríguez Luño

Dean of the Faculty of Theology

Rev. Dr. Manuel Miedes

General Secretary

Rome, February 10, 2011

Prot. no. 90/2011

Nihil Obstat

Rev. Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M. Cap.

Censor Deputatus

Imprimatur

Donald Cardinal Wuerl

Archbishop of Washington

Archdiocese of Washington

February 24, 2011

Copyright © 2011 by Carter Griffin

Front Cover: Christ the Eternal High Priest by Marek Czarnecki

Please see www.seraphicrestorations.com

Dedication

This work is dedicated to

Charles and Josephine Griffin

in eternal gratitude for

their gift and their example

of generous paternity,

and to my brother priests

with whom I share the joys

of supernatural fatherhood.

It is entrusted to

the patronage of Saint Joseph:

teacher, guardian, friend, father,

and model of celibate paternity.

Abbreviations

Attendite - Thomas Aquinas, Sermo Attendite a Falsis

Beata Gens - Thomas Aquinas, Sermo Beata Gens

Beatus Vir - Thomas Aquinas, Sermo Beatus Vir

Boeth. - Thomas Aquinas, Super Boethium Trinitate

CCC - Catechism of the Catholic Church

CA - Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea in Quatuor Evangelia

CI - Thomas Aquinas, Liber Contra Impugnantes Dei

Comp. - Thomas Aquinas, Compendium Theologiae

DC - Thomas Aquinas, Super Librum De Causis Expositio

De Perf. - Thomas Aquinas, Liber de Perfectione Spiritualis Vitae

Dec. Prae. - Thomas Aquinas, Collationes in Decem Praeceptis

Div. Nom. - Thomas Aquinas, In Librum B. Dionysii De Divinis Nominibus

DP - Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputatae de Potentia

DM - Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo

DV - Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate

Exiit - Thomas Aquinas, Sermo Exiit Qui Seminat

Eth. - Thomas Aquinas, Sententia Libri Ethicorum

Met. - Thomas Aquinas, Sententia Libri Metaphysicae

Orat. Dom. - Thomas Aquinas, Expositio in Orationem Dominicam

Pol. - Thomas Aquinas, Sententia Libri Politicorum

Puer Jesus - Thomas Aquinas, Sermo Puer Jesus

QL - Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones de Quolibet

Sup. 1 Cor. - Thomas Aquinas, Super I Epistolam B. Pauli ad Corinthios

Sup. 1 Thes. - Thomas Aquinas, Super I Epistolam B. Pauli ad Thessalonicenses

Sup. 1 Tim. - Thomas Aquinas, Super I Epistolam B. Pauli ad Timotheum

Sup. 2 Tim. - Thomas Aquinas, Super II Epistolam B. Pauli ad Timotheum

Sup. 2 Cor. - Thomas Aquinas, Super II Epistolam B. Pauli ad Corinthios

Sup. 2 Thes. - Thomas Aquinas, Super II Epistolam B. Pauli ad Thessalonicenses

Sup. Col. - Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistolam B. Pauli ad Colossenses

Sup. Eph. - Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistolam B. Pauli ad Ephesios

Sup. Gal. - Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistolam B. Pauli ad Galatas

Sup. Heb. - Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistolam B. Pauli ad Hebraeos

Sup. Ioann. - Thomas Aquinas, Super Evangelium S. Ioannis

Sup. Mat. - Thomas Aquinas, Super Evangelium S. Matthaei

Sup. Psalm. - Thomas Aquinas, In Psalmos Davidis Expositio

Sup. Rom. - Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistolam B. Pauli ad Romanos

Sup. Tit. - Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistolam B. Pauli ad Titum

SCG - Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles

Sent. - Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum Super Sententiis

ST - Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae

Introduction

Among the many gifts left to the Church by the great pontificate of Pope John Paul II was an enduring example of priestly fatherhood. At his funeral witnessed by the largest congregation of Christian faithful in history with over four million mourners and billions of viewers on television, the recurring image evoked was that of a father’s burial. When his simple casket was lowered in a final salute before the pallbearers bore it into St. Peter’s basilica, few were able to restrain their tears as they bade farewell to their “Papa” — their “Father” — who had loved them with a father’s heart generously, heroically, to his final breath. In what many would see as a contradiction in terms, the man who modeled paternity for a generation of believers was a celibate priest. This dissertation will endeavor to show that it was not a contradiction at all.

The supernatural fatherhood of celibate priests has received virtually no methodical attention in the history of theology, perhaps in part because, simply, it has been taken for granted. Especially in regions where they commonly are called “Father,” priests may implicitly acknowledge their own paternity, though perhaps without a clear grasp of its nature or how it is exercised. Some might allow, for instance, that in the administration of baptism priests enjoy a kind of spiritual paternity, but would struggle to distinguish it from that of laypeople or even nonbelievers administering the sacrament. Furthermore, beyond baptism the priest’s paternity is seldom connected to his celebration of the other sacraments or with his preaching, teaching, shepherding, or temporal administration and governance. Still less is the priest’s fatherhood associated with his commitment to celibacy. Indeed, celibacy is usually identified with the very renunciation of fatherhood. In short, while there may be an inchoate conviction that celibate priesthood has something to do with paternity, systematic reflection on the theme has been lacking.

CENTRAL THESIS: CELIBATE PRIESTLY FATHERHOOD

The central thesis of this work is that priestly celibacy fulfills masculine human nature as a privileged mode of living supernatural fatherhood. An underlying premise is that celibacy is not an arbitrary demand imposed on priests but is inscribed with its own natural and supernatural logic. Like marriage, celibacy is a personal and relational choice and hence to some extent mysterious, but also like marriage, methodical reflection on the theme can help give a rational underpinning to the vocation and assist those who embrace it.[1] Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Sacerdotalis Caelibatus invited theologians to study celibacy in the light of Christ’s redemptive mission, “to persevere in the study of this vision, and to go deeply into the inner recesses and wealth of its reality. In this way, the bond between the priesthood and celibacy will more and more be seen as closely knit — as the mark of a heroic soul and the imperative call to unique and total love for Christ and His Church.”[2] The conviction expressed in these pages is that priestly celibacy is a radical choice to give oneself to God and neighbor by generating new life in the order of grace. It is an attempt to respond positively and convincingly to Pope Paul’s challenge by situating celibacy squarely in the context of redemption and of the priest’s role in penetrating the world with the fruits of Christ’s redemptive love.

There is a particular demand for this response today. Noting the alarming number of defections from the priesthood in recent years even among the so-called “JPII priests,” John Cihak maintains that a “clash is felt deeply in the heart of a man called to celibacy in the priesthood. The gap appears not in the alignment of one’s intellect to the truth of priestly celibacy, but how this truth of priestly celibacy becomes enfleshed in the priest’s heart and in his relationships as a man.”[3] The theological and anthropological foundations for celibacy advanced in this dissertation, then, are not intended merely to satisfy academic curiosity. In order for it to be lived as a paternal vocation, a fulfillment of masculinity, celibacy can no more remain at the notional level than a natural father’s paternity can remain a pleasant but disengaged concept. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta once remarked that “[p]riestly celibacy is that gift which prepares for life in heaven. Jesus calls his priest to be his co-worker in the Church, to fill heaven with God’s children.”[4] If Blessed Teresa’s insight about the fruitfulness of celibacy becomes an unshakeable conviction in the heart of a priest, he begins to see his celibacy, his priesthood, and his very life differently. He begins to consider himself a father, not only in name and title, and not only in baptizing children, but as an identity that permeates his entire priestly life. Four years after the death of John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI declared that his predecessor had realized this transforming paternity throughout his ministry, in his teaching and courage and example.[5] This work is intended to assist priests in making that same transforming choice to embrace their own fatherhood by reflecting theologically on the Church’s wisdom regarding the discipline of priestly celibacy.[6]

The theological aims of this work contribute to pastoral implications not only for priests, however, but also for the Church at large. All the faithful benefit by a greater awareness of celibate priestly fatherhood. At a time when positive paternal examples are more scarce, those who know their priests to be true fathers are more likely to profit from their paternal example. In addition, just as families with a father tend to enjoy more unity and a clear sense of identity, so too parishes and dioceses tend to thrive with the generous and self-sacrificing love of a paternal priest or bishop. Inasmuch as the faithful value that kind of love and expect it from their pastors, they can do much to restore a firm sense of paternity in the priesthood. Men are wonderfully able to rise to expectations, and few expectations can elicit a more generous response from the heart of a man than the hope that he become a worthy father.

REDUCTIVIST VIEWS OF CELIBACY, PRIESTHOOD, FATHERHOOD

Theological and pastoral reflection is needed, then, to examine the case for a “paternal reading” of priestly celibacy. Speaking very broadly, at least three contemporary tendencies prompt such reflection and underscore its need, but also to some extent hamper its efforts. The very expression “celibate priestly fatherhood” suggests three modern “reductions” that reveal an underlying framework of ideas to which this work responds.

The first contemporary “reduction” pertains to celibacy, which often can be reduced to a merely negative choice, a renunciation alone, rendering virtually incomprehensible the notion of positive celibate generativity. It must be conceded that this limited view of celibacy did not originate with modernity but in fact has thrived in any atmosphere of anthropological dualism. In ancient times, for instance, the negative reduction of celibacy tended to focus on achieving bodily purity, especially before exercising sacred functions, and often was fueled by an exceedingly dim view of corporality and human sexuality.[7] Today these negative tendencies usually perceive celibacy merely as a sacrifice, a kind of “tribute” paid to the Lord in order to receive Holy Orders and a key ingredient of the “priestly mystique” that allegedly needs to be fostered.[8] When, in response, an attempt is made to cast celibacy in a more positive light, it tends to devolve into shallow pragmatism, a simple calculation of time and availability for ministry alone, or else is defended theologically only in the context of a mystical spousal relationship, more or less superficial, in which the priest is “married to the Church.”[9]

A second contemporary “reduction” to which this dissertation responds is a perception of the priesthood that is functional and bureaucratic rather than relational, personalistic, and paternal. The technical specialization of professional work since the Enlightenment has not spared the priesthood, increasingly regarded as a largely administrative role. The priesthood becomes a series of ministerial tasks for which men are more or less technically competent, and by which their efficiency is judged. It is what a priest does rather than what a priest is that sometimes defines the vocation today in the mind of both the priest and his people. This view of the priestly life that centers on programs, coordination of ministries, and measurable success alone is a dramatically reduced vision of the priesthood. Moreover, the fear that priestly paternity may be — and historically perhaps has been — identified with priestly paternalism, clericalism, and even manipulation further distances the vocation from its paternal roots.

The third modern “reduction” germane to this central thesis is an impoverished view of human fatherhood as merely a biological act, rendering human fathers more and more obsolete and replaceable. Beginning with the so-called “sexual revolution” of the 1960’s but accompanied by scientific advances in areas such as contraception, in-vitro fertilization, and surrogacy, human sexuality has been progressively de-coupled from its natural teleology to human generation.[10] While motherhood has also suffered from this depleted anthropology, the more detached physical and emotional role of the man in human generation makes fatherhood more susceptible to its reductivist tendencies.[11] As a result, Western society increasingly deems fatherhood to be superfluous, emptying it of its non-biological significance and considering the man’s familial role interchangeable with other influences.[12] The damage caused to children, to mothers, to fathers, and to society at large by this diminution of fatherhood is staggering.[13]

These three reductivist tendencies have been painted with a broad brush and are not found universally. However, to the extent that they are found, the central thesis of this work provides one approach to addressing them by advancing a fuller notion of celibacy, priesthood, and paternity. Thus, in contrast to an anemic and negative view of celibacy, it argues that the celibate commitment is positive and generative of life. In contrast to a functionalist view of the priesthood, it affirms that the priestly vocation embraces the whole man in a paternal identity directed to the generation of new children in grace.[14] In contrast to a materialistic, “biologistic” view of fatherhood, it proposes a notion of human paternity that constitutes the highest fulfillment of masculine human nature, ordered both to the procreation of life and to its fruition both naturally and supernaturally. By touching upon all three of these realities, this thesis can shed new light on them and perhaps help restore their full dignity and significance.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

The argument for celibate priestly paternity in this dissertation will occur in five stages, each corresponding to one of the first five chapters. The first stage will begin by demonstrating that sexual difference itself, and hence masculinity, is a human perfection. It will then show, through several philosophical and theological arguments, that masculine human nature is fulfilled in the completion of the active mode of human generation, that is, in fatherhood.

The second stage will examine the phenomenon of fatherhood itself in light of its prime analogue, God’s own Paternity of the Son. From this primordial fatherhood, God’s Fatherhood ad extra will be studied together with the paternity exercised by the Incarnate Son, that is, Christ’s fatherhood in the order of redemption as Head and Bridegroom of the Church.

The third chapter will examine the phenomenon of fatherhood in the descending order of creation, that of angels, men, and animals. Human fatherhood, it will be shown, includes both biological procreation and its developmental role in “natural” fatherhood as provider, guide and teacher, and protector. This “natural” fatherhood, in turn, is ordered to and structures “supernatural” fatherhood in the order of grace, the highest instantiation of human paternity and one to which all men are called.

The fourth stage of the argument will focus on the paternity of the priesthood, a vocation that concentrates on the third and highest degree of human fatherhood. Specifically, the priest is conformed to Christ the Head and thereby becomes an instrument of Christ’s fatherhood in the order of grace. Exercising his ministry in the three munera of priest, prophet, and shepherd, the priest fulfills both the procreative and perfective aspects of human paternity within the plan of salvation.

The fifth and final stage of this argument will consider the role of the priest’s celibacy in light of his supernatural paternity. Each element of the previous chapter is therefore evaluated through the lens of celibacy, which is shown in each case to facilitate the priest’s assumption and exercise of supernatural paternity. As a result, since it is ordered to his ministry and intensifies his priestly fatherhood, celibacy is normative, though not necessary, in the priesthood. In addition, sharing in genuine human fatherhood — indeed, the highest human fatherhood — the celibate priest fulfills his own masculine human nature as demonstrated in the first chapter.

