An Image Imaging: A Study on the Nature and Vocation of Women (My Senior Thesis)

 With all my love, to my mother.

For all my sisters (by nature, law, and friendship); for all my grandmothers of all generations; for my aunts, cousins, and nieces: may the birth of this nine-month-long labor of love ultimately serve to create a better world for you all to grow and live in. 

May it aid in correcting all the errors that steal the glory and dignity proper to all women and raising all women to their appropriate and necessary acceptance, honor, and roles in nurturing and loving all persons.

In our times the question of ‘women’s rights’ has taken on a new significance in the broad context of the rights of the human person. The biblical and evangelical message sheds light on this cause… by safeguarding the truth about the ‘unity’ of the ‘two’, that is to say the truth about the dignity and vocation that result from the specific diversity and personal originality of man and woman. Consequently, even the rightful opposition of women to what is expressed in the biblical words ‘He shall rule over you’ (Gen 3:16) must not under any condition lead to the ‘masculinization’ of women. In the name of liberation from male ‘domination’, women must not appropriate to themselves male characteristics contrary to their own feminine ‘originality’. There is a well-founded fear that if they take this path, women will not ‘reach fulfillment’, but instead will deform and lose what constitutes their essential richness. It is indeed an enormous richness. In the biblical description, the words of the first man at the sight of the first woman… are words of admiration and enchantment, words which fill the whole history of man on earth.

• Mulieris Dignitatem

Introduction

For centuries, humanity has been riddled with dissension leading to the condemnation of the innocent and the oppression of the free. All of these vices can be traced back to a misconception of the distinctions that make our one world full of various, unique, and unrepeatable individuals. Examples include strict comparisons that pit entire genera against each other and instigate inappropriate competition, such as “man vs. woman,” “white vs. black,” and “strong vs. weak.” These are mistakes because they emphasize distinctions without fully crediting the unity that exists in the world, the unity that makes man and woman, black and white, strong and weak all necessary and precious parts of a harmonized whole.

These misconceptions occur when something is ill-communicated, misinterpreted, and then repeated. When we have sloppy semantics then we become sloppy with our thoughts and our actions, which become sloppy traditions, customs, and laws. Then one day we find ourselves living in a messy world made by seven billion sloppy people.

The remedy to this messy world would seem to be better organization, improved knowledge of the innate harmonious and unified order that we find around us. We need greater precision with our words that communicate our thoughts, more discussions that allow our thoughts to be critiqued and edited by other perspectives, resulting in better-formed conceptions of the truths we wish to communicate.

Thus we must be valiant in our pursuit of proper grammar: the appropriate understanding, organization, and usage of the words that mediate our thoughts, both affecting ourselves and those who hear us. To be better grammarians, we must become industrious philosophers, always developing our conceptions of what is true.

Following our desire for improved grammar and semantics, in this paper, we will use the word “humanity” instead of “man” or “mankind” when referring to both men and women in their common nature. This is not only to avoid confusion and occasion for error, but also to avoid an inappropriate over-emphasis on the word “man,” lest we implicate any kind of masculine dominance in the human species. Pope Saint John Paul II himself frequently clarifies himself in his writings, including the following passage from Mulieris Dignitatem (MD): 

The Bible convinces us of the fact that one can have no adequate hermeneutic of man, or of what is ‘human’, without appropriate reference to what is ‘feminine’. There is an analogy in God’s salvific economy: if we wish to understand it fully in relation to the whole of human history, we cannot omit, in the perspective of our faith, the mystery of ‘woman’: virgin-mother-spouse (MD, p. 32). 

In this quote he does two things: first, he fine-tunes the meaning of his own words by saying, ‘of man, or [rather] of what is ‘human’.’ Second, he calls attention to the necessity of the masculine and feminine genders being strictly equal, for one without the other lacks an essential part of their nature, and cannot be known without their other part. ‘One can have no adequate hermeneutic of man, or of what is ‘human’, without appropriate reference to what is ‘feminine’.’ Thus the word “humanity” will be used in reference to both genders, reserving the use of the word “man” only for when referring to human beings of the masculine gender. 

