Thanks for the post! I have a question, and since I am about to do a "deep dive on hylopmorphism", I am more than happy to admit that I probably do not know what I am talking about! Regarding the statement from the diocese that biological sex cannot be changed: are we entirely sure that this was intended to be a scientific statement? It seems to be referring to form, held in the intellect. Whether or not the matter can successfully be artificially re-arranged to function like the opposite sex is perhaps the question for science; but whether or not the form and essence of what it means to be male or female changes along with the matter is a question that seems within the realm of the Church. My understanding is that form informs matter, not vice versa. Even after death, when the body of a person becomes a corpse and decays, the form of the deceased human is preserved in God's intellect and not in the matter, and it is this form which again takes on matter in the resurrection of the dead. Or at least this is my understanding.
Thanks for the question! (And it is a good question.)
I think the best answer I can give is that: I am operating on a fundamentally Thomistic framework, according to which sex is an accident (presumably an "inseparable" accident, at least until demonstrated otherwise) of the individual which – and this is the crucial point – stems principally from matter, rather than from the substantial form. For a helpful overview of this position, I would recommend the following article by William Newton: "Why Aquinas’s Metaphysics of Gender Is Fundamentally Correct: A Response to John Finley" currently online here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7273633/
Now, perhaps the diocese is not operating on a Thomistic framework – perhaps they really do disagree with Aquinas, and wish to posit that the separated soul (as such) has some sort of male/female essence. But if that's their position, then: (a) they are going out on a limb, because the Church certainly does not teach this; and (b) I think it is, at the very least, deeply imprudent to pin a whole lot of important conclusions on such a disputed and unsafe metaphysical point.
To be clear: I think Aquinas' position is the most coherent, but if someone wants to disagree with him, then by all means I'm game to hear them out – it would be ridiculous to suggest that he is infallible, or that modern scientific insights could not bring about a significant new biological insight that he did not have. (Indeed, I would agree with those who argue that this has already happened: for example, contrary to the ancient biological model which held the male principle to be "active" while the female principle was "passive", we can now observe more clearly the role of the sperm and egg, and see that both principles are in fact "active" in different ways, while "passive" in others. The egg is not wholly passive, but plays an indisputably "active" role – you can read scientific literature about how the egg "chooses" the sperm cell – and this simple observation dramatically undercuts a core theory in the ancient philosophical model, which (as a result) logically undermines the Aristotelian framework of the nature/relationship between men and women, and bolsters a more robustly pro-feminist anthropology supporting the equal dignity of men and women, etc.)
There is a lot to unpack and explore here, obviously. But I think the bottom line is this: insofar as our observations of the world (and human nature) form a necessary basis for our philosophical premises – which is unavoidable (because philosophy of nature doesn't happen in a vacuum, but flows precisely from our study of nature) – then we need to be really careful to parse out what we know about nature with a high degree of certitude, vs. what we think (or presume) we know but have yet to actually prove.
Thanks for your response! I did not realize that biological sex was strictly material. I thought it had a deeper ontological status than the other human accidents. I do wonder if we can properly speak of a "separated soul". Or how Aquinas would view an extrinsic re-arrangement of the matter. In any case, I think the Church could spend more time fleshing out the topic. Thanks again!
FWIW – I would resist calling it "strictly" material (I think there is more appropriate flexibility in saying that it is "principally" from matter), and similarly I would not absolutely rule out some sort of deeper ontological connection. Perhaps one way we could approach it is by looking at the created substance (human person: soul and body, form and matter) holistically at the moment of its conception/creation, and recognize that the biological sex of the body (even if it comes from primarily the material) is nevertheless at that moment intimately united with a soul – and thus the embodied soul is "shaped" in some real sense by the male/female quality that belongs to the substance as a whole (in a similar way to how the embodied soul is "shaped" by various bodily emotions, habits, memories, sensations, and other such things). I don't know for sure how to best understand it, but "we should study this further" seems like a good instinct.
But regarding "separated souls", I think this is certainly something that we can speak about – at least after the death of the body. And yet, I think you are right to find the idea somewhat questionable and strange, because (on the Aristotelian-Thomistic account, most substantial forms are incapable of existing apart from matter, and thus) ultimately it is a deeply unnatural state for the human soul. If you are interested in further reading on this, I would point to Edward Feser, perhaps starting here: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/03/so-what-are-you-doing-after-your-funeral.html
Gotcha. Referring to the embodied soul being shaped by the matter, that's kind of what my original question was-- if we change the matter, does that change the soul, if there is a deeper ontological connection? (You don't have to answer - I think the study further instinct is right, ha.)