The sixth chapter considers some implications in the life of the priest and in the selection and formation of candidates to the priesthood. Celibate priestly fatherhood provides a compelling identity for the priest and is an impetus to his holiness, generosity, and fidelity. In addition, forming candidates to receive Holy Orders will focus on selecting those who are capable of accepting the responsibilities of fatherhood and inculcating in them the masculine and paternal virtues that will render them effective and joyful as celibate priestly fathers.

SCOPE OF RESEARCH

The theme of this work is admittedly broad, so a conscious choice has been made to limit the research to that which is strictly necessary to make the argument, and to provide citations wherever possible for items of tangential relevance. The dissertation is not intended, for instance, to be a comprehensive exploration of masculinity, fatherhood, priesthood, or even celibacy. It thus does not presume to be a complete treatise on the theological anthropology of masculinity or fatherhood; it will not attempt to treat the history or theology of celibacy in detail; it is not a full account of the priesthood or even spiritual fatherhood in general. It is an in-depth look at one aspect of the priest’s identity, though arguably a foundational aspect, which is his supernatural paternity, how celibacy is ordered to that paternity, and why it fulfills his masculine human nature.

Nevertheless, in the course of the argument, occasion will arise to address a number of issues of contemporary interest that are linked in some fashion to the central thesis. For instance, reflecting on the features of masculinity necessarily includes a consideration of the meaning and nature of human sexuality itself, the complementarity of the sexes, and the relationship of sexuality and human generation.[15] Locating the prime analogue of paternity in God’s Fatherhood helps address feminist concerns about masculine names for God. Analyzing the masculinity of Christ in the context of His paternity emphasizes the importance of His masculinity in the Incarnation and provides a way to articulate the reservation of priestly ordination to men alone. Understanding human fatherhood in light of its analogous relationship to God’s Fatherhood as well as its ordering to supernatural generativity may help restore confidence in human paternity and stimulate more cultural support for engaged fatherhood.[16] Interpreting celibacy in the key of paternity underlines the normativity of celibacy in the priesthood, militates against the call for “optional” celibacy, and stresses the importance of a healthy masculine identity among those who are admitted to Holy Orders. Finally, the thesis directly bears upon revelations of widespread sexual abuse by priests and the profound harm that it has inflicted on children. Pervasive clerical abuse of minors represents, in a way, the confirmation and conclusion of an increasingly decadent approach to priestly fatherhood. As a result, the thesis of this work suggests a path to reform in the priesthood, as well as a thoroughgoing response to the sexual abuse crisis, based on the selection and formation of priestly candidates capable of assuming the divine call to supernatural fatherhood.

In addition to limiting material to the immediate flow of the argument, the subject matter is further contained by relying on the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas as a guiding principle for the work. Two considerations prompted this choice. First, as Pope Leo XIII taught in the encyclical Aeterni Patris, Thomistic thought is a powerful encapsulation and synthesis both of the Church Fathers and of other scholastic thinkers whose doctrines “like the scattered members of a body, Thomas collected together and cemented, distributed in wonderful order, and so increased with important additions that he is rightly and deservedly esteemed the special bulwark and glory of the Catholic faith.”[17] While St. Thomas’ works do not comprehend all of Catholic theology, they are deeply immersed in the language and thought of the Scriptures and, moreover, attempt to capture the wisdom of the Patristic and Scholastic ages. They consequently offer a reliable prism through which to assess contemporary contributions to this field.

A second consideration in favor of St. Thomas is derived from the nature of the subject matter itself. This dissertation will examine supernatural fatherhood as analogous to divine Fatherhood and human celibacy in light of “divine celibacy,” in addition to a theological examination of masculinity and human paternity. As a result, it will depend on a uniform dogmatic Trinitarian theology and theological anthropology as well as a sound analysis of Holy Orders and the role of celibacy in the life of a priest. Such theological breadth and consistency is found preeminently in the writings of St. Thomas. Thus while he did not write systematically on the relationship between supernatural paternity and celibacy itself, Thomas does provide the theological coherence and principles which make such an analysis possible. It is interesting to note, for example, that the 1976 Declaration on the Question of Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood affirming the close connection between masculinity and the priesthood cites St. Thomas more frequently than any other thinker or ecclesial body.[18] This study will similarly rely on the Angelic Doctor for its fundamental principles.

A final means of limiting the scope of research will be in establishing boundaries for the philosophical analysis of paternity, or rather the relationship among various expressions of paternity. This work will restrict itself to a traditional view of analogy in order to explain the relationship between divine and biological, natural, and supernatural human fatherhood. In order to make the claim that there is a genuine relationship among them, that one can say “father” properly of both God and men in a way that is neither equivocal nor univocal, it is enough to demonstrate that there is a proper analogy. Such a demonstration can be found directly in the New Testament. When Jesus instructed His disciples to “call no man on earth your father” because “you have one Father, who is in heaven” he was speaking a literal truth, and yet He himself continues to call biological fathers, “father”.[19] The Christian faith acknowledges, then, from Scripture alone, that there is an analogous relationship between human fatherhood and its prime analogue in God the Father, even if Christians may disagree on the precise nature of that relationship. This dissertation begins with Christ’s affirmation of God’s Fatherhood and attempts to deepen the understanding of analogous human paternity. The second chapter of this work therefore endeavors to define “fatherhood” with precision, in order to show that God’s Fatherhood ad intra satisfies the definition perfectly and uniquely, and then to identify a kind of “cascading” paternity in which human fatherhood is situated — some expressions properly analogical, some only metaphorical — including the generative capacity of priests in the order of grace, their supernatural paternity. The discussion about analogical fatherhood in the second and third chapters, as a preamble to the discussion about priestly supernatural fatherhood in the fourth chapter, thus has fairly limited aims, established and restricted by the philosophical needs of the overall thesis.

It is important to identify this self-imposed limitation on the argument since various theories of Thomistic participation and analogy differ on the metaphysical or epistemological nature of that analogical relationship between God’s and man’s fatherhood, without necessarily disputing — indeed it would be difficult for a faithful Christian to dispute — that there is an analogous relationship between the two. This dissertation thus attempts to strike a mean between two perspectives regarding participation and analogy, one emphasizing the metaphysics of Neo-Platonic participation in Aquinas, the other emphasizing his use of analogy principally as a tool for logical analysis, albeit without denying the existence of a metaphysics of being.

The former perspective, represented for instance by the work of Cornelio Fabro, envisions proportion and likeness as a metaphysical phenomenon.[20] Simplifying for the sake of argument, Fabro’s approach would see likeness as indicating a shared cause. Heat, sun, fire, and matches, for instance, all share the same cause of warmth. Fabro’s perspective suggests a strong emphasis on God’s primary causality, even implying that God is Himself somehow in all things, making them to be what they are through their natures which limit and contain unlimited divine being. From this position, then, “fatherhood” applied to God and to various creatures somehow inheres in each, though of course in different ways and to different degrees. The other end of the spectrum, represented by thinkers such as Ralph McInerny, focuses on the Thomistic notion of analogy as a logical tool for describing the use of names in language. McInerny would posit a sharper distinction between the ratio propria which is the name — in this case, fatherhood — said first of creatures in the order of knowing and only secondarily of God, and the res significata of the term that exists first and preeminently in God. Stressing this metaphysical and epistemological divide, McInerny writes for example that “God is wisdom essentialiter — and is participated in by the creature, who has wisdom. The ordo rerum in this case is exactly the opposite of the ordo nominis.”[21] Moreover, since for McInerny the order of analogy is a tool of language and epistemology, but not of metaphysics, the analogical use of fatherhood does not permit the claim that the meaning of the term said of creatures is dependent upon its meaning as said of God.

Since the thrust of this dissertation requires only that the analogy of fatherhood be identified, not necessarily dissected with great precision, this work adopts an intermediary position so as not to affirm anything unnecessarily controversial. Such a perspective of analogy is perhaps best represented by Lawrence Dewan and discussed in greater detail in Chapter Two.[22] This position understands analogy to encompass both the ratio nominis and the res significata. Inasmuch as there is some thing that connects the proportionate terms, it shares elements of Fabro’s Thomism. Inasmuch as the proportion itself is in the mind, in the order of knowledge, it shares features of McInerny’s theory of Thomistic analogy. The moderate view of analogy and of the metaphysical relationship between a prime analogue in God and creaturely participation employed throughout this dissertation is therefore more restrained than that of Fabro and yet more metaphysically oriented than that of McInerny. Thus without necessarily denying the defensibility of a “stronger” theory of Platonic participation that envisions the priest’s fatherhood as participating in God’s, the central thesis of this dissertation, that celibacy is ordered to priestly fatherhood, does not depend on making such a bold claim of participation.

In light of this theoretical background, then, the fourth chapter derives the supernatural paternity of the priest from two principle “sources”. The first is God the Father, inasmuch as the priest represents Him through the priest’s sacramental and ontological configuration to Christ the Head, Whose divine nature in turn fitted Him to be the perfect human representative of God the Father. That is, Christ represents the Father; the priest is configured to Christ; and in this sense the priest represents the Father. The second “source” of the priest’s fatherhood is instrumental in nature, inasmuch as he is configured ontologically to Christ the Head, the New Adam and Father of the Church, and Whose divine nature fitted Him to be the primary cause of new life in grace. That is, Christ is a father by generating life as the New Adam; the priest is configured to Christ and empowered to continue His work on earth; and in this sense the priest generates life as an instrumental cause of supernatural regeneration, sharing as a secondary cause in the primary causality of God in the order of grace. The moderate perspective of Thomistic participation and analogy outlined above sufficiently supports both these sources of priestly paternity, representative and instrumental, demonstrating that the central thesis need not be encumbered with alternative theories of participation, however compatible and defensible they may be.

RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER WORKS

Due to the interdisciplinary nature of this dissertation, it will draw heavily from many recent publications that have covered particular aspects of the argument. For instance, while the corpus on the theology of celibacy is not large,[23] the works of Thomas McGovern, Stanley Jaki, Andrew Cozzens, Laurent Touze, and Herbert Doms will all be cited with some regularity.[24] Similarly, while spiritual fatherhood is often mentioned in popular ascetical works on the priesthood, theological writings on the notion are less common. Among the few instances of such publications, those of Fernando Benicio Felices Sánchez and, to a lesser extent, Jerome Rono Nyathi and Robert Christian will be referenced in the course of this dissertation.[25] Once again, while the spiritual context of human fatherhood is regularly mentioned in popular works, it too receives scant rigorous treatment in theological circles. The dissertations of David Delaney and Raymond Ifeanyi Anagboso are notable exceptions.[26] The masterful book by Monica Migliorino Miller, Sexuality and Authority in the Catholic Church, has been particularly valuable in responding to feminist concerns regarding the male priesthood.[27] Finally, with respect to St. Thomas’ understanding of human generation, the dissertations of Mark Toon and Luijino Miungi provided helpful summaries of this complex topic.[28]

Two authors, however, merit special mention for the place that they hold in this dissertation. The first is Thomas Hennessy, O.P. who wrote a doctoral dissertation at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC over sixty years ago and later published its central ideas in an article for The Thomist and, still later, published almost his whole argument in a book.[29] Hennessy’s is the only work known by the author to treat systematically the instrumental paternity of the priest in view of his configuration to Christ the Head. Though Hennessy does not analyze the relationship between the priest’s masculinity and his fatherhood or consider in detail the role of celibacy in his supernatural paternity, Hennessy’s writings have been relied upon extensively above all for the fourth chapter of this work dealing with priestly supernatural fatherhood.

The second author whose work is foundational for this dissertation is Timothy Fortin who defended at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in 2008 a philosophy dissertation that suggested the central argument of this thesis.[30] Fortin’s theme, the perfection of masculine identity in fatherhood, will be discussed in more detail in the first chapter. However, it is worth pointing out that his dissertation may be seen as a philosophical preamble to this theological study. Fortin’s evaluation of masculinity and fatherhood in the light of contemporary science provides both the scientific background for this work and many of the philosophical structures of masculinity and fatherhood that give shape to the theological arguments presented here, such as the biological and natural hierarchy of paternity, the features of the active and passive modes of human generation, and the ways that a man exercises the “secondary agency” of fatherhood.

In the course of his work Fortin alludes to theological considerations, such as the divine causality of the rational human soul in generation and the dignity of men and women made in the image of God, that helped him to evaluate various scientific theories and to guide his own philosophical proposal. In this way Fortin paved the way for further theological development and, together with this work, his dissertation represents a concrete case of the complementarity between philosophy and theology. The first point of contact between these two dissertations is the human paternity to which masculinity, including that of the celibate priest, is ordered. The philosophical and theological anthropology of fatherhood will therefore constitute the subject of the first chapter.

Chapter 1: Fatherhood the Fulfillment of Masculinity

The man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have produced a man with the help of the LORD.” (Genesis 4:1 (NAB))

1.1. INTRODUCTION

Few students of contemporary culture would omit, among a list of pressing social ills, the decline of fatherhood. While there is less consensus on the manner of addressing it, there is a growing sense that masculinity has somehow become disengaged from its teleological end in fatherhood. Theodore Stoneberg, emeritus Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Anderson School of Theology, observes that movements such as the Million Man March and Promise Keepers reflect an effort to recover a sense of responsibility among men for their families and society. Indeed he argues that the “overarching task for the twenty-first century is to reconnect manhood and fatherhood in the lives of Western men.”[31] David Blankenhorn, in his seminal study Fatherless America, states that recovering the importance of fatherhood requires a “new cultural story” that paternity is essential, not superfluous, and that “being a real man means being a good father.”[32]

Statistics and sociological studies, however, can only delineate symptoms; they alone cannot reveal the underlying anthropological principles of the problem or its solution. Timothy Fortin took up this challenge to lay a philosophical groundwork for the fulfillment of masculinity in fatherhood in his doctoral dissertation Fatherhood and the Perfection of Masculine Identity: A Thomistic Account in Light of Contemporary Science. After reviewing evolutionary, Freudian, Neo-Freudian, Jungian, Neo-Jungian, and sociological perspectives on the sexual difference in human beings, Fortin advances an understanding of the Thomistic account of maleness as ordered to generativity in an active modality. Fatherhood, as the completion of that active generativity, and as an impetus for growth in the virtues necessary for a father, thereby perfects the human male.[33] Following the lead of St. Thomas, Fortin embraces a notion of fatherhood that includes biological generation as well as perfection of the offspring and advancing the common good. This broader approach to paternity enables Fortin to posit an expression of fatherhood that forgoes the first mode of generation, biological, in favor of the other modes. Such a non-biological fatherhood is the philosophical framework in which this dissertation’s theological analysis of supernatural paternity and priestly celibacy takes place.