John Paul II makes an interesting note about this word, humanity, in Theology of the Body (TOB). In a footnote, he explains the use of the word “ha’adam” in the Bible that refers to both Adam and Eve as a collective noun, similar in English to “humanity.” The fact that this is a collective noun means that it is appropriate to use both single and plural pronouns referring back to the single word “humanity.” A few pages later, he also mentions that “it is further significant that the first man [(Hebrew: “adam”)], created from the “dust of the ground,” is defined as “male” [(Hebrew: “is”)] only after the creation of the first woman (TOB, p. 147). Thus, the word “adam” is not a proper noun but is taken in reference to the objective reality of humanity, that is, the nature of humanity, which is necessarily applicable to both men and women, despite the potential confusion that can arise from the chronology of Genesis. These two words (“ha’adam” and “adam”) have been used in the following work taken as referring to the human nature common to both genders, along with corresponding single or plural pronouns for different emphasis. Though this may feel strange and unusual to the reader at first, reading and using translations of the Bible that use the word “man” in place of “mankind” or “humanity” can subconsciously place an over-emphasis on males to the exclusion of females. As will be pursued in-depth in the following pages, to have one and not the other is to not properly have “humanity,” and thus using the word “man” when referring to the common nature is a contradiction of terms. It is further encouraged by the author to correct our daily usage of these words as well.

This work strives neither to undervalue men nor to encourage the masculinization of women, in which women deplore the feminine state and strive for masculine qualities. For it is in the relationship between persons, between men and women in particular, that “the personal dignity of both man and woman find expression” (MD, p. 13). Nor will it so glorify women over men that it fuels unrealistic idolatry of femininity. 

The personal resources of femininity are certainly no less than the resources of masculinity: they are merely different. Hence a woman, as well as a man, must understand her ‘fulfillment’ as a person, her dignity and vocation, on the basis of these resources, according to the richness of the femininity which she received on the day of creation and which she inherits as an expression of the ‘image and likeness of God’ that is specifically hers (MD, p. 15). 

A woman’s ‘dignity and vocation,’ grounded in her particular ‘personal resources of femininity,’ are the medium through which she is the ‘image and likeness of God.’ This “imaging” is the ‘fulfillment’ of her ‘as a person.’ 

The author’s hope is to explore this feminine ‘image and likeness of God’, including as generally as possible the essential and glorious dimensions of womens’ ‘dignity and vocation.’ This is to envelope all women, especially those who consider themselves “different” or even “broken,” into a common definition, while at the same time destroying the idea that in a world of unique and unrepeatable individuals, there is one “ideal woman.” Every individual is far too specific for that. Each and every woman has the perfection of her own person to be striving for. Thus, if the phrase “ideal woman” must continue, it must develop into meaning that there are as many different versions of the “ideal woman” as there ever have been, are, and will be, women. 

The goal of this work is to strengthen our understanding of what a woman is and what the vocation proper to her feminine nature is. We will pursue this end by first digging into what it means to be human and how this one nature is also divided into two (seemingly nearly contradictory) genders. Then we will dive into how this nature and its human vocation is specialized for women by the feminine powers. At significant points in this pursuit, grammatical insights will illuminate new ways to read key texts. This is not to be an exhaustive exhortation on the nature of women, nor is it a “How To” manual telling women how to live. These ends are impossible for any finite work to contain, for collecting all the choices every woman could make in every circumstance would grow exponentially and quickly exceed our abilities to comprehend the data. We would always be able to find more variables, which, applied to every woman, would bring us as close to infinity as we might like, and would be increasingly difficult to understand. Hence, this work is to be a hand-rail to guide our thoughts about how to define a person, what is proper to a person, and how one’s gender affects their existence. 

