"Transgendered" is not compatible with Christian belief

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livingwordunity

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In Christianity, the most basic gospel belief is in the resurrection of the body. We Catholics acknowledge this belief every time we say the Creed. In our belief in the resurrection, the body gets restored. For example, a faithful Christian who loses his limbs in this life will have his limbs resorted at the resurrection. Another of the most basic of beliefs of our Christian faith is that God made us male and female. God gave us this knowledge about ourselves as his original revelation about our human nature in the first book of the Holy Bible. And in the New Testament, Jesus reminds us of the importance of this when asked about marriage. And as taught by the Magisterium throughout the ages, we retain our maleness if we were born a male or our femaleness if we were born a female. So people who mutilate their body in a surgery to become “transgendered” in this life will be restored to the original sex that God made them if they repent and are saved in the resurrection.
 
livingwordunity said:
In Christianity, the most basic gospel belief is in the resurrection of the body. We Catholics acknowledge this belief every time we say the Creed. In our belief in the resurrection, the body gets restored. For example, a faithful Christian who loses his limbs in this life will have his limbs resorted at the resurrection. Another of the most basic of beliefs of our Christian faith is that God made us male and female. God gave us this knowledge about ourselves as his original revelation about our human nature in the first book of the Holy Bible. And in the New Testament, Jesus reminds us of the importance of this when asked about marriage. And as taught by the Magisterium throughout the ages, we retain our maleness if we were born a male or our femaleness if we were born a female. So people who mutilate their body in a surgery to become “transgendered” in this life will be restored to the original sex that God made them if they repent and are saved in the resurrection.
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You are correct.
 
livingwordunity said:
In Christianity, the most basic gospel belief is in the resurrection of the body. We Catholics acknowledge this belief every time we say the Creed. In our belief in the resurrection, the body gets restored. For example, a faithful Christian who loses his limbs in this life will have his limbs resorted at the resurrection. Another of the most basic of beliefs of our Christian faith is that God made us male and female. God gave us this knowledge about ourselves as his original revelation about our human nature in the first book of the Holy Bible. And in the New Testament, Jesus reminds us of the importance of this when asked about marriage. And as taught by the Magisterium throughout the ages, we retain our maleness if we were born a male or our femaleness if we were born a female. So people who mutilate their body in a surgery to become “transgendered” in this life will be restored to the original sex that God made them if they repent and are saved in the resurrection.
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Didn’t we just discuss this issue in another thread not too long ago?
 
What about those who were born with both male and female parts, and/or are genetically considered both male and female?
 
I don’t know what the official Catholic Church teaching on this matter is, but coming from a “merely Christian” prospective (as that I find myself in a time of discernment and spiritual journey, not being 100% what Christian faith tradition I believe, Protestant or Catholic):

I would anticipate in faith that at the Resurrection of the body there will be unity between the spirit and glorified flesh - that is the say, people will identify with the gender which God created in their person, there will be no discrepancy between what the mind thinks, the spirit senses, and what the body shows, unless in His ultimate and transcendent wisdom this pairing of a male spirit with a female body or a female spirit with a male body is God’s intention for that being. Another thread quoted Peter Kreeft saying:
The first reason would be a reaction against what is wrongly seen as monosexual soul-stereotyping. A wholly male soul, whatever maleness means, or a wholly female soul, sounds unreal and oversimplified. But that is not what sexual souls implies. Rather, in every soul there is—to use Jungian terms—anima and animus, femaleness and maleness; just as in the body, one predominates but the other is also present. If the dominant sex of soul is not the same as that of the body, we have a sexual misfit, a candidate for a sex change operation of body or of soul, earthly or Heavenly. Perhaps Heaven supplies such changes just as it supplies all other needed forms of healing. In any case, the resurrection body perfectly expresses its soul, and since souls are innately sexual, that body will perfectly express its soul’s true sexual identity.
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peterkreeft.com/topics/sex-in-heaven.htm
I tend to agree with Kreeft here.