In order to analyze more closely the various levels of human fatherhood and its culmination in supernatural paternity, however, it is important first to apply and extend portions of Fortin’s argument in a theological light. The argument will begin with a philosophical and theological analysis of sexual distinction as a human perfection before proceeding to the perfection of masculinity in fatherhood. Then the argument can be extended, in subsequent chapters, to the various degrees of fatherhood, including the supernatural fatherhood of priests, and the role of priestly celibacy in its exercise.

1.2. MASCULINITY A HUMAN PERFECTION

1.2.1. Evolutionary Account

Before he advances the philosophical anthropology of Aquinas, Fortin conducts a comparative overview of other, more recent accounts of human sexuality, beginning with the evolutionary account. Sexual reproduction, according to this model, began as an evolutionary response to the limitations of asexual reproduction, perhaps due to cumulative genetic mutations, the exigencies of changing ecologies, or the onset of destructive parasites.[34] In time, a manner of reproduction emerged in which genetic variation was produced by combining the genetic codes of two parents. It seems, however, that there were disadvantages to the combination of two equal reproductive cells, so evolutionary pressures began to differentiate between a male and a female organism, the latter providing the cellular structure to nourish and grow the offspring and the former providing a smaller cell with only genetic coding.[35]

Since the more complex, larger, harder to produce egg of the female is the limiting factor in reproduction and of higher value than the smaller, more numerous sperm cells, the evolutionist argues that the female invests more than the male in reproduction, and this investment disparity is at the heart of all sexual differences.[36] In a nutshell, maleness in the evolutionary account is the result of pressures to compete for access to the fertility of females.[37] The relative investment levels of male and female organisms, moreover, is amplified as one moves up the evolutionary ladder until reaching the dramatically higher investment levels of female primates who carry and nourish offspring for months and continue to tend them into their infancy and childhood.[38] Nonetheless the male organism, while more lightly invested in the reproductive process, remains indispensable for the mature generation of offspring. Thus maleness, including human maleness, in the evolutionist reading finds its purpose and its perfection in generation by contributing to the survival of the parents’ genes, their offspring’s, and hence the species as a whole.

1.2.2. Deconstruction of Sexuality and Gender

In order to synthesize and build upon Fortin’s final conclusions, it is enough to summarize very briefly his analysis of the psychological and sociological accounts of human sexuality. These theories do not necessarily dispute the findings of evolutionary science, but they expand upon its relatively narrow vision of human sexuality as ordered to genetic survival alone.

Freud builds his theory around the “phallic desires” of males and females, whose different anatomies prompt them to seek the fulfillment of those desires differently. A boy seeks the phallus by identifying with his father, while a girl seeks it first through sexual desire for her father, then a desire for a baby from her father.[39] In every case, the father plays the central role in the formation of masculinity and femininity. The male is in the privileged position of power, possessing the phallus, while the female must accept her position of dependence to receive from another what she lacks.[40] Nevertheless, the complex interaction of both boys and girls with their fathers results in an inherent, Oedipal bisexuality as well as a certain “cross-inheritance” through the super-ego identifying with both the mother and the father. Therefore Freud argues that maleness, a biological reality, is not equivalent to masculinity, and in fact that pure masculinity or femininity is not found in any human being.[41] Neo-Freudians take this analysis further by deconstructing the very notions of masculine and feminine, and hence making ever more tenuous the association of males and females with those categories.[42]

Carl Jung developed a theory that, while avoiding the sexual hyper-reductionism of some followers of Freud, continued the trend towards gender ambiguity. Jung posited that a preponderance of masculine or feminine genes initiates development in the person both of biological sex and of masculine and feminine qualities. This genetic determination, however, is not absolute; the subordinate sex develops in the man as the feminine anima and in the woman as the masculine animus.[43] Since masculine psychology is an expression of the “male” principle of logos, and feminine psychology the “female” principle of eros, men should identify with masculinity and women with femininity.[44] However, since both these principles are present in every person, in their process of self-discovery men must come to terms with and develop the feminine within themselves and women must develop the masculine within themselves.[45]

Some followers of Jung subsequently developed this approach into theories of archetypes, symbols which reflect elements of masculine identity such as King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover.[46] Other followers of Jung took his thought in a different direction, proposing the masculine and feminine as principles to be fully realized in every person. The unconscious feminine is to be made conscious in the man, and the unconscious masculine is to be made conscious in the woman. Psychological maturity, in this view, is achieved by overcoming the limitations of gender identity and amalgamating the two principles into an androgynous ideal.[47]

Gender deconstruction reaches its culmination, so to speak, in the sociological theories that radically divide maleness, seen as a biological phenomenon, from masculinity, defined as a cultural construction. Severed from the male body, masculinity becomes an ever-shifting cultural paradigm which can take limitless forms and may be changed, disrupted, deconstructed, and reconstructed by cultural forces. We are living, according to the thought of R. W. Connell, at a time of just such deconstruction in the West, since he argues that a hegemonic masculinity rooted in unjust institutions and practices of patriarchy is vulnerable and its collapse imminent.[48] In this view, masculinity all but ceases to exist in reference to human nature; in fact it is questionable whether these thinkers acknowledge the existence of human nature at all, at least in practice.[49]

1.2.3. The Science of Gender Differentiation

As Fortin observes, the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas provide an illuminating response to this trend towards gender deconstruction. At a very basic level, however, it is interesting first to point out that the findings of contemporary biology already militate against the notion of an androgynous ideal.[50] For instance, even if sexuality were merely a biological phenomenon, it is perhaps the most diffusive visible difference among human beings, permeating every cell of the human body in its DNA. As Manfred Hauke notes, “even at the level of bodily cells and organs, there are only male or female structures. Humanity bears, all the way down to the body’s most deep-seated bases, an inherent sexual stamp.”[51]

In addition, despite differences in how maleness is realized in various animals and plants, Fortin has demonstrated that there is a common understanding of maleness that applies across species.[52] Thus organisms that reproduce sexually are always in two groups, masculine and feminine, where the male gamete always inseminates the female, not vice versa, in the union of the sexes.[53] The female gamete is larger and is penetrated by the smaller male gamete. The resulting organism of this union has the complete genetic constitution of the species. These genetic, gonadal, and genital commonalities in maleness across species are expressed in the human being in the Y chromosome, testes, and a penis.[54]

Moreover, these primary sexual characteristics are accompanied in humans by secondary sexual characteristics that, while more variable, have also been confirmed by contemporary research.[55] For instance, the human male is more muscular, taller, and heavier than the female; he is more susceptible to diseases and birth defects and typically has a shorter lifespan; is better coordinated, more competitive, hierarchical, and systematic; matures later and takes more risks; is less inclined to share, empathize, and accept others — and so forth. While it is clear that secondary sexual characteristics are not all rigidly fixed across time and place, the scientific trajectory of these findings has been one of rapid accumulation of evidence of an ever sharper and culturally independent biological differentiation between males and females, both in general and specifically among humans.[56]

Human sexuality, then, extends beyond biological phenotypes to neurological, psychological and behavioral characteristics. Of course this scientific conclusion does not prove the philosophical evaluation of sexuality as perfective of human nature, much less its fulfillment in fatherhood. Nonetheless, at least descriptively the evolutionist would ascribe these secondary sexual characteristics in human males and females to a sexual complementarity that is ordered to the survival and growth of the species, and hence at least prepares the ground for a more theoretical analysis of sexuality as perfective. Fortin points out, in fact, that St. Thomas begins his account of sexual difference as a human perfection precisely where the evolutionist ends, with a description of masculinity and femininity ordered to the survival of the species in terms that are strikingly similar to the modern evolutionary account.[57]

1.2.4. Aquinas on the Sexual Difference

St. Thomas’ explanation of sexual difference as a human perfection is treated within the context of his general anthropology, modeled on the aristotelian hylomorphic composite of matter and form shared by all bodily beings, but with an important difference: the form of the human person is a rational, spiritual soul.[58] Thomas emphasizes that man is neither a soul alone as some spiritualists affirm, nor a body alone as materialists claim, but rather a united body and a soul. The body exists for the sake of the soul, but the soul comes into being only in virtue of the body.[59] It is this integrated unity, far removed from the dualism that haunts much contemporary anthropology, that provides depth to Thomas’ understanding of human sexuality.

From the hylomorphic perspective, sexuality must derive from human matter, since a difference in the form — the soul — would mean that males and females are different species rather than two instantiations of the same species. Male and female are not merely accidental differences of animal such as white or black, but are per se differences, though not in the sense that they enter into the definition of animal.[60] “It is rather the other way around. One can indeed define animal without male or female entering into that definition. One cannot, however, define male or female without animal entering into the definition.”[61] The reason for this distinction is precisely the hylomorphic composite. Forms can be actualized in different matter, as in a male or female body, and thus produce different instantiations of the same form, without thereby changing the form itself.[62] The sexual difference is therefore an “inseparable accident” since sexuality is derived not from the genus but from the common essence — the common human nature — that informs determinate matter. It is accidental, and yet inseparable since every instantiation of human nature is either male or female.[63] Thus Thomas retains both the absolute unity (and, as will be made clear later, an ontological equality) between men and women, while at the same time affirming real distinctions between masculine and feminine expressions of human nature.[64] It is this capacity to highlight the truths, and avoid the errors, of the twin extremes of androgyny and formal differentiation of the sexes that recommends Thomistic sexual anthropology so highly.[65]

1.2.5. Human Sexual Difference as Perfective

In his analysis of the final cause of maleness, and by extension femaleness, Fortin points out that the purpose of sexuality is generation and hence the continuance of the species; and in the case of humans the multiplication of beings with incorruptible intellectual souls.[66] In this sense, it is almost self-evident that sexuality is a human perfection. The question might be raised, however, whether sexual differentiation itself is a perfection. Certain ancient authors, among them some Fathers of the Church, viewed androgyny as the condition of the first man, and sexual distinction as a consequence of Original Sin.[67] The first response to these authors is eschatological. The continuity of the human identity of the Sacred Humanity necessitates the conclusion that Christ maintains his masculine identity after the Ascension, even as the dogma of the Assumption confirms that the Blessed Virgin retains her feminine identity in heaven.[68] The same logic applies to all human bodies, which will continue to exist as male or female after the resurrection.[69] From this perspective sexual difference is perfective because, if it were not, it would not endure into the eschaton.[70] However, such an argument merely reveals that sexual difference is a human perfection, but not why it is a perfection. To address that question from a Thomistic perspective, three answers might be offered: sexual difference reveals divine goodness and beauty, it contributes to the complementarity and reciprocity between men and women, and it is ordered to the higher and more perfect good of contemplation.

1.2.5.1. Sexual Difference Reflects Divine Beauty

The multiplicity and distinction of creation, in the mind of St. Thomas, “were devised by the divine intellect and were carried out in the real order so that the divine goodness might be mirrored by created things in variety...the very order existing among diverse things issues in a certain beauty, which should call to mind the divine wisdom.”[71] From a Thomistic point of view, then, masculinity and femininity belong to the perfection of human nature since their very difference “is becoming to the perfection of the species.”[72]

Beyond the mere distinction between male and female reflecting the wisdom of God, some have extended Aquinas’ thought to argue that masculinity and femininity are part of the imago Dei in which human beings are created. Aquinas himself never actually makes this claim, and in fact limits the imago Dei to man’s intellectual nature. Thomas Weinandy, however, suggests that it is the logical conclusion of human hylomorphism. By restricting the imago Dei to the intellect, Weinandy argues, St. Thomas “forgets that it is the whole human person, body and soul, that is made in the image of God and not merely that part of him that is rational, for human rationality is itself dependent upon the bodily senses and the human brain.”[73] If the body is included in the imaging of God, it follows that masculinity and femininity as corporeal realities are themselves part of the imago Dei and hence a human perfection.[74]

1.2.5.2. Sexual Difference as Complementarity

Sexual difference constitutes a human perfection, from another point of view, since it is through their differences that men and women complement one another, each contributing unique strengths to lived human experience.[75] Thomas approaches sexual complementarity in the traditional understanding of its ordering to the common good in marriage and raising a family. Reflecting his thought, the Supplement compares the mutual assistance of common political life to the mutual support of husbands and wives for the sake of their family:

For just as natural reason dictates that men should live together, since one is not self-sufficient in all things concerning life, for which reason man is described as being naturally inclined to political society, so too among those works that are necessary for human life some are becoming to men, others to women.  Wherefore nature inculcates that society of man and woman which consists in matrimony.[76]

Some have extended this argument into a sexual complementarity beyond that of marriage. Pia De Solenni, in a doctoral dissertation entitled A Hermeneutic of Aquinas’s Mens Through a Sexually Differentiated Epistemology: Towards an Understanding of Woman as Imago Dei, contends that the bodily difference between men and women entails a difference in their ways of knowing, through the process both of intellegere and ratiocinari, which is complementary and mutually strengthening even apart from a marital bond.[77] In a similar way, though more generally, Pope John Paul II and other proponents of the “new feminism” highlight a “feminine genius” that independently complements masculinity.[78] Prudence Allen identifies this genius as “being predisposed to pay attention to the person in all circumstances.”[79] Mary Rousseau, taking her cue from Pope John Paul II, describes it as a “certain primacy in the order of love” that issues into a “special sensitivity to persons and their needs, combined with a sort of intuitive knowledge about human relationships.”[80] The masculine and feminine genius, in this reading, both contribute to the flourishing of life in common, and hence individually constitute human perfections.[81]