We will always rely on the radiating brilliance of Pope Saint John Paul II’s devout philosophy as our foundation and framework. Beginning with his analysis of the beginning of humanity, we will learn what a human being is, how such beings are most properly called “persons” since they are made in the image of God, and what their God-given vocation is. Following this will be a discussion of how being separated into two genders furthers this “imaging” of the Divine by placing us in an implicit and explicit communion of persons. Finally, we will explore how this personhood and communal vocation is lived out by the feminine gender and how the general nature and call permeates all dimensions of her being and all particular ways she may live.

Personality: Woman’s First Dimension

Humanity is made in the image and likeness of God. Pope Saint John Paul II in Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body (TOB), analyzes the first two chapters of Genesis to discover the meaning of human existence as an embodied spirit. The two essential parts of any human being are just that: embodied and spirit. Humanity is both a material and spiritual being, living as a creature in creation while being superior to it due to their intellectual soul: hence they are more like God than beasts. 

According to John Paul II’s analysis on Genesis 1:26-28, the definition of human nature is a ruling and creative person, of which the primary (human) activities are procreation (multiplication) and stewardship (ruling and subduing). 

Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ 

The fundamental key to understanding this reality is Genesis 1’s emphasis on humanity being made in the Image of God, participating in His creative, communal, and ruling powers. 

John Paul II’s analysis of these verses says that:

... Man is created on earth together with the visible world. At the same time, however, the Creator orders him to subdue and rule the earth (Gen. 1:28): he is therefore placed above the world. Although man is so strictly tied to the visible world, nevertheless the biblical narrative does not speak of his likeness with the rest of creatures, but only with God… (TOB, p. 135).

We see here that from the moment of humanity’s creation, they are ‘created in the earth together with the visible world’ but at the same time are ‘placed above the world.’ In their superiority, they have two dimensions of ruling the earth: through procreation and stewardship. Humanity is to rule the earth, but what is in the earth that they must rule? Both the “fruit” they have filled ‘the earth’ with and ‘everything living that moves upon the earth.’ Thus we see that humanity was made for the active cultivation of the world in two sub-creative ways: an eternal way, as regards their relationships with other immortal souls, and a temporal way, through the acts of procreation and stewardship. 

The first instance of humanity (adam: nature of humanity, “original man”) enacting their vocation is in Genesis 2 when they name the animals. During this task, humanity realizes that their species is the sole embodied spirit in creation, making them “alone” with respect to the other creatures. This reality is referred to by John Paul II as “original solitude,” in which humanity comes to know their own nature as in the image and likeness of God. On this topic, John Paul II says, 

... Man’s original solitude is defined based on a specific ‘test’ or on an examination that man undergoes before God (and in some way also before himself). Through this ‘test,’ man gains the consciousness of his own superiority, that is, that he cannot be put on par with any other species of living beings on earth (TOB, p. 148). 

By naming all the other creatures in creation, humanity does not find their likeness anywhere, which leaves them fully conscious of their nature as being more godly than worldly. In their recognition of this solitude, humanity not seeing themself in creation, “finds himself from the first moment of his existence before God in search of his own being, as it were; one could say, in search of his own definition” (TOB, p. 149). This definition reveals itself in their human activity of ruling because of what they do and how they do it, thereby manifesting what they are. 

In original solitude, “... consciousness reveals man as the one who possesses the power of knowing with respect to the visible world. With this knowledge… man at the same time reveals himself to himself in all the distinctiveness of his being” (TOB, p. 150). From the beginning, “adam” is before God, ‘in search of his own being’ because “he” fails to identify with the visible world around “him.” Self-consciousness manifests humanity ‘as the one with the power of knowing with respect to the visible world.’ They are totally distinct from the visible world; they are alone, singular. By being self-conscious they not only know themselves to be above the rest of creation and thus its ruler, but also as its knower, beings ‘with the power of knowing with respect to the visible world’. Before God, they know themselves not as part of the world, but in His image as its knower and ruler. From this moment on, they know themselves not only as human beings but human persons: a human doing the human activity; an image imaging. 

Genesis shows us the connection between humanity seeing their distinction from the rest of creation and being a human person (an embodied intellect). This happens through their experience of knowing creation and not seeing themselves among it. No other creature looks or acts like them. Thus, it is their very bodily experience in the visible world that leads them to know themselves as the greatest among the material world, thus enacting their nature as self-conscious and self-determinate human persons. 