Does this mean God made a mistake? No. It means we live in a world corrupted by sin, a world about which St. Paul wrote to Church of Rome saying: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:18-23 RSV-CE)” Is disease part of the creation which God called good or very good? What about death? No. Therefore is it possible that sometimes a person might be born with a body that does not reflect his or her true dominant gender? I think so. Now…what that person does about it, that is a perhaps a different matter. I believe the RCC teaches that Catholics shouldn’t undergo sex change operations, but I don’t think this establishes that the phenomenon of transgenderism is nothing, nor should it nullify the hope of the transgendered Christian that God will transform their body to match their soul, or free them from the belief that their soul and body do not match when their body is risen from the grave.
dshix said:
😛

You ARE being facetious, right?
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Nope, that’s a real thing. People born with both male and female parts are called intersex, and while it only applies to a very small percentage of the population it does occasionally occur. I don’t know what God will do with such people at the resurrection, but once again I really like the idea that Peter Kreeft suggests in the quote above.
 
MattofTexas said:
Nope, that’s a real thing. People born with both male and female parts are called intersex, and while it only applies to a very small percentage of the population it does occasionally occur. I don’t know what God will do with such people at the resurrection, but once again I really like the idea that Peter Kreeft suggests in the quote above.
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Correct, it is a legitimate question as I haven’t looked into Church teaching on such people, or done study as to what may pertain to them at the resurrection.

I have another question that is somewhat related, but I think I’ll create a new thread for that, as it might make for some good discussion.
 
bzkoss236 said:
Correct, it is a legitimate question as I haven’t looked into Church teaching on such people, or done study as to what may pertain to them at the resurrection.

I have another question that is somewhat related, but I think I’ll create a new thread for that, as it might make for some good discussion.
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Are such people capable of engaging in “relations” with people of either sex?
 
dshix said:
Are such people capable of engaging in “relations” with people of either sex?
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I don’t think so, I think it’s matter of their anatomy and/or genes not matching the norm of either a man or woman. The Intersex Society of North America has this to say:
“Intersex” is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male. For example, a person might be born appearing to be female on the outside, but having mostly male-typical anatomy on the inside. Or a person may be born with genitals that seem to be in-between the usual male and female types…Or a person may be born with mosaic genetics, so that some of her cells have XX chromosomes and some of them have XY.
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isna.org/faq/what_is_intersex

Personally- I trust that God will bring healing to that person, at least if they die in God’s grace, at the time of the Resurrection/Second Coming. Exactly what that will look like, I don’t presume to know.

Back to Transgenderism- This thread is titled “‘Transgendered’ is not compatible with Christian belief” to which I personally respond by saying “not necessarily”. We can’t really know the gender makeup of someone’s soul, so we don’t know if transgenderism is actually possible or real (in the literal sense the transgendered mean, it’s certainly real at least as a psychological state), or if it’s not. However this is not necessarily the same thing as an endorsement of sex change operations or same-sex “activity”- as that once again, we can’t really be sure what a transgendered person’s “true gender” is and most Christian communities would teach us that we should use anatomical gender as the rule in such ambiguous situations, trusting that God will heal every consequence of sin and corruption in the life to come. I’m not sure if this is in line with what constitutes Roman Catholic Christian belief, or if there are any dogmas about this, but the quote from Kreeft would have me believe that there are no such dogmas about the non-possibility of transgenderism occurring, although the RCC certainly has demonstrated opposition to action in the response to these beliefs, namely sex change operations.
 
dshix said:
Are such people capable of engaging in “relations” with people of either sex?
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It can be possible physically, but more often than not, they are sterile as they will sometimes have a penis, but also have ovaries. I think among them it is rare to have a working set of reproductive parts, though there are cases where the bottom half is one gender, and the top half is the other.
 