1.2.5.3. Sexual Difference Ordered to Contemplation

In addition to reflecting divine beauty and contributing to the common good, according to St. Thomas the sexual difference is ordered to man’s highest end, which is union with God through contemplation. Building on Aristotle’s claim that contemplation is man’s highest activity, St. Thomas argues that in a Christian context contemplation is the activity in which perfect happiness consists both in this life and, ultimately, in the contemplation of the beatific vision in the heavenly kingdom.[82]

Since contemplation, and not generation, is the highest end of man, Aquinas argues that it is fitting that the complete generative power not exist in each individual. He points to a comparison between plants and animals.[83] The highest end of plants, Thomas explains, is generation, and hence the generative power is united in each individual plant. Animals, however, are principally directed to the powers of their sensitive souls, which are higher than the vegetative powers, including generation. Therefore, he writes, “the male sex is not found in continual union with the female in perfect animals, but only at the time of coition.”[84] This is all the more true for man, “ordered to a still nobler vital action, and that is intellectual operation. Therefore there was greater reason for the distinction of these two [generative] forces in man; so that the female should be produced separately from the male; although they are carnally united for generation.”[85] In effect Thomas argues that the separation of the generative power frees men and women for the higher operations of their souls, especially contemplation, and hence represents a human perfection.[86]

1.2.6. Terminology: Sex and Gender

Having considered the Thomistic account for sexual difference as a human perfection, it remains to consider the specific difference of masculinity as perfected in fatherhood. At the outset, however, a terminological distinction must be made. In recent decades a great deal of discussion has emerged about the distinction between sex and gender, in large part because many contemporary theories presuppose either their radical separation or their equivalence. John Grabowski summarizes the poles of “essentialism” and “constructionism” in the discussion as follows:

Essentialists in this debate, while admitting some cultural influence on the way in which they are understood and expressed, lay primary emphasis on the biological givenness of sex differences.  The complex biological interplay of genital sex, biochemical sex, and genetic sex are the primary determinants of a person’s sexual makeup.  Constructionists, while admitting some impact on the part of biology, see both gender and sexuality as largely shaped and constructed out of cultural assumptions and influence.  On these terms it follows that sexuality can be deconstructed and understood far more individually.  Gender too can be redefined to embrace new possibilities on the basis of alternative forms of sexual orientation and expression.[87]

In an effort to capture the insights of both sides, and to conform to general usage of the terms, this dissertation will follow Prudence Allen in employing the word “sex” to refer to the biological aspects of maleness and femaleness, and “gender” to refer to the psychosocial aspects, including masculine and feminine identity, without prejudice to their mutual interdependence in defining human sexuality. Allen acknowledges that “this usage has a danger of fragmenting the human being in that it separates the biological from the psychosocial aspects of human identity” and therefore she employs it “with all due reservation concerning its somewhat limited applicability.”[88]

Beatriz Vollmer Coles offers a helpful corrective to the potential dualism of the sex-gender terminology by a comparison to the hylomorphic union. The complexity of the relationship between the body and the soul, she argues, reflects the complexity of the relationship between the corporeal and the cultural dimensions of maleness and femaleness, between “sex” and “gender.” Both the body and the soul are changeable, but within fixed boundaries. The body is a determined, material quantity and yet its very molecules are ceaselessly changing. The soul is a simple, spiritual form, though it ceaselessly grows or diminishes in its fulfillment or perfection.[89] Similarly, the person’s “sex” is a bodily quantity, a “given” material and yet not rigidly defined, even in its ordinary alterations through childhood, puberty, and adulthood. So too is “gender” part of the human identity, like the soul, and yet we “must acknowledge that both the soul and gender are influenced by grace, culture, family, individual experience, and much more; so they are both at least partially ‘constructed’ rather than inborn.”[90]

For the purposes of this dissertation, the discussion of masculinity as perfected in fatherhood will incorporate both corporeal and psychosocial aspects of maleness, both “sex” and “gender,” in its analysis. It will be assumed that both are integral to the male modality of human nature, and hence both can and should be fulfilled in fatherhood. As a result, no radical division between the two is envisioned in the following discussion.

1.3. PERFECTION OF MASCULINITY THROUGH FATHERHOOD

1.3.1. Masculinity a Perfection to be Perfected: Five Arguments

As already discussed, sexual difference constitutes a human perfection because it reflects divine beauty, underscores a positive complementarity between men and women, and is ordered to man’s highest end which is contemplation. It is true, as Dietrich von Hildebrand has pointed out, that masculinity and femininity are not themselves “qualities” or “traits” to be pursued; rather the individual is to strive for his own perfection, and the masculine and feminine differences and perfections will emerge on their own.[91] Masculinity itself, then, is not the goal. One does not grow in male perfection by “trying to be more masculine.” Rather one grows in perfection as a male by doing things which perfect masculinity. Timothy Fortin argues that masculinity is perfected in fatherhood, a conclusion upon which this section will attempt to expand through five distinct arguments. The first three arguments are common to both males and females; that is, they demonstrate that masculinity is fulfilled in fatherhood, and femininity in motherhood. The final two arguments focus more specifically on the fulfillment of masculinity in fatherhood. It should be clarified that, in this section, “fatherhood” simply means biological fatherhood and the raising of children. It will be the task of subsequent chapters to broaden the scope to the supernatural fatherhood of celibate priests.

1.3.2. Sexuality Ordered to Generation

The first argument that fatherhood fulfills masculinity — and that motherhood fulfills femininity — is perhaps self-evident, though nonetheless pertinent. In the form of an extended syllogism, it runs as follows: all human beings are sexual; sexuality is ordered to generation; generation is a perfection; hence human beings are ordered to generation as a perfection; hence human males are ordered to fatherhood as a perfection.

To state that all human beings are sexual might appear pedantic, but in fact one might assume that human nature exists “before” sexuality and hence that, at least in the abstract, there can be sexless human beings. Tony Anatrella writes that “it is impossible to be human without simultaneously being sexed, man or woman. Both masculinity and femininity presuppose the existence of the opposite sex and represent meaningful responses to its existence.”[92] Yet if sexuality characterizes every instantiation of human nature, it follows that the natural teleology of human sexuality in generation becomes highly relevant. As Fortin argues, maleness “is a determination of a substance according to a certain role in the divided power of generation...ordered to that substance’s ability to generate another individual of the species.”[93] Matthew Levering underscores the body-soul unity of the male in his “intrinsic ordination” toward raising up life. It is an ordination of the sexual body, but informed by the soul’s “teleological ordering thanks to the work of God in creating human body-soul unity.”[94]

Thus every human is sexual, and every sexual being is ordered to generation. Continuing this line of argumentation, the power of generation to which sexuality is ordered represents a human perfection. Aquinas almost takes this for granted. He considers the generation of human beings to be a good in itself, arguing, for instance, that generation would have existed in the state of innocence to expand the human race and rejecting the view that physical generation became necessary only after the Fall into sin.[95] Thus, since the human form is a great good in itself — Thomas even calls it the ultimate end of all generation in the corruptible universe[96] — it follows that its multiplication is also a good in itself.[97] He affirms with equal clarity the goodness of generation at the level of the individual. Thus in his Treatise on Law, Aquinas enumerates sexual intercourse and the education of offspring as inclinations which man shares with all animals.[98] Generation itself is the highest of the vegetative powers in “finality, nobility, and perfection” since it belongs to “a thing which is already perfect to ‘produce another like unto itself’.”[99] Even more fundamentally, Thomas argues that every being in act is self-communicative. It “is in the nature of every act to communicate itself, as far as possible. Wherefore every agent acts forasmuch as it is in act: while to act is nothing else than to communicate as far as possible that whereby the agent is in act.”[100]

To conclude the syllogism, since generation itself is a perfection, it is necessary for the perfection of individual men and women as sexual beings. Robert Gahl writes that “without parenthood, no human can achieve complete fulfillment of his natural capacities. Surely, one can effectively strive for many other features of human flourishing...[but] without parenthood, one’s human flourishing would be lacking.”[101] In the case of the human male, then, fatherhood as the completion of generation in a male mode is necessary for the perfection of masculinity.

1.3.3. Procreation as Cooperation in Divine Causality

1.3.3.1. Man Prepares Matter in which God Creates the Soul

Aquinas was dependent upon the biological knowledge of his time. As a result he adopted certain notions of human generation that have since been modified by biological discoveries. In a dissertation entitled Human Generation in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas: A Case Study on the Role of Biological Fact in Theological Science, Michael Allyn Taylor lists at least three biological errors in the generative process expounded by St. Thomas:

Genetics shows that the haploid sex cells of male and female join together to form a normal diploid human cell with its own genetic make-up and with the biological potential to develop into a fully formed human body (adult).  The concept that the father’s role is essentially active, the mother’s passive is no longer valid.  Nor can one speak of the male semen as the continuing instrumental efficient cause of embryonic development.  In addition, the continuity of the biological species does not come from a power of the heavens but from the genes.[102]

Nevertheless, as Taylor points out, Thomas’ purpose in adopting the prevailing biological theories was not to give theological weight to scientific opinions, but rather to use those scientific opinions to reinforce theological truths that come from revelation, not medieval biology.[103] It is in this light that Aquinas should be read as he explains in detail the series of generations and corruptions that accompany fetal development, beginning with the vegetative soul in menstrual matter which is transformed by the power of the man’s semen into a sensitive soul until it, too, corrupts with the introduction of the rational soul infused directly by God.[104]

Prescinding from the particularities of his biological theory, then, two enduring truths emerge in the thought of St. Thomas regarding the process of human generation. First, producing a rational soul is beyond the power of human parents and is effected directly by God. Mark Toon lists a few of the reasons provided by St. Thomas:

First, the “esse” of the rational soul is subsistent and independent of matter, for it entirely exceeds the power of corporeal matter; consequently neither is it dependent on matter in its becoming.  Secondly, the rational soul has an operation which it does not communicate with the body, namely, intellection, which produces an immaterial effect.  But it is impossible for matter to produce an immaterial effect.  Thirdly, the act of generation in humans always takes place in conjunction with the body.  Hence it is limited and dependent on the body; whereas the act of the intellect in no way is limited to the body.  Fourthly, generation always deals with material elements in man.  But the rational soul is an immaterial substance.  Consequently it cannot arise from matter, for the effect cannot be greater than its total cause.[105]

Thomas therefore makes it clear that God alone creates the intellectual soul directly.[106] Human beings prepare the matter, whatever the specifics of the biological process, while God infuses the rational soul. The second truth that emerges from Thomas’ description of human generation follows from the first: that human parents, through procreation, are true generators by their instrumental cooperation in God’s creative work.

1.3.3.2. Cooperation in Creation

In defining the nature of this cooperation from a Thomistic point of view, Mark Toon identifies the mother and father as secondary efficient causes of the body and God as the primary cause of the body and the sole efficient cause of the soul. When their action is compared to God’s, they are instrumental causes in human generation.[107] Donald Asci underlines their cooperation with divine causality by contrasting human procreation and animal reproduction. He states that “the human person is not a reproduction of his species. Each human person shares the same human nature with other men, yet each is a unique personal self who is the result of a creative act of God.”[108] Noting that the human person originates both in the mechanisms of reproduction and in the free act of love which is God’s creation of the soul, Asci concludes that procreation “provides the appropriate context for the reception of a child precisely because it is an act of love. Rather than producing a child, the couple that procreates lovingly receives the child as a gift. Procreation preserves the very context, namely love, in which God calls the child into existence.”[109]

Several conclusions follow on this important distinction between animal reproduction and human procreation. First, since God is the primary cause of human offspring, the parents are in the posture of active receptivity. Active, because parents possess the dignity and freedom of true generators; and yet receptive because, strictly speaking, they alone “do not generate the new human person, but rather actively receive him from God as a gift freely given.”[110] The receptive modality of the couple clarifies why the marital union of sterile couples or couples practicing periodic continence is still “procreative” since they “engage in the conjugal act in a manner suitable to and worthy of human nature” as they “cooperate with God in the transmission of life and accept his design for human sexuality...Procreation, understood as the human role in the transmission of life, transcends the notion of conception and is present in every conjugal act, whether or not the act bears its full fruit.”[111]

If the couple’s receptivity emphasizes the procreative dignity even of sexual acts that may not result in conception, the fact that they are cooperators in God’s work emphasizes the importance of being open to new life. The Church’s teaching against contraception and in vitro fertilization, for instance, reflects the dignity of marital union. The couple is not free to manipulate the procreative act precisely because it is not theirs to manipulate. Adrian Reimers points out that the Church uses the term munus to describe procreative activity since it is both a gift from God as well as a grave duty and responsibility of the parents.[112] Refusing a child through contraception, or demanding a child through in vitro fertilization, represents a failure to exercise the active, but subordinate, role of human generators and an attempt to exercise a primary causality which belongs only to God.[113]

A second conclusion drawn from the notion of procreation as cooperation in God’s generative power is that human love is ordered to human fecundity in a way that is reflective of God’s own fruitful and creative love.[114] As Paul Gondreau notes, marriage’s reflection of the divine is not just in its ordering to the common good, but “in fact goes further, as married couples (pro)create in the very same way that God creates, namely, through love and through a subsequent invitation to this same communion in personal (familial) love. Married spouses participate in God’s creative handiwork in a way no other creature can, not even angels.”[115] This reflection of God’s fruitful love in marital union is perhaps clearest in St. Paul’s description of Christ’s fruitful, nuptial love for the Church.[116] Indeed it is more than a comparison or metaphor; it may be argued that the fruitfulness of marriage is a sharing in the very fruitfulness of Christ’s marriage to the Church, beginning with the self-gift of Jesus on the Cross.[117] “Christ’s Eucharistic self-surrender on the cross,” writes Antonio Lopez, “is absolutely unreserved, and so is able to introduce a new fruitfulness into history. Christ’s virginal fecundity introduces a new meaning of bodily human generation.”[118]