The analysis of [Genesis 2] will allow us, further, to link man’s original solitude with the awareness of the body, through which man distinguishes himself from the animalia and ‘separates himself’ from them, and through which he is a person… As a result, one can affirm that this sketch [of man naming the animals] is intrinsic to the meaning of original solitude and belongs to that dimension of solitude through which man has from the beginning been in the visible world as a body among bodies and discovers the meaning of his own bodiliness (TOB, p. 152 & 153). 

 

The body is the manifestation of the person, and it is through this means that humanity realizes its divine likeness as a subject. “Man is a subject not only by his self-consciousness and by self-determination, but also based on his own body. The structure of this body is such that it permits him to be the author of genuinely human activity. In this activity, the body expresses the person” (TOB, p. 154). Hence the actions of an embodied spirit are the manifestation of their authentic human activity, that is, of knowing and loving creation. If man were not embodied, he would not be a human being, and therefore would not act like one. Thus the fact that humanity lives as enfleshed souls dictates by necessity that their temporal actions express their nature, for a thing acts like what it is. The most proper kinds of actions to them would be ones through which enacts their vocation of knowing and ruling the earth.

Some may acknowledge in name only the equality of nature (and therefore, of dignity) between the genders in their common humanity, yet, object to the idea that both sexes have the same vocation. This can be addressed in the present discussion in two ways: first, we agree that men and women are of the same human species. This implies a common activity, for a species acts like what it is. In this case, the species is human, and therefore there is a human activity that both genders necessarily partake in as members of that species. Thus, both genders are to be parents and stewards, partaking in the sub-creative acts of procreation and stewardship that are proper to humanity. The further distinction between fatherhood and motherhood is a real one, but not in the scope of the generalities currently being discussed, and will be addressed later.

Second, it may further be argued that though women are necessary for procreation, they are not to rule nor subdue the world, for, in Genesis, it is Adam who actually names the animals. This misinterpretation can be addressed by attention to the original Hebrew. If one were to understand the etymology of the Hebrew word “adam,” then it would be clear that this word means “mankind” or “humanity” in the sense of their objective, common nature, not “he, the first male.” Thus, it is not “Adam” who names the animals and rules over the world, but “adam,” that is, humanity, ‘both male and female’ who were made with the common vocation of parenting and stewarding. 

In this way, they show themselves to be like God: they lovingly order creation towards its proper end and participate in the creation of new life. Mankind is a subduer, ruler, knower, and namer. These acts are theirs by nature due to their spiritual distinction from the visible world. They are beyond it, so they rule it, know it, love it, and through this experience, encounter what is beyond their own nature. This encounter inspires consciousness of their own definition: ruling and creating persons made in the image of God.

Sexuality: Woman’s Second Dimension

This “imaging” occurs in two different modes, commonly referred to as being “male” or “female.” This distinction between the two genders affirms our human vocation since it furthers what it means to be made in the image of God: not only are these two modes of existing two distinct ways of participating in the human vocation (knowing, loving, sub-creating), but the relationship between the two genders is itself in the image of the Triune God. 

This is the second dimension of the meaning of humanity that John Paul II directs our attention to:

In his original solitude man reaches personal consciousness in the process of ‘distinction’ from all living beings (animalia), and at the same time, in this solitude, he opens himself toward a being akin to himself… [Thus] we can deduce that man became the image of God not only through his humanity, but also through the communion of persons, which man and woman form from the very beginning… Man becomes an image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion. He is, in fact, ‘from the beginning’ not only an image in which the solitude of one Person, who rules the world, mirrors itself, but also and essentially the image of an inscrutable divine communion of Persons (TOB, p. 162 & 163). 

Through their distinction from the rest of creation and discovering their likeness to God in their vocation to know and love creation, humanity discovers an intrinsic desire for union with each other. They were not made as a single organism, originating to discover their solitude in Creation and remain solitary. They were made as two subjects with a common nature, and in knowing and loving their “second ‘I’,” bear witness to the creative perspective of their nature (TOB, p. 168).