Yes! I thought you were referring to a separated soul while living. Thanks for the reading recommendation. I will have a look through. In "Eschatology" by Joseph Ratzinger, he talked a bit about the soul after death, too - finding that balance between Platonic dualism and Luther's thought.
I think you're point about delineating between that which is a theological question and that which is a scientific question is really helpful. I have no answer to it, but I do wish to raise the point of how this connects to a certain part of Thomistic (and concomitantly Catholic) understanding of nature. Typically, Natural Law when appealing to nature makes a difference between that which is intended in nature and that which is incidental in nature, with that which is incidental in nature a result of the fall. One could reasonably interpret from the genesis line "male and female he made them" that that is talking about the intendedly natural, and from this that the transgender experience is rather that which is incidentally natural. but intended or not, this has no bearing on a reasonable, and scientific, observation that the transgender experience does exist, and we still have to deal with this in some meaningful sense (as the church had done with hermaphrodites in the past). And we can't merely appeal to that which is intended to solve that which is merely incidental. For example, whilst one might consider paralysis from the waist down as being incidental in nature, we do not from that insist that paralysed people just walk - we continue to provide them whatever care they may specifically need (e.g: use of a wheelchair). Use of a wheelchair is not a rejection of what was intended in nature (non-paralysis), but rather an recognition, and a practical accommodation of that which is incidental in nature (paralysis). So if we apply the same to the transgender experience, whilst one could argue that it is not intended in nature, it would be naive from that to a) deny people's genuine experience of gender discordance and/or dysphoria and b) insist that such people do nothing about that experience, and just try to pretend they are the gender that they do not identify with.
The scientific approach addresses that which is, and the theological that which was intended. Even if we can create a fully comprehensive theological analysis of what was intended, that does not necessarily allow us to answer how we should deal with that which is. The question at hand is how do we deal with that which is, and simply appealing to that which was intended does not necessarily provide us with an answer to this.
This comment is rather ragtag, and I have not fully organised this in a comprehensive cohesive way, and nor do I answer many of the questions you have raised, nor those which I have. But I hope that some of my insights here may be useful.
It sounds to me like we are on the same page! (And although I don't have too much to offer in the way of clear-cut answers – I suppose I'm more interested in just nailing down the correct framework, within which we can eventually proceed to have much more interesting discussions – I think you'll find a few more fragments of useful puzzle pieces to your line of thought in Part 2!)
Thanks for the post! I have a question, and since I am about to do a "deep dive on hylopmorphism", I am more than happy to admit that I probably do not know what I am talking about! Regarding the statement from the diocese that biological sex cannot be changed: are we entirely sure that this was intended to be a scientific statement? It seems to be referring to form, held in the intellect. Whether or not the matter can successfully be artificially re-arranged to function like the opposite sex is perhaps the question for science; but whether or not the form and essence of what it means to be male or female changes along with the matter is a question that seems within the realm of the Church. My understanding is that form informs matter, not vice versa. Even after death, when the body of a person becomes a corpse and decays, the form of the deceased human is preserved in God's intellect and not in the matter, and it is this form which again takes on matter in the resurrection of the dead. Or at least this is my understanding.
Thanks for the question! (And it is a good question.)
I think the best answer I can give is that: I am operating on a fundamentally Thomistic framework, according to which sex is an accident (presumably an "inseparable" accident, at least until demonstrated otherwise) of the individual which – and this is the crucial point – stems principally from matter, rather than from the substantial form. For a helpful overview of this position, I would recommend the following article by William Newton: "Why Aquinas’s Metaphysics of Gender Is Fundamentally Correct: A Response to John Finley" currently online here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7273633/
Now, perhaps the diocese is not operating on a Thomistic framework – perhaps they really do disagree with Aquinas, and wish to posit that the separated soul (as such) has some sort of male/female essence. But if that's their position, then: (a) they are going out on a limb, because the Church certainly does not teach this; and (b) I think it is, at the very least, deeply imprudent to pin a whole lot of important conclusions on such a disputed and unsafe metaphysical point.
To be clear: I think Aquinas' position is the most coherent, but if someone wants to disagree with him, then by all means I'm game to hear them out – it would be ridiculous to suggest that he is infallible, or that modern scientific insights could not bring about a significant new biological insight that he did not have. (Indeed, I would agree with those who argue that this has already happened: for example, contrary to the ancient biological model which held the male principle to be "active" while the female principle was "passive", we can now observe more clearly the role of the sperm and egg, and see that both principles are in fact "active" in different ways, while "passive" in others. The egg is not wholly passive, but plays an indisputably "active" role – you can read scientific literature about how the egg "chooses" the sperm cell – and this simple observation dramatically undercuts a core theory in the ancient philosophical model, which (as a result) logically undermines the Aristotelian framework of the nature/relationship between men and women, and bolsters a more robustly pro-feminist anthropology supporting the equal dignity of men and women, etc.)