A third and final conclusion regarding the distinction between procreation and reproduction is that the causality of human parents in generation is true cooperation in divine causality, since they are involved in God’s unique creation of a human soul by preparing the matter.[119] St. Thomas maintains that human causality in the preparation of the matter and divine causality in the infusion of the rational soul are not in conflict, but in fact intrinsically united and ordered to one another as higher and lower causes, the higher using the lower as its instrument.[120] As Taylor describes it, in Thomas the “infusion of the intellective soul by God is the end point of the whole generative process; it is not seen as an extraneous event added on afterwards. From the beginning, the generative process is a natural occurrence which involves joint action by both God and man.”[121]

Human generation is therefore a “theandric” event, as Carlo Gnocchi rightly calls it,[122] and the human role is nothing less than a formal cooperation in the very creative activity of God.[123] The formality of man’s procreative cooperation is derived from human reason, which elevates sexual relations from animal instinct to the level of true cooperation with God’s creative will. In Love and Responsibility Wojtyla specifies this formal cooperation in contrast to animal instinct:

In the animal world there is only reproduction, which is achieved by way of instinct...In the world of persons on the other hand instinct alone decides nothing, and the sexual urge passes, so to speak, through the gates of the consciousness and the will...When a man and a woman consciously and of their own free will choose to marry and have sexual relations they choose at the same time the possibility of procreation, choose to participate in creation (for that is the proper meaning of the word procreation).[124]

1.3.3.3. Procreation as a Human Perfection

Procreation, as a participation in the creative power of God, is among the noblest of human activities.[125] Angelo Scola points out that the Jewish understanding of marriage has never forgotten that the creation of man and woman in the image of God means that they are called, in their marriage bond, to imitate him as they “increase and multiply.”[126] The human vocation to motherhood and fatherhood therefore enjoys the dignity of imitating the very paternity of God.[127] Even unaided by revelation, human reason is able to perceive something of the greatness and dignity of generating children, though the revealed truth about the direct intervention by God in fashioning a unique human soul raises it to otherwise unimaginable heights.[128]

The procreative act is not, then, simply a functional means that God chose to multiply the human race. It is an invitation to cooperate in his ineffable creative work, to “co-create,” and hence constitutes a sublime vocation and a human perfection. Louis Bouyer aptly remarks that man

is fully himself only when he thus participates as far as he is able in the activity of creating.  Certainly, he never becomes an autonomous creator by means of this participation, but he is then an authentic pro-creator, not only in the sense of representing or transmitting creative activity, but by being associated — or rather by being allowed or invited to associate himself — with it.[129]

It follows that fatherhood, the male role in procreation, perfects and fulfills masculine human nature.

1.3.4. Generative Gift of Self in Fruitful Marital Union

1.3.4.1. Perfection through Gift of Self

A third approach to the perfection of masculinity in fatherhood has been opened up by recent reflections on the relationality of personhood which finds its perfection in the gift of self. The notion of personhood itself is not new; indeed the distinction of person and nature was an indispensable feature of early dogmatic definitions that defended the Trinitarian unity of one divine nature possessed equally by three Persons as well as the christological unity of one divine Person possessing two distinct natures.[130] These very definitions show an important continuity, sometimes forgotten, between classical anthropology and contemporary personalism. St. Thomas said that “‘person’ signifies what is most perfect in all nature — that is, a subsistent individual of a rational nature.”[131] Personhood, then, is not merely a special mode of being, but rather the highest mode of being, the most perfect expression of being.[132] Now an implicit assumption running through St. Thomas’ thought, noted earlier, is that being is intrinsically active and self-communicating.[133] From a personalistic point of view, it follows that the being of human nature, realized in personhood, is essentially relational and seeks to communicate itself through the gift of self.[134]

While Thomas himself did not explicitly make the argument that human personhood is inherently relational — perhaps because the medieval mind thought it self-evident — Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger argues that Thomas’ own Trinitarian theology suggests that very conclusion. In the Trinity, Ratzinger writes “[r]elation, being related, is not something superadded to the person, but it is the person itself. In its nature, the person exists only as relation.” Thus the First Person “is the deed of generating [the Son], of giving itself, of streaming itself forth. The person is identical with this act of self-donation.”[135] These early personalistic insights were never fully developed by the Scholastics beyond Christological and Trinitarian categories, perhaps because creaturely personhood is clearly substantial and not identical to the relational “act of self-donation” as it is in the Trinity.[136] Moreover, since scholastic theology did not often emphasize the paradigmatic quality of Christ’s humanity as the fulfillment of the human person, neither did it focus on the anthropological importance of personal relationality that the hypostatic union might have suggested.[137] That is why, Clarke contends, the “explicit philosophical thematizing of the relational, interpersonal dimension of the human person had to wait until the existentialist and personalist phenomenologies of the twentieth century for its full highlighting and systematic development.”[138] That is to say, though not always made explicit, the seeds of personalism are easily discovered in the Trinitarian explorations of scholastic thinkers. It is that continuity that justifies a personalistic interpretation of Thomas’ teaching.

A key concept of personalistic thinking is the ontological character of relationality, including human relationality, and its flowering into self-gift. Angelo Scola figures among the most prominent proponents of this approach. It is the “original openness of the ‘I’” which needs the “thou” for its complete realization.[139] Janet Martin Soskice notes that affirming our relationality is especially necessary in the face of “that most insidious of modern myths, the myth of the self-constituting subject” which has occupied so much contemporary thought and which has been controverted by thinkers as diverse as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Charles Taylor, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, and Luce Irigaray.[140] Alasdair MacIntyre has confronted the modern fixation on radical human autonomy by highlighting the virtues of “acknowledged dependence.”[141] Indeed, St. Thomas himself, though using different terminology, makes a similar claim about the interdependence of love. He notes, for instance, that one of the effects of love is an “ecstatic” movement in which the lover is carried outside of himself for the sake of his beloved.[142] The basic point, however it is approached, is that man’s relationality indicates that he must give himself to another in order to achieve his own fulfillment. “The key factor in existential personalism,” Prudence Allen writes, “is that the person actively creates his or her identity in a ‘gift of the self to another.’”[143]

1.3.4.2. Gift of Self through the Body

As has already been discussed, from a Thomistic point of view every human person is a composite of body and soul. Hence the self-gift of a human person means the self-gift of both the soul and the body, a point that has been obscured by an implicit anthropological dualism which fractures the body and soul unity and invariably degrades the dignity of both.[144] At times this Cartesian anthropology emerges as an excessive focus on human subjectivity at the expense of human bodiliness, at other times as a materialistic focus on the body that “explains human life wholly in terms of molecular interaction or genomic design, and considers human thought as reducible entirely to neurological chemicals.”[145] Thomistic hylomorphism responds to these one-sided anthropologies. Bodies are not instruments of “spirits or disembodied minds” but rather concrete manifestations of human persons.[146] As contemporary biology has confirmed that every cell in the human body is marked by masculinity or femininity, so is the person, the composite soul-body, marked in all its actions and in all its being by masculinity or femininity.[147] In the words of Robert Joyce, sex is “soul-deep”[148] and is inseparable from the gift of self which the personalistic thesis maintains is necessary for human fulfillment.[149]

1.3.4.3. Paradigmatic Gift of Self in Marital Union

The gift of self as sexual beings first suggests that there is a complementarity between men and women written into their very natures. Pope John Paul II calls masculinity and femininity “two ‘incarnations’ of the same metaphysical solitude before God and the world. They are two ways of ‘being a body’ and at the same time a man, which complete each other.”[150] The most visible sign of this mutual ordering is the genital complementarity of masculinity and femininity, the Pope teaches, but it is once again the hylomorphic composite that rescues this teaching from its own charge of reductionism. Since the soul, as the spiritual element, expresses its masculinity and femininity through the body, the body does not exhaust the mystery of the person. Procreative complementarity is the first, but not the only, indication of complementarity between men and women.[151] Sexual complementarity extends beyond the genital to all human actions in which men and women collaborate.[152]

Nonetheless, while all human relations are sexual in their expression, the primordial expression of sexual love is in marital union, which thereby becomes paradigmatic of all human self-gift. Through their physical sexual complementarity, spouses are able to give themselves entirely to one another bodily, becoming literally “one flesh.” As William May describes it, “Since the body, male or female, is the expression of a human person, it follows that a man and a woman, in giving their bodies to one another, give their persons to one another.”[153] This is why the marital union is the clearest expression of human self-gift and the paradigm, in some sense, of all self-gift.[154]

1.3.4.4. Marital Union Ordered to Generation

Human beings, male and female, are therefore perfected through the gift of self, paradigmatically expressed in the marital union. The final step of the argument is to show that marital union is ordered to generation, in order to demonstrate that masculine human nature is perfected in fatherhood. Aquinas, like virtually all classical thinkers, simply took it for granted that the marital bond was ordered to generation.[155] The fundamental, physical structure of the marital act is, after all, procreative. Reimers points out that

The only purpose that the male’s sperm serves is to fertilize a female’s egg.  It has no other finality.  Furthermore, this sperm is relatively vulnerable and, once emitted by the man, dies fairly quickly unless in an appropriate environment, and the vagina of the woman is particularly well suited for the protection and movement of the sperm.  Similarly, the woman’s egg has but one finality, which it can achieve only upon encountering the sperm.  The marital act is the means by which these are brought together.  Every act of sexual intercourse, even if naturally or artificially sterile in a particular instance, is an instance of the kind of act by which procreation is effected.[156]

The very characteristic of marriage, in fact, is its procreative ordering through the generative act. What is unique about marriage among all other relationships is that “man and woman, while united in spiritual and affective communion, express their love specifically through their bodies.”[157] Even unitive love, while also found in non-genital relationships, is uniquely specified in marriage by its generative capability.[158] From a hylomorphic perspective, these two dimensions of marriage, procreative and unitive, together make up the composite of a flourishing marital relationship, just as the body and soul are ordered to each other for the flourishing of the human composite. From one perspective, the procreative component of physical reproduction may be seen as the material cause and the unitive component, grounded in the rational self-gift of one person to another, more indicative of the formal cause. From another point of view, however, once procreation is understood to consist of a rational and personal orientation to cooperate in God’s own causality in His creation of an immortal creature, the procreative is more formal and more final even than the unitive. What is most relevant here is simply to highlight the interdependence of both the unitive and procreative aspects of the marital union; anthropologically speaking they cannot be divided.[159] Marriage, in other words, is inseparable from its ordering to generation.[160]

In sum, then, paternity is the “completion and crown of conjugal love” even as love itself completes the individual.[161] The gift of self, always expressed through a sexual body, perfects the individual and is exercised most completely in marital union which itself is perfected in the generation of children. The spousal significance of the body, Gahl writes, reveals that human persons are both gifts for others and initiators of new life.[162] The nuptial gift of self, ordered to generation, is paradigmatic of all human relationships, masculine and feminine; and in this exemplary sense, masculinity itself is ordered to, and perfected in, fatherhood.

1.3.4.5. Excursus: Human Reflection of Divine Communio

Closely related to this personalistic argument for the fulfillment of masculinity in fatherhood is a comparison of human relationality to the generative communio of Trinitarian relations. It was earlier noted that Cardinal Ratzinger had compared human to divine personhood; this Trinitarian approach carries his argument one step further: rather than the ontological character of relationality, both human and divine, terminating in the gift of self, it terminates, as in the divine Persons, in the generation of another. That is, according to this view the human communio reflects divine communio both in interpersonal relationality and specifically in a relationality that is generative. Personhood is still understood as analogical to divine personhood; but the trajectory to generation is lifted from the human paradigmatic gift of self in marriage to the exemplar of intratrinitarian generation. The distinction and communio of men and women, in other words, reflect the distinction and communio of Trinitarian Persons, and as the order among Trinitarian Persons is generative, so too is it among human persons.