For this community of persons to be expressed physically amongst humanity, the necessary condition is that there first be distinct beings to then be unified. “[Original unity] is based on masculinity and femininity, which are, as it were, two different ‘incarnations,’ that is, two ways in which the same human being, created ‘in the image of God’ (Gen. 1:27), ‘is a body’” (TOB, p. 157). In this quote, John Paul II is emphasizing that the sexual distinction within the nature of humanity causes ‘two different incarnations’ of the same nature. Both men and women have the nature of a human being informing their material existence, and both versions of their human bodies being manifestations of the same human nature, are made distinct to share a common union.

This common nature exists as individuals, manifestations of human nature in matter. The incarnation of the soul in the body is the meaning of the body. The body is the sign and the person is the thing signified. Thus, the actions of the body are expressions of the person acting. “The body manifests man and, in manifesting him, acts as an intermediary that allows man and woman, from the beginning, to ‘communicate’ with each other according to that communio personarum willed for them in particular by the Creator” (TOB, p. 176). The body is an incarnation of human nature, endowed with the necessary attributes and abilities to fulfill its nature: that is, to know and love creation and each other. Just as to separate the “person” or the soul from its body would be to destroy the human person, so too would separating the body, and therefore the gender, from the soul would be to destroy the human person. Separate from their body, they would not have the attributes or abilities required to know and love creation or each other. For humanity, to be bodiless, and therefore genderless, is to cease to be human. 

The activity of the body is to express humanity’s knowing and loving of creation and each other. It is this latter portion of humanity’s vocation that John Paul II calls “reciprocal enrichment” where two or more embodied persons know and love each other (TOB, p. 165). Thus, “masculinity and femininity express the twofold aspect of man’s somatic constitution (‘this time she is flesh from my flesh and bone from my bones’)” (TOB, p. 165). Mankind’s ‘somatic constitution’ is the bodily organization of their principles. This ‘somatic constitution’ is ‘twofold’ because there are two different bodily organizations of their common principles. This twofold manifestation makes masculinity and femininity complementary to each other, forming two equal parts of a whole. 

Another important thing to remember is that although there can be a human that is either male or female, there cannot be a human that is neither male nor female, thus the gender of an enfleshed being is an essential accident. Being human and either male or female is not the same as being human and having blonde hair or brown hair (both colors and having hair being non-essential accidents). “Precisely the function of sex [that is, being male or female], which in some way is ‘constitutive for the person’ (not only an ‘attribute of the person’), shows how deeply man, with all his spiritual solitude, with all the uniqueness and unrepeatability proper to the person, is constituted by the body as ‘he’ or ‘she’” (TOB, p. 166). Gender is something one is, not an activity that one does, something one has, can remove, or exchange any more legitimately than trying to remove or exchange one’s humanity. Thus it is vital to see that gender is not just an attribute: residing in one’s soul on the somatic level (that is, residing in the sensitive soul and ruling over the vegetative soul) one’s gender dictates how one’s body will express oneself, both passively and actively. 

We see this passive expression by observing that one’s gender rules over one’s vegetative soul, affecting how one grows, eats, and reproduces. As a part of one’s sensitive soul, it also affects one’s instincts, behaviors, and personality, actively expressing the person through their actions.

It seems that generally speaking, there is no such thing as a ‘masculine intellect’ or a ‘feminine intellect,’ in so far as the intellect is, strictly speaking, not bodily, and gender is the principle of humanity’s somatic constitution. However, the brain is also this fascinating "seat" of the intellect, for there is no act of thinking that occurs in the intellect and does not occur in the brain. The brain is also the "seat" of the majority if not all of one's physical activity. “Woman’s constitution differs from that of man; in fact we know today that it is different even in the deepest bio-physiological determinants” (TOB, p. 211). Modern science confirms that there are real differences between a masculine brain and a feminine brain, and therefore, in masculine behavior and instinct and feminine behavior and instinct. These differences affect the intellect in the way that one’s gender essentially alters the core medium through which the intellect knows the world. Gender is an essential lens that affects how the brain collects information and experience and processes it in tandem with the intellect. One’s gender thus informs one’s intellect accidentally from the outside-in, like experience, not essentially from the inside-out, like knowledge. Thus gender informs the intellect accidentally, and though it is not the defining human trait, as our somatic principle it is just as essential as having an intellect and is the root cause of how we consciously experience our bodily lives.

