Do souls have gender?

  • Thread starter Thread starter PRmerger
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
The soul is formed in and for the body, and the body is grown around the soul.
You’ve made this claim before around here, and it continues to be untrue. Souls are immaterial, and therefore, they cannot be “in” anything physical, nor can physical items grow ‘around’ immaterial items (including souls). There is an association between the soul and the body (after all, they are a unity), but that association is not, strictly speaking, a physical one.
As such, the soul’s gender is that of the body, and there can be no “wrong body” or mixing and matching of souls and bodies. That is a modern mind-game.
No: as such the soul has no gender, although the person does.
 
The soul is actually both body and spirit combined. Separated, one without the other, is incomplete. And as they are one, I would have to say that our spirits, are male and female–just as every other part of a person is a part of a male or female.
No, this is an error in logic: gender (that is, ‘sex’) is a physical characteristic. “Every other part of a person” isn’t male or female – just the physical parts. The soul is not a physical part of a person; it has no physical gender.
 
No, this is an error in logic: gender (that is, ‘sex’) is a physical characteristic. “Every other part of a person” isn’t male or female – just the physical parts. The soul is not a physical part of a person; it has no physical gender.
I dunno.

I keep hearing Catholic thinkers–folks who know TOB backwards and forwards–talking about what masculine and feminine means…and it seems to be more than “just the physical parts”.

To wit: I am listening as we speak to a podcast by Mary Healy, author of “Men and Women are from Eden”, on Catholic Answers…and she seems to speak of our maleness and femaleness being more than just the physical parts.
 
I am listening as we speak to a podcast by Mary Healy, author of “Men and Women are from Eden”, on Catholic Answers…and she seems to speak of our maleness and femaleness being more than just the physical parts.
Sure… no problems with that. As human persons, we have a gender. But, that doesn’t mean that our souls have gender.
 
Well, of course.

But you do understand that there is an ontological change that occurs in this person during ordination?
I do in a very vague way, but I don’t see why a male soul as opposed to a male person is required.

With regards to personality, it may have little, if anything, to do with the soul and more to do with the brain in the context of family and life experiences. Sexual identity, I would imagine is tied to those factors rather than a masculine or feminine spirit. It is sort of instinctual, but this gets complicated real fast. These are some reasons why I see gender as residing in the body-spirit unity that is the person.

A cursory search about what the church teaches didn’t yield much that was helpful. I guess that’s why you are asking here.

For what it’s worth, that’s my (name removed by moderator)ut, open to change.
 
How do you know that?
Do you know of any spiritual beings? Do they have gender?

Of course you do – and of course they don’t: God, the Holy Spirit, the angels. None have ‘gender’. Why would the spiritual aspect of the human being (that is, the soul) have gender?
 
Do you know of any spiritual beings? Do they have gender?

Of course you do – and of course they don’t: God, the Holy Spirit, the angels. None have ‘gender’. Why would the spiritual aspect of the human being (that is, the soul) have gender?
Perhaps the human person is different than the Holy Spirit, the angels.

You can’t know for sure, can you?
 
Lets be crystal clear.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

-Tim-
 
Lets be crystal clear.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

-Tim-
Sorry–but your point was anything but crystal clear.

What are you trying to say here?
 
Perhaps the human person is different than the Holy Spirit, the angels.
Of course we are! We’re different in the fact that we have physical bodies.

In fact, that difference is what gives rise to gender – in our physicality (as Tim points out) we are male and female (and as a result, the human person likewise is gendered). But, our soul – which is what is in the image and likeness of God – is not. If God has no gender, then our soul (made in God’s image) likewise has no gender.
 
Sorry–but your point was anything but crystal clear.

What are you trying to say here?
Male and female - gender - are the images of God.

That is nothing I am saying. It is what God is revealing to us in the Bible.

-Tim-
 
God does not have a gender(s). He is Love, perfect relationality. As the Son is other to the Father and vice versa, united in the Holy Spirit who proceeds from both, so are we in loving one another. It is not a matter of gender; we are made in His image in terms of our relationship to each other and with our Father.
 
oops: Father and Son. Hmmm

It boils down to the nature of the relationship.
God is other to His creation; this is in opposition to the view that we are created individuals within the womb of a mother God, who is creation herself, We do not emerge from God, but are created as other beings.
At the moment, there appears to be more to gender than I had considered.
 