Understood simply as an argument of exemplarity, the comparison of human to divine communio as generative follows from the comparison of human to divine personhood. Pope John Paul II often observed that the specific communion of man and woman mirrors the communion of love in the Trinity.[163] From this premise the equality in distinction that characterizes the Trinity can be applied to human masculinity and femininity; they too are equal and yet distinct. Men and women, fathers and mothers, are equally human and yet in their distinction are not interchangeable.[164] “There is a fundamental analogy,” Grabowski writes, “between male and female, whose relational difference constitutes them as irreducible to one another as persons within a common nature, and the Trinity as a communion of three divine Persons each of whom possesses the fullness of the one divine nature.”[165] Furthermore, the comparison of human and divine communio demonstrates that interpersonal relations can, and should, be exercised in love.[166] Continuing this argument of exemplarity, one might conclude that as relations between men and women reflect, in some way, the interpersonal relations of the Trinity, so too does the fruit of those relations, a child, reflect in some way the generativity within the Trinity.[167]

Some authors, such as Hans Urs von Balthasar, have attempted to take the comparison of human and divine communio further and analogically posit gender, or rather “supragender,” in the divine Persons, and hence to ground human sexual fruitfulness not simply in a comparison to divine generation, but rather in a parallel “suprasexual” fruitfulness in God. David L. Schindler has endeavored to synthesize von Balthasar’s theory regarding gender in God as follows:

Balthasar’s carefully qualified treatment of the question of gender in God follows the processions in God.  That is, the Father, as the begetting origin-without-origin, is primarily (supra-)masculine ([über-]männlich); the Son, as begotten and thus receptive (der Geschehenlassende) is (supra-)feminine ([über-]weiblich); but then the Father and the Son, as jointly spirating the Spirit, are again (supra-)masculine; the Spirit then is (supra-)feminine; finally, the Father, who allows himself to be conditioned in return in his begetting and spirating, himself thereby has a (supra-)feminine dimension.[168]

Schindler cautions that supragender in God should not be read statically or exclusively; all three Persons share both “genders” since all share, in some way, in both generativity and receptivity.[169] The theory rests on the fact that human gender is a perfection, and hence can be analogously affirmed of God in a way wherein the difference is infinitely greater than the similarity.[170] In contrast to gnosticism and other religious myths, the proponents of “supragender” insist that it is not a simple projection of human sex differences into God, but rather an attempt to extract what is at the heart of masculinity and femininity — that is, generativity and receptivity — and see in them reflections of divine perfection.[171] After all, from the Christian perspective man is made in the image of God, not the other way around. These principles, Schindler argues, are not a radical departure from traditional teachings but rather “permit a deepening of the traditional position — which insists on the importance of calling God Father, even as it has nonetheless often insisted simultaneously on God’s being simply without gender.”[172] Nevertheless, Schindler continues, “from a Catholic perspective, a biblical positivism never suffices: the centrality of God-as-Father in the New Testament does not reflect what is merely an empty symbol but on the contrary says something important about the way things ultimately are.”[173]

It is clear that reading gender into God’s own relationality goes beyond previous comparisons of human to divine Personhood. Certainly this approach exalts human sexuality and generativity perhaps beyond any other, and aligns human masculinity with fatherhood (and femininity with motherhood) in a bond as tight as the Trinity of Persons is ordered to the eternal processions. Robert Pesarchick, for instance, writes that the “complementary, active giving and receiving of the interpersonal encounter of man and woman, and the fruitfulness that results...is a created image of the active giving and receiving that takes place eternally in the processions and relations between the Persons of the Trinity.”[174] Even more boldly, Murphy writes that “[p]hysical lovemaking looks as it does...because divine love is an elated self-giving: the unity being of the Trinity. Creaturely love-making is a consequence of the unitary love which is God, and not vice-versa.”[175]

While the highly-charged theory of supragender is laden with caveats and qualifications in order to preserve it from lapsing into error, and while it clearly would reinforce the thesis of this chapter that masculinity is ordered to fatherhood, there remain significant difficulties with the proposition.[176] The overarching concern is that the theory overreaches the capacities of human reason in its attempt to grasp too neatly the Trinitarian mystery. That is, it risks overemphasizing the similarity of the analogy over the “even greater difference” of the dissimilarity. Prudence Allen observes that

the Holy Trinity is a relationship of three Persons while human beings have relationships among persons.  This means that any discussion of the way in which a communion of Persons in the Trinity could be considered as an inter-ontic analogy with a communion of human persons must be conditioned by this qualification.[177]

Furthermore, Allen points out, in the order of knowledge one ought not move from what is lesser known to what is better known, and “since the Trinity is so far beyond human knowledge there is a sense in which we ought not to try to explain human community by appealing to an analogy with a Communion of Divine Persons.”[178]

It is important to point out that Pope John Paul II, though adopting many of von Balthasar’s insights, never explicitly attributes gender (or supragender) to God.[179] Moreover, as classical theologians, including Augustine and Aquinas, were very hesitant even to compare human generativity to God’s generativity, for instance in comparing the human family to the Trinity, a fortiori would they have been reluctant to adopt an even bolder comparison between sexual human personhood and divine relations.[180] On the other hand, presuming that the analogical nature of the comparison is kept at the fore, its important contribution to the field of theological anthropology can be sustained. As with all such analogies, the similarity between the divine and the human ensures the reasonableness of the discourse while the dissimilarity ensures respect for the mystery. Nevertheless, while this argument would reinforce the thesis of this chapter that masculinity is ordered to fatherhood as supra-masculinity is ordered to the eternal generation of the Son, neither is it essential since none of the other arguments, including the more limited personalistic argument of this section, depend on it.

1.3.5. Active Principle of Generation Ordered to Fatherhood

1.3.5.1. Aquinas on the Active Principle of Generation

The Thomistic understanding of maleness as possessing the active principle of generation has already emerged in this discussion of masculinity and fatherhood. The purpose of this section, drawing heavily from Timothy Fortin’s thesis, is to isolate that specific feature of maleness and demonstrate how it is ordered both to the generation of a substantial form and to the perfection of that form in its development. The previous three arguments for the perfection of masculinity in fatherhood are equally applicable to the perfection of femininity in motherhood; this and the following argument apply more specifically to males.

Two principles guide St. Thomas in his understanding of human generation. The first is that only one substantial form may be present in a being at any particular time. The second is that matter must be disposed to receive such a form.[181] These principles lead Aquinas to posit a series of generations and corruptions in the development of a human being, beginning with the form and matter of menstrual blood prepared by the mother. Under the semen’s power, this form gives way to the vegetative soul which is induced in the menstrual matter when it is properly disposed to receive it. When sufficient development has prepared this vegetative substance, it too corrupts when a sensitive soul is induced, which in turn corrupts when God creates and infuses the intellectual soul.[182] Throughout this process, the substantial forms generated are distinct and are assumed into the succeeding form.[183]

As in all substantial forms of corporeal matter, an agent which is in sufficient act to serve as efficient cause must actualize or educe the form from the matter.[184] Such is the cause of the division in the generative power between active and passive roles. For St. Thomas, the mother supplies the passive principle in generation, and the father supplies the active principle which generates the child through the mother.[185] The active principle in generation is exercised by means of the man’s semen, which derives its “soul power” from the soul of the father, and exercises it, as it were, at a distance.[186] Saint Thomas compares the father’s soul acting through his separated semen to an arrow which carries the hunter’s power through space.[187] Thus the father remains the agent cause of generation while the semen serves as instrumental cause of the generated human body.[188] Once the sensitive soul has been induced by the semen, however, it is God alone who creates and infuses the rational soul.[189]

It is true that Aquinas did not consider the active male and passive female principles in generation to be equal, since it was a basic principle of his metaphysics that passivity is inferior to activity.[190] However, in several respects St. Thomas does display a genuine esteem for the role of the mother in generation. First, while wavering in certain earlier works on whether the man contributes some of the material causality, by the time of his mature writings Aquinas reasserts the classical Aristotelian position that semen provides none of the matter.[191] As a result, Thomas respects the properly autonomous role of the mother as the sole material cause in human generation.[192] Second, Aquinas posits some activity on the part of the mother in the preparation and disposition of the matter before the man’s seed is implanted.[193] Third, in separating the active and passive principles St. Thomas affirms that offspring share in the nature of both parents, father and mother alike, as co-principles.[194] Fourth, and most importantly, the generative role of both mother and father is somewhat limited in the case of humans, since the highest and final form of the offspring does not derive from the parents at all, but directly from God’s creative will.

Nevertheless, the Thomistic principles of generation, though philosophically defensible in the face of an egalitarian critique, are not always as successful in the face of modern biological discoveries, above all the scientific proof that both the male and female contribute both matter and form to the fertilization process.[195] Neither Aristotle nor Aquinas knew anything about the ovum, which was only discovered in the seventeenth century, or about the equal combination of chromosomes from each the mother and the father’s DNA.[196] As a result, for instance, it cannot be said that the male’s seed will endeavor to produce a male child, under the medieval assumption that the father’s soul alone informs the matter and will attempt to produce a likeness of itself.[197] Given these discoveries, Timothy Fortin and others have proposed a reinterpretation of the masculine active principle of generation taught by St. Thomas which will guide the understanding of fatherhood throughout this dissertation.

1.3.5.2. Reinterpreting Aquinas: Active Mode of Generation

Benedict Ashley has pointed out, first, that there is an undeniable truth contained in the Thomistic distinction between active and passive principles of generation. Put briefly, while both mother and father are equally parents of their children, the father is “the one who makes the mother pregnant, not the mother the father. Whatever the complexities of the reproductive process as revealed by science, the defining biological difference between male and female will always be that in reproduction the male role relative to the female is that of agent to patient.”[198] Even in the act of conception, though both parents contribute equal amounts of nuclear genetic material, the role of the male semen as the relatively active principle similarly differs from the receptive female ovum.[199]

From a more phenomenological point of view, Robert Joyce, William May and others have argued that the different roles in the conjugal act reflect different ways in which men and women give themselves to each other. The man is primarily the “giver” in marital union, while the female is primarily the “receiver,” but by giving himself the man must also receive the woman, and by receiving the man she is uniquely able to give herself to him.[200] The man therefore gives in a receiving kind of way while the woman receives in a giving kind of way.[201] Reflecting on these distinctive roles of men and women in generation, various authors have identified fatherhood as representing multiplicity, differentiation, and transcendence, and motherhood as representing oneness, sameness, and immanence. The father’s actions are initiating, detached, outward, and releasing while the mother’s are receptive, unitive, inward, and preserving.[202]

With this scientific and personalistic overlay on St. Thomas’ understanding of generation, Fortin proposes a re-reading of Thomas’ definition of the active principle of generation as the male mode of generation.[203] Fortin writes that man and woman “equally have the active power of generation in virtue of the production of a haploid cell, but they do not have the power of generation in exactly the same way. I suggest that fatherhood is more active, initiating, and outward in its modality and that motherhood is more receptive and inward in its modality.”[204] The active modality is first expressed in what Fortin calls the “primary agency” of fatherhood, that is, the generation of a substantial form. Thus the

smaller, more efficient, more mobile sperm must go out to the larger, richer, more precious ovum...The sperm must penetrate the ovum, find its way to its center and there unite itself with the awaiting other ‘half of humanity.’  The ovum for its part must actively receive the male gamete; many spermatozoa are simultaneously trying to reach the ovum’s nucleus.[205]

The male modality, however, does not end with the primary agency of fatherhood but extends into the upbringing of offspring in the “secondary agency” of fatherhood which involves the perfection of the substantial form.[206] Fortin proposes three levels of paternal secondary agency, father as guide and teacher in sharing the accidental forms that result in human perfection; father as provider in sharing that which enables his children to thrive; and father as defender in removing obstacles to the child’s fulfillment.[207] These three levels of secondary agency, moreover, are ordered both to the good of the offspring and, by extension, to the common good as well. As teacher and guide the father will therefore be concerned in the virtue of the polis, as provider he will be concerned with well-being of the polis, and as defender he will be concerned with the defense of the polis.[208] These modes of fatherhood provide the philosophical backdrop for the theological analysis of fatherhood that will be pursued in later chapters.

1.3.5.3. Maleness Fulfilled in Generation

The reinterpretation of Thomas’ understanding of the active principle of generation offers a new perspective on the specific contribution of the male. The male mode of generation, both in primary and secondary agency, differs from the female mode and is ordered to the production and perfection of offspring in an active, initiating, and outward way. “To be a male,” Fortin writes, “is to possess the active power of generation.” He then extends the line of thought to paternity: “To be a father is to stand in relation to one generated or begotten as his generator. Thus, fatherhood regards the operation and completion of the active power of generation.”[209] From the perspective of the active mode of generation, therefore, masculinity is fulfilled in fatherhood.

1.3.6. Fatherhood a Catalyst of Perfection

The fifth and final argument that masculinity is perfected in fatherhood is brief, since it is merely a synopsis of one of Fortin’s own conclusions. In specifying how fatherhood perfects masculine identity, Fortin makes three claims. He writes that, first, fatherhood is a sign of man’s perfection since a man can become a father, both in its primary and secondary agency, only when he reaches a certain degree of maturity.[210] Second, fatherhood is the substance of masculine perfection, since sharing one’s being is a good in itself but it also fulfills the father’s own masculine nature and contributes to the common good of which he partakes.[211] Third, fatherhood perfects masculine identity by serving as a catalyst of man’s perfection. It is this third way that is highlighted now.

The responsibilities of paternity provoke, or ought to provoke, a certain response in any new father. Becoming a father is not, as has already been observed, simply a matter of generating a human form, but extends to the many duties that accompany fatherhood. A man must be, or become, a guide and teacher, a provider, and a defender both for his new family and for the community at large. These duties can be an occasion of remarkable growth, “pushing” a man to grow in ways that he might otherwise not.[212] In fact, as Fortin points out, the awakening of a man through fatherhood from a certain “self-centered slumber” may provoke in him the growth of virtues both as a father and as a human being. Empirical research has repeatedly confirmed that paternity contributes to personal growth and development by showing fathers to be more stable, selfless, emotionally mature, morally conscious, physically healthier, and more involved in their families and communities.[213]

In an attempt to categorize the “masculine virtues” to which men and fathers are called, much recent literature has proposed various readings of Jung’s masculine “archetypes.”[214] Jung envisioned archetypes as generic forms in the “collective unconscious,” representing possibilities which are manifested differently in various cultures and situations, though always with certain common features.[215] Paul Vitz describes them as “an inherited mental structure with a latent content which is brought to a specific content by the person’s actual experience in his or her family and culture.”[216] By representing, often in dreams, myths, art, and stories what is essential to masculinity, they can provide a helpful insight into the fulfillment of maleness in fatherhood.[217]

As noted earlier in Fortin’s Jungian analysis, a common division of archetypal imagery in recent literature is the fourfold distinction among King, Warrior, Magician and Lover.[218] The point here is neither to affirm nor critique the Jungian archetypes. It is simply to observe that, inasmuch as the archetypes possess some validity, as Vitz argues, it is precisely fatherhood which unites and fulfills them most synthetically. A father, Vitz writes,

is called to bring all four male archetypes together and live out all of them.  He is the lover of his wife and children, a warrior for God and his family, a servant king within the household and at work, and a source of knowledge and wisdom about the world...We also emphasize that Christian fatherhood is a genuine model for disciplining and controlling the strong tendency of men either to abuse others or to betray their masculine gifts through weakness and cowardice.  Thus, the archetype of Father which combines the other four male archetypes and integrates them is the overarching male archetype to which all men are called.[219]

That is, living the virtues of fatherhood instills in a man the masculine virtues that are identified by the archetypes of King, Warrior, Magician and Lover. In other words, fatherhood prompts a “developmental push” in a broad array of masculine virtues. From this perspective, then, it is once again clear that masculinity is fulfilled in fatherhood.