We can continue our observation of the body actively expressing the person in the mystery of procreation. 

In the mystery of creation—on the basis of the original and constitutive ‘solitude’ of his being—man has been endowed with a deep unity between what is, humanly and through the body, male in him and what is, equally human and through the body, female in him. On all this, right from the beginning, the blessing of fruitfulness descended, linked with human procreation (cf. Gen 1:28) (TOB, p. 164). 

In this quote, John Paul II expands on what is male and female to include a creative perspective rooted in their spousal union. This union is a particular expression of their common humanity and their human vocation to know and love creation and each other. Procreation is when a man and a woman communicate and confirm physically their common nature through the spousal character of their genders.

This mutual gifting of one’s essence has an inherently creative perspective: “Masculinity and femininity, is that characteristic of man—male and female—that allows them, when they become one flesh, to place their whole humanity at the same time under the blessing of fruitfulness” (TOB, p. 167). If man and woman were not complementarily distinct, then they would not be able to unite into a single whole. This union bears fruit. This union itself gives a gift to those who gave themselves. “Masculinity-femininity… is the original sign of a creative donation and at the same time man, male-female, becomes aware of [themselves] as a gift lived… in an original way” (TOB, p. 183). This ‘gift lived’ or active gift of self is a prerequisite for creating. “[The] creative perspective is deeply rooted in the consciousness of humanity and in the particular consciousness of the spousal meaning of the body” (TOB p. 200). This ‘gift lived’ between man and woman confirms both their common humanity and their complementary distinctness as a communion of persons, making ‘their whole humanity’ fruitful. 

Thus we see that the bodily existence of the person is necessarily creative. By actively expressing one’s self through the body, one necessarily participates in the creative perspective of the human vocation. In acting like themselves, in acting as male or female, they express their “first I” materially. This self-expression, this ‘gift lived,’ is what transforms into the thing created.

In this way [Genesis 2:24], a great creative perspective is opened up, which is precisely the perspective of man’s existence, which continually renews itself by means of ‘procreation’... This perspective is deeply rooted in the consciousness of humanity… and also in the particular consciousness of the spousal meaning of the body (TOB, p. 200). 

This ‘creative perspective’ is ‘renewed’ in procreation and our desire for procreation reminds us that we are to live creatively, for as is seen in God and in how we imitate Him, love is creative. But this perspective exceeds procreation. Every human, celibate, infertile, or otherwise is fully human and called to live the human vocation of knowing, loving, and sub-creating. Every human being by their nature is spousal and their authentic human activity is necessarily creative. Through their creative actions, they are truly a ‘gift lived’ and participate in the communio personarum, imaging the Triune God.

Being a spouse is the second dimension of humanity’s existence. Spousal knowing, loving, and creating is an expression and confirmation of the person, as made in the image of God, following directly from the fundamental first dimension of being a person: 

The fact that man ‘created as man and woman’ is in the image of God means not only that each of them individually is like God, as a rational and free being. It also means that man and woman, created as a ‘unity of the two’ in their common humanity, are called to live in a communion of love, and in this way to mirror in the world the communion of love that is in God, through which the Three Persons love each other in the intimate mystery of the one divine life… This ‘unity of the two’, which is a sign of interpersonal communion, shows that the creation of man is also marked by a certain likeness to the divine communion (‘communio’). This likeness is a quality of the personal being of both man and woman, and is also a call and a task (MD, p. 8). 