There is a lot to unpack and explore here, obviously. But I think the bottom line is this: insofar as our observations of the world (and human nature) form a necessary basis for our philosophical premises – which is unavoidable (because philosophy of nature doesn't happen in a vacuum, but flows precisely from our study of nature) – then we need to be really careful to parse out what we know about nature with a high degree of certitude, vs. what we think (or presume) we know but have yet to actually prove.
Thanks for your response! I did not realize that biological sex was strictly material. I thought it had a deeper ontological status than the other human accidents. I do wonder if we can properly speak of a "separated soul". Or how Aquinas would view an extrinsic re-arrangement of the matter. In any case, I think the Church could spend more time fleshing out the topic. Thanks again!
FWIW – I would resist calling it "strictly" material (I think there is more appropriate flexibility in saying that it is "principally" from matter), and similarly I would not absolutely rule out some sort of deeper ontological connection. Perhaps one way we could approach it is by looking at the created substance (human person: soul and body, form and matter) holistically at the moment of its conception/creation, and recognize that the biological sex of the body (even if it comes from primarily the material) is nevertheless at that moment intimately united with a soul – and thus the embodied soul is "shaped" in some real sense by the male/female quality that belongs to the substance as a whole (in a similar way to how the embodied soul is "shaped" by various bodily emotions, habits, memories, sensations, and other such things). I don't know for sure how to best understand it, but "we should study this further" seems like a good instinct.
But regarding "separated souls", I think this is certainly something that we can speak about – at least after the death of the body. And yet, I think you are right to find the idea somewhat questionable and strange, because (on the Aristotelian-Thomistic account, most substantial forms are incapable of existing apart from matter, and thus) ultimately it is a deeply unnatural state for the human soul. If you are interested in further reading on this, I would point to Edward Feser, perhaps starting here: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/03/so-what-are-you-doing-after-your-funeral.html
Gotcha. Referring to the embodied soul being shaped by the matter, that's kind of what my original question was-- if we change the matter, does that change the soul, if there is a deeper ontological connection? (You don't have to answer - I think the study further instinct is right, ha.)
Yes! I thought you were referring to a separated soul while living. Thanks for the reading recommendation. I will have a look through. In "Eschatology" by Joseph Ratzinger, he talked a bit about the soul after death, too - finding that balance between Platonic dualism and Luther's thought.
I think you're point about delineating between that which is a theological question and that which is a scientific question is really helpful. I have no answer to it, but I do wish to raise the point of how this connects to a certain part of Thomistic (and concomitantly Catholic) understanding of nature. Typically, Natural Law when appealing to nature makes a difference between that which is intended in nature and that which is incidental in nature, with that which is incidental in nature a result of the fall. One could reasonably interpret from the genesis line "male and female he made them" that that is talking about the intendedly natural, and from this that the transgender experience is rather that which is incidentally natural. but intended or not, this has no bearing on a reasonable, and scientific, observation that the transgender experience does exist, and we still have to deal with this in some meaningful sense (as the church had done with hermaphrodites in the past). And we can't merely appeal to that which is intended to solve that which is merely incidental. For example, whilst one might consider paralysis from the waist down as being incidental in nature, we do not from that insist that paralysed people just walk - we continue to provide them whatever care they may specifically need (e.g: use of a wheelchair). Use of a wheelchair is not a rejection of what was intended in nature (non-paralysis), but rather an recognition, and a practical accommodation of that which is incidental in nature (paralysis). So if we apply the same to the transgender experience, whilst one could argue that it is not intended in nature, it would be naive from that to a) deny people's genuine experience of gender discordance and/or dysphoria and b) insist that such people do nothing about that experience, and just try to pretend they are the gender that they do not identify with.
The scientific approach addresses that which is, and the theological that which was intended. Even if we can create a fully comprehensive theological analysis of what was intended, that does not necessarily allow us to answer how we should deal with that which is. The question at hand is how do we deal with that which is, and simply appealing to that which was intended does not necessarily provide us with an answer to this.
This comment is rather ragtag, and I have not fully organised this in a comprehensive cohesive way, and nor do I answer many of the questions you have raised, nor those which I have. But I hope that some of my insights here may be useful.
It sounds to me like we are on the same page! (And although I don't have too much to offer in the way of clear-cut answers – I suppose I'm more interested in just nailing down the correct framework, within which we can eventually proceed to have much more interesting discussions – I think you'll find a few more fragments of useful puzzle pieces to your line of thought in Part 2!)