1.4. THE FEMINIST CRITIQUE

In the course of these reflections certain basic assumptions have been made which might be challenged. Some assumptions, however, are so little disputed that for the purposes of this dissertation they are simply taken for granted. It is presumed, for instance, that human existence is a good; otherwise the generation of a human being in fatherhood cannot be a perfection. Similarly, it is presumed that man should aspire to personal fulfillment; otherwise there is little point in demonstrating that masculinity is fulfilled in fatherhood.

There are objections, however, that do need to be addressed because they emerge more frequently and challenge some key premises of this work. Two broad groupings of these objections are raised by thinkers who embrace some form of feminist theology.[220] The first challenges the nature of masculinity and femininity as it has been defined above, as an integrated composite of corporeal and psychosocial dimensions of human sexuality. The second challenges the active-passive distinction of masculinity and femininity in particular, and the gender complementarity in general, which underlies the thesis that masculinity is fulfilled in fatherhood. The first group of objections is aimed at the nature of the sexual distinction presumed in this dissertation, while the second would undercut several of the arguments that posit the perfection of masculinity in fatherhood.

1.4.1. Gender Constructionism and Essentialism

Feminist views of the role of the body in defining “gender” have sometimes been loosely categorized into two camps, “gender constructionism” and “essentialism.” Elizabeth Powell describes the differences as follows:

In the former, the body (sex) is raw material on which socially constructed mores (gender) inscribe themselves.  Social change is achieved through challenging patriarchal determinations of women’s femininity.  In essentialism, however, it is contended that the female body carries meaning in and of itself: which is the ground for women’s identity and also potentially for women’s solidarity as a group.  This position typically results in a separatist politics in which women find liberation through identification with a female culture that is distinct from and independent of male culture.  [Simone de] Beauvoir has often been identified as representative of the gender-construction position and [Luce] Irigaray as emblematic of the essentialist position.[221]

Beatriz Vollmer Coles observes the same distinction and identifies the gender constructionist position as largely Anglo-Saxon and the essentialist position as more reflective of a Continental approach which “considers male and female as irreconcilably different and all communication and understanding between them as mere chance, or worse, an illusion.”[222]

Each of these two approaches may be taken to represent one of the general critiques proposed in this section. Gender constructionists, by confining gender to a cultural construct, object to the more integrated view of masculinity and femininity used in this work. By limiting sexual difference to biological distinctions alone, they leave little room for personal fulfillment of masculinity — to them, a merely biological category — in fatherhood. Essentialists, on the other hand, while conceding a richer understanding of sexuality, propose a vision of masculinity and femininity that differs from the Thomistic understanding of gender difference and complementarity which is employed in this dissertation. Since these objections reflect divergent points of view within the feminist framework itself, it may be instructive first to summarize the debate within feminism with respect to these approaches before applying them directly to the subject matter of this chapter.

Ironically, both gender constructionists and essentialists charge the other with falling into the very errors of the patriarchy that they are both endeavoring to overcome. Christopher Noble, for example, argues that the greatest weakness of gender constructionism “is its denial of gender’s metaphysical origins. Not content to separate gender from biological sex, gender constructionists go further by separating gender from any cause.”[223] As a result, Noble continues, the constructionist is obliged to contend that social influence alone, not individual choice, determines gender.[224] Coles comments that the “tragedy of this tendency, and what most critics of this line of feminism reject, is that it easily reduces maleness to the model and standard for women.”[225] Coles contends that the denial of essential differences between men and women is “actually a denial of the feminine, which is to say that feminine characteristics are most under attack by these feminists. The masculine remains the implicit norm for what is considered fulfilled sexuality in the human being.”[226]

On the other hand, gender constructionists argue that essentialism, under whatever guise, plays into the hands of patriarchy by justifying male exploitation of essential gender differences. In her critique of Luce Irigaray’s later works, for instance, Morny Joy states that

Irigaray herself does not seem to be aware of the controversy that she has created with this recuperation of ‘feminine’ values and her capitulation to an ontological essentialism.  She still warns against accepting ‘feminine’ stereotypes that are prescribed by the patriarchal tradition, but appears oblivious to the fact that her own descriptions are in similar need of discriminating evaluation.[227]

Diane Leclerc states simply that “affirming a ‘natural’ female essence potentially reinstates and reinforces the very abuses feminism intends to fight, and actually makes women collaborators of patriarchy.”[228]

These brief descriptions of two broad trends within feminist thought do not fully capture the complexity of the field. Nevertheless, they are sufficient to discuss some general critiques to the specific arguments of this thesis. As these two points of view are critically addressed, it is hoped that the positive insights of both, as well as those of their own feminist critics, will be retained, and will highlight the advantages of the integral anthropology proposed by St. Thomas in a constructive complementarity between the sexes.

1.4.2. Constructionist Critique

1.4.2.1. Separation of Biological Sex and Gender

Gender constructionists base their objection to sexual distinctions in an anthropology that radically separates biological sex from gender identity. In her pivotal work Sexism and God-talk: Toward a Feminist Theology Rosemary Radford Ruether states that “[m]aleness and femaleness exist as reproductive role specialization. There is no necessary (biological) connection between reproductive complementarity and either psychological or social role differentiation. They are the work of culture and socialization, not of ‘nature’.”[229] Any semblance of a connection between biological sex and gender is merely the result of conditioning. Emmanuel Reynaud argues that from “the minute a child is born, it is assigned to a sex-category, according to its possessing a penis or a vulva. A person’s entire identity develops on the basis of this sexual differentiation and through identification with that category; to such an extent that what has been imposed eventually seems natural.”[230] In fact, some of these thinkers turn classical thinking on its head by arguing that the body itself is conditioned by these cultural constructs, for instance that the woman’s smaller physique results from the poorer diet that her inferior social status has inflicted upon her.[231]

The evidence put forward by gender constructionist theologians include biblical and Trinitarian arguments that human identity is not grounded, at least primarily, in biological sex. Thus Noble contends that since physical sex does not exist in God, and human beings are made in the image of God, it follows that human gender is not as constrained by biological sex as traditional theories suppose. The human likeness to God, Noble writes, “justifies a more fluid, multiple understanding of gender” than has hitherto been acknowledged.[232] Sarah Coakley, building on the theology of Jürgen Moltmann’s attribution of masculine and feminine principles to intertrinitarian relations,[233] claims that gender in God becomes the norm against which human gender is measured.[234] The “threefold” gender in God “ruptures” and “destabilizes” the binary division of masculine and feminine gender typically ascribed to humanity, and indeed also the normative heterosexuality presumed in binary gendering.[235]

1.4.2.2. Rejection of Femininity and Masculinity

Gender constructionists agree, then, that “the very concept of the ‘feminine’ is a creation out of patriarchy, an ideal projected onto women by men and vigorously defended because it functions so well to keep men in positions of power and women out of public roles.”[236] However, they draw a variety of conclusions from this common position. Some writers, such as Elizabeth Johnson, argue for a disengagement of biological sexuality from predetermined sex roles and consequently give less importance to sexuality in a person’s identity. She writes that there is “a diversity of ways of being human: a multipolar set of combinations of essential human elements, of which sexuality is but one...In a multipolar model, sexuality is integrated into a holistic vision of human persons instead of being made the touchstone of personal identity and thus distorted.”[237] Johnson and other feminists single out the feminine ideal of motherhood as particularly responsible for trapping women in a vision of femininity which is at once too confining in its vision of womanhood and yet too comprehensive in its influence on women’s identity.[238] Other gender constructionists draw more radical conclusions from the detachment of gender from biological sex characteristics. Coakley’s evaluation of Trinitarian “gender” is one instance of the argument for the extreme fluidity of gender that characterizes certain deconstructionist approaches.[239]

According to gender constructionism, whether in its more moderate or more radical forms, gender is — or ought to be — a matter of personal choice rather than the simple result of biological or social influences. It is not a “given” in human identity and is susceptible to mutation and individual preference. Anything “objectively given or pre-assigned, not determined by the individual,” according to Barbara Albrecht, “is a priori an obstacle to self-fulfillment and must therefore be rejected.”[240] Even the ideal of the “androgynous female” is sometimes dismissed as too restrictive; Mary Daly says rather that “the image of the ‘wild female’ must capture the thoughts of the woman who would actualize her full potential. To become a whole person, to make contact with her true, natural self, a woman need only strip away the false identity — femininity — that patriarchy has constructed for her.”[241]

It follows, of course, that masculinity is as culturally constructed as femininity, and must also be overcome in order to fulfill the true potential of men. The radical separation of gender and biological sexuality, therefore, would undercut a central thesis of this chapter. Masculinity cannot be fulfilled in fatherhood, according to this theory, since there is no legitimate masculinity — that is, underived from a patriarchal cultural construction — to be fulfilled.

1.4.2.3. Response: Integral Anthropology

Gender constructionists have rightly pointed out that an understanding of gender which is too narrowly restricted to biological sexuality can be confining. As has been pointed out, bodily sex is not the same thing as psychosocial gender, however much they are interdependent. In addition, their critique has identified ways in which gender may have been historically over-determinative in its social expectations and performance.[242] Even when the feminine has been exalted as an ideal, it has not always fully respected the individuality of women. Elizabeth Johnson points out that the feminine figure has often alternated between the sublime and the debased, either “placed on a pedestal as a symbol of virtue or blamed as the originators of sin and death” but always treated as the “psychological ‘other’ and never as the person who herself experiences spiritual anguish, who is fired by messianic dreams, and who craves closeness with the creator.”[243] Whether Johnson’s critique is entirely fair or not, it represents enough serious thinkers to concede it some degree of truth. There is, in fact, more variability in the manifestations of masculinity and femininity than often has been admitted in the past. Nevertheless, the crippling weakness of gender constructionism is that it erects a dualistic anthropology that not only drifts towards masculine normativity as feminist critics themselves point out, but is existentially unrealistic and incapable of ascribing a positive human value to the sexual body.

It has already been observed that dualistic anthropologies have historically led, and perhaps will always lead, to masculinity as the human norm, both in theory and in practice. In an article which is now lauded as a seminal work in contemporary feminism, Valerie Saiving Goldstein reflects on the “hypermasculine” modern age which emerged in the wake of a dualistic “mechanization” of the human body:

[T]his modern era can be called the ‘masculine age par excellence,’ in the sense that it emphasized, encouraged, and set free precisely those aspects of human nature which are peculiarly significant to men.  It placed the highest value on external achievement, on the creation of structures of matter and meaning, on self-differentiation and the separation of man from nature...It was a masculine era, too, in the degree to which it devalued the functions of women and children and the whole reproductive process.[244]

De Solenni makes the same claim from an epistemological vantage point. “The Cartesian system,” she writes, “is unbending in its reductionist approach to the human person. Man and woman are equal. But it also follows that they are exactly the same, they are both reason. What was feminine is abandoned and woman must conform to a purely masculine humanity.”[245] Women who deny their own natures, Steven Goldberg contends, “who accept men’s second-hand definitions and covet a state of second-rate manhood, are forever condemned — to paraphrase Ingrid Bengis’s wonderful phrase — to argue against their own juices.”[246]

Anthropological dualism does not only fail to respect the uniqueness of womanhood, however. By severing biological sexuality from gender and human identity, it undercuts the dignity of the human body itself and, consequently, of the human person. When bodily differences have no intrinsic human or spiritual significance, David L. Schindler writes, the “different anatomical shapes of women and men as a matter of principle can never serve in an intrinsic way as carriers, precisely in their physiological character, of any ‘transcendent’ meaning.”[247] As a result, “feminist theology to date,” Sara Butler contends, “appears to disregard the positive value of sexual symbolism and its potential for disclosing love.”[248] Joyce Little calls this dualistic tendency the “demystification of the body” which, by robbing sexual differentiation of significance, reduces all human relationships to functionalism. She writes that “all relationships rooted in the bodily, incarnational, sacramental nature of man are rendered functional, which is to say, repeatable, interchangeable and ordered to nothing whatsoever except whatever function each person might will them to have at any given time.”[249] The demystification of the body removes the ordering of one person to another, especially the male and the female, and hence removes the inner logic of interpersonal relations. The result is mere difference, and hence “either that chaos which is the absence of all order or that tyranny which is the oppression of the lesser in rank by the greater.”[250]

Dualistic anthropology, then, respects neither manhood nor womanhood in its totality, and ultimately undermines interpersonal relations. An alternative anthropology is the more integrated, hylomorphic understanding of human nature proposed by St. Thomas which avoids both this stark dualism and the rigid determinism that has sometimes shaped gender thinking in the past. The hylomorphic approach to anthropology, described earlier, acknowledges the fundamental importance of the body in the determination of gender, without reducing masculine or feminine characteristics to the body alone.[251] Sexual difference emerges, in light of the human composite, as an inseparable aspect of human identity, a genuine human good that yearns for fulfillment. In men, this chapter has claimed, that fulfillment is found in fatherhood.

1.4.3. Essentialist Critique

The second broad objection raised by feminists does not dispute the distinction between masculinity and femininity, but rather the substance of that distinction. This “essentialist” feminist argument, sometimes identified with Luce Irigaray, signals a rejection of radical egalitarianism in favor of an emphasis on the strengths, and sometimes superiority, of women.[252] In common with gender constructionists, these thinkers have as their goal the emancipation of women from patriarchal oppression and the casting off of cultural fetters that inhibit their fulfillment. Irigaray calls this liberated woman the “subjective virgin,” reinterpreting the traditional notion of virginal purity in terms of physical and spiritual inviolability, freedom from violation and profanation.[253] The subjective virgin lives a life “underived” from anyone else, and in this sense is “virginally” autonomous.[254]

Unlike gender constructionists, however, Irigaray and others pursue this subjective “virginity” by recasting, not eliminating, gender distinctions. Irigaray, for instance, proposes the “two lips” imagery in response to the phallic imagery that defines patriarchy. She posits the “two lips,” with its physical and sexual connotations, as representing the woman’s “multiplicity, ambiguity, fluidity, and the touch” in contrast to the man’s phallic “singularity, unity or oneness, rationality, and the visible or specularisable.”[255] Clearly this approach to feminism diverges from the anthropological dualism of the gender constructionist approach, since it does not dispute the distinct bodily and psychosocial realities of sexuality in a common human nature. However, “essentialist” feminists would probably be unanimous in rejecting the Thomistic division of human sexuality into the active and passive principles of generation and, based on those principles, the complementarity of the sexes. Inasmuch as this dissertation has adopted the Thomistic division, though with significant modifications, in its understanding of masculinity and fatherhood, it is important to address these objections in some detail.