Humanity, made in God’s image and likeness, are a communion of persons. Being ‘rational and free being[s],’ they are subjects - thinkers, “willers,” doers - acting in the world as real causes of real effects. A result of this subjectivity is the ability to know and therefore love another being, just as the Father knows and loves Himself (the Word and Spirit respectively). Being a subject implies an attitude of union towards those with whom one shares a commonality. Mirroring the Trinity, ‘man and woman, created as a ‘unity of the two’ in their ‘common humanity’ are a ‘communion of love.’ As subjects with free wills, ‘this likeness… is a call and a task,’ an invitation and an instruction.

Maternity: Woman’s Third Dimension

Having deeply explored humanity’s “beginning” to come to know the first two dimensions of their nature and vocation, let us now turn our attention to the third dimension, specializing in the more particular vocation of women. “The Creator entrusts dominion over the earth to the human race, to all persons, to all men and women, who derive their dignity and their vocation from the common ‘beginning’” (MD, p. 7). The beginning of this third dimension is in the activity of the second dimension. Becoming a parent is the fruit of being a spouse. 

Let us move our inquiry to the call to action given by God to our first parents: 

In the same context as the creation of man and woman, the biblical account speaks of God’s instituting marriage as an indispensable condition for the transmission of life to new generations, the transmission of life to which marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordered: ‘Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it’ (Gen 1:28) (MD, p. 8). 

Humanity, man and woman, by the spousal nature of their bodies, are ordered toward the ’transmission of life.’ A child is the fruit of spousal love, the incarnation of the “third I” through which man and woman know and love each other. 

For the rest of this work, we will dive into how the ‘unity of the two’ bears fruit and how these spousal and parental dimensions exist both naturally and supernaturally in different individuals. “In the ‘unity of the two’, man and woman are called from the beginning not only to exist ‘side by side’ or ‘together’, but they are called to exist mutually ‘one for the other’” (MD, p. 9). Thus: 

… to be human means to be called to interpersonal communion. The text of Genesis 2:18-25 [Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him’... Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh (Gen 2:18-26).] shows that marriage is the first and, in a sense, the fundamental dimension of this call. But it is not the only one (MD, p. 9).

 Our identity is manifest in our bodily existence and is to be known through sincere gifts of self. The spousal meaning and expression of ourselves through the medium of our bodies is the ‘fundamental dimension of this call.’ 

We saw in the first part of this work on Genesis 1 that “being a person means striving towards self-realization…” and in the second part that that ‘self-realization’ “can only be achieved ‘through a sincere gift of self’”(MD, p. 9). The model for this interpretation of the person is God himself as Trinity, as a communion of Persons. Thus, from Genesis 1, the personhood of “adam” is established, closely followed by the spousal character of their bodily existence, the “second I” becoming an intimate and necessary dimension of our definition and vocation. God, Knowing and Loving Himself, is Three in One, eternally and infinitely the Triune God. Hence, we must now transition to finding the “third I” in the dimension of humanity’s definition and vocation.

This is most easily seen in a difficult example; difficult because our path will seem quite roundabout. We will here turn our attention to the biblical meaning of “knowledge” in the consummation of marriage. First, we will look at the personal subjectivity of the man and woman in marriage and how through knowing and giving themselves, their love becomes incarnate so that the ‘unity of the two’ truly, with the presence of all three “I”s, mirrors the Triune God.

The human vocation is to know and love each other and the created world. As said above, interpersonal love is necessarily both subjective and creative, thus the vocations of man and woman have a creative perspective fundamentally informing their vocation.

This ‘knowledge’ includes also the consummation of marriage, the specific consummatum; in this way one obtains the grasp of the ‘objectivity’ of the body, hidden in the somatic powers of man and woman, and at the same time the grasp of the objectivity of man who ‘is’ the body. Through the body, the human person is ‘husband’ and ‘wife’; at the same time, in this particular act of ‘knowledge’ mediated by personal masculinity and femininity, one seems to reach also the discovery of the ‘pure’ subjectivity of the gift: that is, mutual self-realization in the gift. (TOB, p. 211). 