Do you know of any spiritual beings? Do they have gender?

Of course you do – and of course they don’t: God, the Holy Spirit, the angels. None have ‘gender’. Why would the spiritual aspect of the human being (that is, the soul) have gender?
No, Scriputre is clear… God the FATHER (gender) And the pronoun “he” used for teh Holy Spirit. They have gender. There would be no calling “God, The Father” if he was gender-less.
 
Is there a Catholic teaching on this?

Is it possible that there could be an anomalous pairing of the 2–that is, a female soul with a male body? And vice versa?
I think the question concerns

between death of the body, and the resurrection of that body at the end of the world, are souls just disembodied unrecognizable spirits with no recognizing factors of any kind to them?

While near death experiences (NDE) aren’t usually given as valid arguments because the Church doesn’t validate them, it’s amazing that all the NDE’s one can hear about, describe being able to recognize the soul of the person not only man vs women, but recognizing the actual person themselves.

For example

Fr Joseph Mary Wolf during an EWTN mass, gave the following homily about Fr Jose who recalled his near death experience

Youtube
youtube.com/watch?v=FeQNdXu-Uvc

Text
frmaniyangathealingministry.com/Content/viewcontent.aspx?linkId=41&linkLvl1Id=6

Note Fr Jose said this about people in hell that he saw,

“I saw people whom I knew but I am not allowed to reveal their identities”

If he could identify them (i.e. their souls) then their souls look like the person they came from…just without the flesh

2nd example

Moses and Elijah appear at the transfiguration of Jesus. They can’t be in heaven because Jesus hasn’t opened up heaven yet. Those saints bodies are still in the ground somewhere. Yet they are fully recognizable in spirit, and they can talk, and Peter sees them & hears them, and even wants to make 3 tents. Imagine those guys have been dead for at least 1000 years. And now there is this very real encounter with the afterlife.
*
Mt 17:3 And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Eli′jah, talking with him. 4 And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is well that we are here; if you wish, I will make three booths here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Eli′jah.”a]*
 
Of course we are! We’re different in the fact that we have physical bodies.

In fact, that difference is what gives rise to gender – in our physicality (as Tim points out) we are male and female (and as a result, the human person likewise is gendered).
I agree with you here.
But, our soul – which is what is in the image and likeness of God – is not.
Now, here, I don’t think it’s a necessary conclusion. We don’t know that being made in God’s image means that our souls have no gender.
If God has no gender, then our soul (made in God’s image) likewise has no gender.
The logic just doesn’t follow, Gorgias.

We can be made in God’s image in so many ways, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that we match God as genderless beings.
 
I think the question concerns

between death of the body, and the resurrection of that body at the end of the world, are souls just disembodied unrecognizable spirits with no recognizing factors of any kind to them?

While near death experiences (NDE) aren’t usually given as valid arguments because the Church doesn’t validate them, it’s amazing that all the NDE’s one can hear about, describe being able to recognize the soul of the person not only man vs women, but recognizing the actual person themselves.

For example

Fr Joseph Mary Wolf during an EWTN mass, gave the following homily about Fr Jose who recalled his near death experience

Youtube
youtube.com/watch?v=FeQNdXu-Uvc

Text
frmaniyangathealingministry.com/Content/viewcontent.aspx?linkId=41&linkLvl1Id=6

Note Fr Jose said this about people in hell that he saw,

“I saw people whom I knew but I am not allowed to reveal their identities”

If he could identify them (i.e. their souls) then their souls look like the person they came from…just without the flesh

2nd example

Moses and Elijah appear at the transfiguration of Jesus. They can’t be in heaven because Jesus hasn’t opened up heaven yet. Those saints bodies are still in the ground somewhere. Yet they are fully recognizable in spirit, and they can talk, and Peter sees them & hears them, and even wants to make 3 tents. Imagine those guys have been dead for at least 1000 years. And now there is this very real encounter with the afterlife.
*
Mt 17:3 And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Eli′jah, talking with him. 4 And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is well that we are here; if you wish, I will make three booths here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Eli′jah.”a*]
Bzzzt 1/2

Elijah is described as being taken up into heaven without death.

ICXC NIKA
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top