1.4.3.1. Rejection of Active/Passive Distinction

Elizabeth Johnson, with virtually all feminists, rejects the traditional active/passive distinction within human generation and charges classical anthropology with the very dualism that Thomas’ integrated hylomorphism was intended to overcome. She writes that obvious biological differences, in this theory, are elevated “to an ontological principle that cleaves the human race into two radically different types of persons.”[256] These “two natures,” she continues, possess different characteristics, and thus different roles, which are rooted in creation and therefore the “will of God.”[257] Originating in Greek dualism, she says,

[s]uch separatist thinking about the sexes gives rise to a series of equations that frames classical theology like a procrustean bed: men are to women as spirit is to matter, as act is to potency, as mind is to body, as head is to heart, as cool thought is to feeling and passionate sexual arousal, as conscious is to unconscious, as initiating is to receiving, as call is to response, as ruling is to obedience, as public is to private, as light is to darkness...[258]

Contraries such as these, she asserts, are the foundation of unjust gender stereotypes and patriarchal oppression. Without them, Johnson argues, “most serious patriarchal thought would evaporate.”[259]

Among all such antitheses Margaret Farley singles out the distinction of masculinity as active and femininity as passive, derived from the reproductive structures of men and women, as having had the longest and deepest influence on the self-understanding of men and women. Of course, she notes, “there was no question that he who was an active principle was somehow greater in being than she who could only be a principle of passivity.”[260] This single distinction is the philosophical underpinning, according to many feminist writers, of the entire social and legal structure of patriarchy.[261] If their objection obtains, then the notion of an active principle of generation is a mere instrument for the reinforcement of sexual injustice, and positing its fulfillment in fatherhood makes little sense. Before addressing the argument, however, the “essentialist” rejection of sexual complementarity — which follows on its denial of classical sexual distinctions — will also be considered.

1.4.3.2. Rejection of Complementarity

The rejection of masculinity as active and femininity as passive has led most feminist thinkers to reject, or at least distrust, any argument for sexual complementarity. Feminists typically understand complementarity to be a kind of “gender dualism” that assigns rigid distinctions and roles to men and women. In the words of Mary Aquin O’Neill, complementarity is “a theology in which the sexes complete one another, not only on the level of reproduction, but in the full range of human existence.”[262] It might seem that this view would contribute to an implicit equality between the sexes.[263] Many feminists, however, suspect complementarity of concealing patriarchal judgments under the guise of equality.

Thus Johnson claims that complementarity exhibits “naiveté about its own social conditioning, its reliance on stereotypes, and the denial of the wholeness of human experience” and thus “functions as a smokescreen for the subordination of women since by its definition women are always relegated to the private, passive realm.”[264] The “assignment of characteristics in traditional [gender] dualism,” she writes, “does not grant women an equal say in how the world is run, thus keeping them in the status of a minor.”[265] Johnson even expresses distrust at more recent attempts, for instance by Pope John Paul II, to argue for a complementarity which emphatically affirms the equality of men and women before God. She calls it a “romantic feminism” which “by boxing women’s and men’s identities into innate differences based on traditional gender stereotypes...inevitably compromises the human and spiritual potential of both.”[266] The result is that complementarity does little to enhance the position of women; if anything, it contributes to the notion that masculinity is the norm against which femininity is measured.[267] In short, as Sara Butler has conceded, complementarity “is not easy to rescue from the burden of its history.”[268]

Feminist skepticism regarding sexual complementarity and the active/passive distinction strikes at the heart of several of this chapter’s arguments for the fulfillment of masculinity in fatherhood. The third argument, for instance, that masculinity is perfected in the generative gift of self in fruitful marital union, rests upon a vision of man and woman as personalistically ordered one to the other in a complementary self-gift. The fourth argument, that the active, male power of generation is ordered to fatherhood rests upon the notion that there is a specifically active, male mode of generation which, moreover, complements the receptive female. The fifth argument that fatherhood is a catalyst of perfection rests upon the idea that there are specifically paternal virtues, complementing maternal virtues, that fulfill masculine human nature. In responding to this skepticism, the next section will consider a re-reading of St. Thomas’ notion of female passivity and apply it to a fuller and more integral vision of complementarity.

1.4.3.3. Response: Integral Complementarity

As in the previous objections, it first must be acknowledged that there are elements of truth in these feminist concerns regarding sexual distinction and complementarity. Too often the distinction of male and female as respectively active and passive has encouraged unflattering stereotypes of women, and thereby paved the way for injustice towards women.[269] Complementarity has an equally ambiguous history. If it means that men and women exist in unbending categories as two “sides” of humanity, each humanly incomplete, then indeed there is much to reject. While it is questionable whether this stilted approach was, in fact, ever the understanding of complementarity among serious thinkers, it does expose the need for a more integral complementarity that incorporates the insights of feminists who advocate a more respectful, communal relationship between the sexes.[270]

One does not, therefore, have to subscribe to the hysteria of an Emmanuel Reynaud[271] to see that the recent intellectual account of sexual distinction has largely, and to an extent legitimately, prompted calls for a rethinking of the relationship between masculinity and femininity. Since this dissertation has taken St. Thomas as representative of the classical tradition in ascribing the active principle to male generativity and the passive principle to female generativity with its subsequent anthropological conclusions about men and women, a survey of Aquinas’ treatment of the male-female relationship will precede a more direct response to the objections raised above.

1.4.3.3.1. St. Thomas: Equality in Distinction

Feminist thinkers often consider St. Thomas to be a pivotal figure in the history of male hegemony. A close reading of his works, however, displays a far more nuanced view of sexual differentiation than is typically assumed. To begin, Thomas champions the full humanity of both men and women. In the dissertation cited earlier entitled Femina ut Imago Dei in the Integral Feminism of St. Thomas Aquinas Joseph Hartel admits that, for Thomas, a difference in sensitive and vegetative powers means that “the female sex in general could never achieve the same eminence of degree as the male sex...Men, in general, are more perfect than women.”[272] Hartel emphasizes, however, that “more perfect” does not mean “more perfectly human” since that would imply an inequality, and thus a distinction, in the essence manhood and womanhood — which Thomas emphatically rejects. It is erroneous, then, to say that Aquinas “saw woman’s whole essence as a series of inadequacies and absences. It is likewise an error to say the St. Thomas regarded woman as not fully human or as less human than men.”[273] Together with men, women enjoy the fullness of human nature.

One source of the confusion on this point is the startling claim of Aquinas that females are not “intended” in generation since a form will always try to generate a likeness of itself. Since the form in generation comes from the male, Thomas believed, it will always endeavor to produce another male; and hence Aquinas attributes the generation of a female to accidental causes such as the influence of heavenly bodies or an improper disposition in the matter.[274] As a result, following a remark by Aristotle, St. Thomas infamously describes the female as a mas occasionatus, often translated as a “misbegotten male.”[275] Here too, however, important qualifications must be made which moderate the conclusion. To begin, Aquinas is making a biological statement about the goal of generation in a particular instance. In a concrete act of reproduction, the form provided by the male will strive to reproduce itself as male. In universal nature, however, Thomas stresses that there is clearly the goal to produce females since both males and females are required for the perpetuation of the species.[276] Moreover, since the general intention of nature depends on God, it clearly follows that God intends females.[277] Far from revealing misogynistic depictions of “misbegotten males,” the Thomistic distinction between individual and universal intentionality of nature actually highlights his respect for women as intended by God, contributing to the perfection of the species, and good and beautiful in themselves.[278] Joseph Hartel even takes it as grounds for calling Thomas a sort of “proto-feminist.” Without woman, he writes, Aquinas believed that

the universe would be neither well ordered nor as perfect; in addition, divine wisdom would not shine forth with such a brilliance.  Woman, then for St. Thomas, is something very special.  Her true worth is not determined by matter.  Her value is not determined by man.  Nor is her equality with man based on an economic production which would degrade her.

Woman’s value comes from the same source as her liberation.  As a spiritual creature, her importance is determined by a spiritual relationship with God.  And, in God there is both hope for her future and liberation from all the oppression of this world.  In God, too, there is her reason for being — woman exists because of God’s goodness and for His goodness.  She is one instance of God’s having looked at what He had made and of saying that it is very good.[279]

Claims that Aquinas viewed women as incomplete or imperfect or misbegotten humans, then, are false. He defended a profound ontological equality of men and women before God, and yet argued that this equality did not mean identity. The material difference between men and women, whose nature is a composite of body and soul, permeates every aspect of their existence.[280] These differences are ordered in marriage to the common good of the family, which a man rules together with a woman, handing over to the wife matters that pertain to her.[281] The household is a natural association to provide for the mutual needs of the parents and children, in which the father’s authority over his children, and even more so his wife, is limited by the common good and the laws of marriage.[282] The husband, moreover, should love his wife as his own flesh since they are an “association of equals” and enjoy the “greatest friendship” known to humans.[283]

Aquinas even argues that the subjection of woman to man, in his reading, is so necessary and just that it would have existed in the state of innocence before Original Sin. He observes that humans, as social beings, would have led a social life before the Fall, and social life is necessarily hierarchical.[284] In the relations between the sexes, the material difference of man better fitted him for authority.[285] However, here too Thomas is careful to make distinctions. He emphatically denies the notion that subjection in itself is unjust, since “economic” or “civil” subjection, which existed before the Fall, reflects an authority in which the superior rules his subjects “for their own benefit and good”[286] in contrast to “servile” subjection in which the inferior is used for the sake of the superior.[287]

Aquinas, then, perceived the relationship between men and women as a kind of equality in distinction. Fundamentally, both men and women share equally in human nature and are equal before God. For the sake of their mutual benefit and the common good, however, they are distinct, with men exercising a limited authority over women due to psychosomatic differences. Thomas was not constrained by modern skepticism regarding distinction or authority. For him, distinction is not simply natural and necessary; it is a positive good. Authority is not necessarily unjust or tyrannical; when exercised well, it too is a great good for humanity. The relationship between men and women on earth reflects this complex interplay of equality, distinction, and hierarchy. From a supernatural point of view, however, St. Thomas affirmed that women can (and often do) attain to greater holiness than men, and thus achieve greater perfection in eternity.[288] The Supplement even suggests that the natural subordination of women in time will be replaced by a social ordering after the resurrection based on merit, without regard to sex.[289] From this point of view, even the natural ordering of men and women will dissolve in favor of a hierarchy of holiness, for all eternity, in which both sexes will fully share.

1.4.3.3.2. Reinterpreting Passivity: The Virtue of Receptivity

Even with these qualifications regarding St. Thomas’ understanding of the relations between men and women, it might seem an insuperable task to read the Thomistic theory of female passivity in a positive light.[290] Fortin’s reinterpretation, however, of St. Thomas’ male principle of generation as the male mode of generation that is active, initiating, and outward provides an effective methodology for a similar reinterpretation of the female principle of generation. Fortin began by grounding masculine activity not just in the biology of generation — which modern science has demonstrated involves an equal “activity” by both male and female — but in the male role in sexual intercourse. Similarly, the feminine principle of generation may be reinterpreted in light of the female modality in intercourse, which is receptive and inward, in contrast to the initiating and outward movement of the male.[291] Active receptivity, in this view, is the distinguishing feature of the female mode of generation, beginning with but extending beyond the female role in the act of procreation to the whole generative process. Thus, corresponding to Fortin’s analysis of the male role, the female’s receptive mode of generation is disclosed at the gonadal and personalistic level as well.[292]

Reinterpreting the passive principle as “actively receptive” is not a mere euphemism. Pia de Solenni concedes that much feminist literature simply assumes that passivity, even when reinterpreted as receptivity, carries a “weak or negative connotation and activity is considered as something strong and active.”[293] In her own re-reading of Thomas’ epistemology, however, she argues that this is not how Aquinas himself sees it. Epistemologically speaking, she writes, “there is an essential union of the receptive and active, but the receptive is not less significant than the active. If anything, the argument could be made that its receptive activity is foremost.”[294] Returning to the sexual difference, Monica Migliorino Miller has suggested that the woman’s receptivity is an active strength, a capacity to be open and to receive another which is a precondition for love and for life.[295] It is very far from helplessness or a preference for domination by another or a method of manipulation.[296] Hans Urs von Balthasar reflected long and deep on the virtue of receptivity. Commenting on Balthasar’s insights, W. Norris Clarke writes that

[s]elf-donation would be incomplete without welcoming receptivity on the other side of the personal relation.  And this belongs to the very perfection of the love relationship itself.  We have too long been accustomed to regard receptivity as passivity, associating it with the inferior status of potentiality as poverty which is completed by actuality as the perfecting principle.  This is certainly the case with many lower-order examples of receptivity, particularly as connected with the passivity of matter.  But the higher up one moves into the realm of spirit and person, the fullness of being as such, the more this “passivity” turns into an active, “welcoming” receptivity that is mark of the perfection — not the imperfection, of interpersonal relations.[297]

The seeds of this re-reading of female passivity as receptivity may be found in the thought of St. Thomas himself. First, it should be noted that Aquinas did not identify passivity with the woman proper (who, like the man, is constituted by act and potency) but with her contribution in the act of generation. In a lapidary phrase, De Solenni states that St. Thomas “considered woman to provide the passive element in generation, not necessarily to be the passive element in generation.”[298] Moreover, some contemporary thinkers have proposed an interpretation of Thomistic metaphysics which, building upon personalistic insights, proposes receptivity as the “ontological ground for the proper immanence of spiritual being” since in the creation of a human person “there is communication without loss and non-privative receptivity. At the level of personal being this is more adequately expressed by receptivity than by pure passive potency.”[299]

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