livingwordunity said:
In Christianity, the most basic gospel belief is in the resurrection of the body. We Catholics acknowledge this belief every time we say the Creed. In our belief in the resurrection, the body gets restored. For example, a faithful Christian who loses his limbs in this life will have his limbs resorted at the resurrection. Another of the most basic of beliefs of our Christian faith is that God made us male and female. God gave us this knowledge about ourselves as his original revelation about our human nature in the first book of the Holy Bible. And in the New Testament, Jesus reminds us of the importance of this when asked about marriage. And as taught by the Magisterium throughout the ages, we retain our maleness if we were born a male or our femaleness if we were born a female. So people who mutilate their body in a surgery to become “transgendered” in this life will be restored to the original sex that God made them if they repent and are saved in the resurrection.
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How does your God reassemble the parts of a body that has been cremated? Not to mention the fact that we don’t exactly have exclusive use of the atoms that make up our bodies - they will have been used by other bodies in the past, and no doubt will form parts of new bodies in the future, before the final reckoning. Does God just create more atoms to make sure there are enough to go around?
 
MattofTexas said:
Personally- I trust that God will bring healing to that person, at least if they die in God’s grace, at the time of the Resurrection/Second Coming. Exactly what that will look like, I don’t presume to know.
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With regard to this, if transgenderism and intersexuality are considered ‘disordered’ or to be ‘broken’ in some way, such that God must ‘heal’ these people in the afterlife, then the question inevitably arises - why would a God who is purported to be all-powerful and benevolent create people this way in the first place? There are a number of things this could mean; most prominently, either God is not all-powerful or is somewhat malicious; or human society has gone wrong in its inability to accept transgendered and intersexed people for who and what they are.
 
Sair said:
With regard to this, if transgenderism and intersexuality are considered ‘disordered’ or to be ‘broken’ in some way, such that God must ‘heal’ these people in the afterlife, then the question inevitably arises - why would a God who is purported to be all-powerful and benevolent create people this way in the first place? There are a number of things this could mean; most prominently, either God is not all-powerful or is somewhat malicious; or human society has gone wrong in its inability to accept transgendered and intersexed people for who and what they are.
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Maybe my sensitivity is just busted, but I don’t get why this issue is a faith issue versus any of fifty other birth-defects that human beings may be born into.

I mean, when we see somebody who is living with cerebral palsy, or with skeletal deformation, etc, we just assume that for whatever reason, the natural process that formed them has gone wrong. Why does “sexuality” deserve pride of place in becoming a faith issue; why do we assume that that, alone, should be perfect in everybody, and that all variations of it are equal?

Methinks that says more about us than about God.

ICXC NIKA
 
Sair said:
How does your God reassemble the parts of a body that has been cremated? Not to mention the fact that we don’t exactly have exclusive use of the atoms that make up our bodies - they will have been used by other bodies in the past, and no doubt will form parts of new bodies in the future, before the final reckoning. Does God just create more atoms to make sure there are enough to go around?
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Once we understand all of the mysteries and seeming anomalies presented by quantum mechanics, perhaps we’ll know. But perhaps with every answer we gain, new mysteries and anomalies will appear. Physicists know, or at least think they know, that an atomic particle can be in more than one place at the same time; sometimes at great distances from one another. They know, or think they know, that a particle can disappear in one spot and reappear in another without ever traveling the distance between.

I’m not sure Newtonian physics (which your question assumes fully explanatory) can be trusted to tell us a whole lot about the physical world anymore, let alone about the powers of God.
 
Sair said:
With regard to this, if transgenderism and intersexuality are considered ‘disordered’ or to be ‘broken’ in some way, such that God must ‘heal’ these people in the afterlife, then the question inevitably arises - why would a God who is purported to be all-powerful and benevolent create people this way in the first place? There are a number of things this could mean; most prominently, either God is not all-powerful or is somewhat malicious; or human society has gone wrong in its inability to accept transgendered and intersexed people for who and what they are.
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That’s a good question, as I stated in an earlier post:
Does this mean God made a mistake? No. It means we live in a world corrupted by sin, a world about which St. Paul wrote to Church of Rome saying: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:18-23 RSV-CE)” Is disease part of the creation which God called good or very good? What about death? No. Therefore is it possible that sometimes a person might be born with a body that does not reflect his or her true dominant gender? I think so. Now…what that person does about it, that is a perhaps a different matter. I believe the RCC teaches that Catholics shouldn’t undergo sex change operations, but I don’t think this establishes that the phenomenon of transgenderism is nothing, nor should it nullify the hope of the transgendered Christian that God will transform their body to match their soul, or free them from the belief that their soul and body do not match when their body is risen from the grave.
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Christians believe that in the beginning God created everything and it was good. But when Adam and Eve committed sin both they and the world around them became corrupted by this sin. Because of sin decay and death entered the world. Some people even believe (and this may be the official Catholic teaching, I’m not sure) that prior to the Fall of Man there were no natural disastrous or diseases. In essence everything “bad” that exists came as a result of the sin of Lucifer and then that of Adam and Eve. Does this mean God is not all powerful and good? No. It means He respects our freedom to choose Him and righteousness, or to reject Him by choosing sin. He is in the process of restoring creation to goodness, but He’s not finished yet. Until Jesus returns and the final judgement occurs there will be bad things that happen, but Christians live in hope that one day God will wipe away every tear and right every wrong, and that humans and all of creation will live together in harmony with our God.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Once we understand all of the mysteries and seeming anomalies presented by quantum mechanics, perhaps we’ll know. But perhaps with every answer we gain, new mysteries and anomalies will appear. Physicists know, or at least think they know, that an atomic particle can be in more than one place at the same time; sometimes at great distances from one another. They know, or think they know, that a particle can disappear in one spot and reappear in another without ever traveling the distance between.

I’m not sure Newtonian physics (which your question assumes fully explanatory) can be trusted to tell us a whole lot about the physical world anymore, let alone about the powers of God.
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Much as quantum mechanics has gone a long way towards giving us something like a rudimentary grasp of how particles behave, Newtonian physics is still explanatory on the level of larger things like human bodies. As I understand it (and that’s not a lot) the notion that a particle could be in more than one place at a time holds until that particle is actually observed - at that point, it’s in one place.

In any case, there is really no point in wondering how God does anything - if you assume an all-powerful god exists in the first place, there’s basically nothing such a being couldn’t do, including creating extra matter for all the bodies that have had to share it during their earthly incarnations. So there’s your “fully explanatory” theory; whether anyone knows how (or even whether) it happens seems largely irrelevant.
 
Sair said:
Much as quantum mechanics has gone a long way towards giving us something like a rudimentary grasp of how particles behave, Newtonian physics is still explanatory on the level of larger things like human bodies. As I understand it (and that’s not a lot) the notion that a particle could be in more than one place at a time holds until that particle is actually observed - at that point, it’s in one place.

In any case, there is really no point in wondering how God does anything - if you assume an all-powerful god exists in the first place, there’s basically nothing such a being couldn’t do, including creating extra matter for all the bodies that have had to share it during their earthly incarnations. So there’s your “fully explanatory” theory; whether anyone knows how (or even whether) it happens seems largely irrelevant.
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You were the one who questioned how the particles in a human body could be re-assembled and how one person could have “possession” of one atom while another had possession of the same atom at the same time, not me. My only point was that we can’t really negate the possibility because we understand so little about how particles actually work.

And no, some physicists truly hold (and have at least mathematical formulas to “prove” it) that some particles can literally be in two places at the same time. Most also hold that you really can’t “observe” a particle as it is because the act of observing it changes it.

You are, of course, mostly correct in saying that if an all-powerful God exists there is nothing He couldn’t do, but not entirely, like cause Himself not to exist. If He truly is God, then existence is part of his nature, and he cannot “not be”.

And I would not argue against your point that if God exists, it is not necessary (or possible for that matter) to know how He does everything He does. If we knew that, we would be infinite too, and there can’t be two infinites.

Regardless, all that quantum physics stuff is interesting even so. So, for that matter is a lot of the stuff physicists come up with, though I understand it far less than they do. But there are unknown and even what some of them say are unknowable things in their paths all the time, it seems.
 
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