At first glance, it is startling to see the word ‘objectivity’ in conjunction with ‘the body’ in a holy and religious text. However, though one can be the object of negative actions or intentions, one can also be the object of attention and love. Bringing this word into further context, here we are speaking of knowing and being known, receiving and giving, and this is distinctly different than accusative objectivity. This dramatic distinction is why in some languages one finds a dative case separate from the accusative case. The usage of the accusative case describes who (nominative case) punched whom (accusative case). While the usage of the dative case specifies who gave (nominative case), who received (dative case), and what was given (accusative case). In the dative case, the “object” is the thing given, the “object” is the gift. ‘In this way one obtains the grasp of the ‘objectivity’ of the body, hidden in the somatic powers of man and woman, and at the same time the grasp of the objectivity of man who ‘’is’ the body.’ To be “objective,” in this context, is to be the gift. 

Additionally, ‘one seems to reach... the discovery of the ‘pure’ subjectivity of the gift: that is, mutual self-realization in the gift.’ Giving of one’s self, ‘mediated by personal masculinity and femininity,’ makes one a thing to be received and thus a thing to be known. Because of the somatic homogeneity of the person, this gift is not merely a sign or substitution of giving one’s self, but truly a communication of one’s personhood, one’s being, to another. One’s very essence thus becomes the object, the thing given, the thing known.

 This spousal knowing and giving is the relationship and circumstance of the third and final dimension of humanity’s call: parenthood.

Knowledge conditions begetting. Begetting is a perspective that man and woman inset into their reciprocal ‘knowledge.’ Begetting goes thus beyond the limits of the subject-object that man and woman seem to be for each other, given that ‘knowledge’ indicates, on the one hand, he who ‘knows’ and, on the other, she who ‘is known’ (or vice versa) (TOB, p. 211). 

This gift lived, reciprocally given and received in marriage, creates a “third I” through which man and woman know each other: “Procreation brings it about that ‘the man and the woman (his wife)’ know each other reciprocally in the ‘third,’ originated by both” (TOB, p. 211). This “third I” is twofold: it is the “one flesh” consummated by the man and woman in which they themselves are the gifts given, ‘mediated by [their] personal masculinity and femininity,’ in which they ‘know each other reciprocally.’ It is also the material manifestation of this reality - this one flesh, this “third I” - as the new body of the conceived child, the incarnation of the “third I.” “This “knowledge” becomes in some way a revelation of the new man [human], in whom both, the man and woman, again recognize each other, their humanity, their living image,” for “in everything that is determined by both body and sex, ‘knowledge’ inscribes a living and real content” (TOB, p. 212). Thus, mutual ‘gifts lived,’ i.e., spousal knowledge, is inherently parental.

Woman’s identity is fully known in the three dimensions in which she is the image of God: first as a person, second as a spouse, and third as a mother. These three dimensions are mentioned by John Paul II in the following quote:

The human being is a person, a subject who decides for himself. At the same time, man ‘cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of self’... This truth about the person also opens up the path to a full understanding of women’s motherhood. Motherhood is the fruit of the marriage union of a man and woman, of that biblical ‘knowledge’ which corresponds to the ‘union of the two’ (MD, p. 25).

Femininity is fundamentally tied to motherhood, for conceiving, harboring, and growing a child is an activity unique to the female gender and is the summation of her feminine vocation. “The woman stands before the man as mother, subject of the new life that is conceived and develops within her and is born from her into the world” (TOB, p. 210). A ‘mother’ is a ‘subject.’ She is a knower, a lover, a creator. These are all nouns that are proper to a subject, expressing the activity of ‘self-conscious and self-determining persons.’ Thus, as one who can know, love, and create, a woman partakes in her intellectual dimension and her embodied dimension most fully and deeply by becoming a mother. At no other moment does such knowledge, love, and creativity result in such a great thing as ‘the new life that is conceived and develops within her and is born from her into the world.’

Motherhood is an inside-out demonstration of what a woman is. From motherhood can be seen the necessary spousal and personal qualities that define her. It is the ‘full depth’ of her femininity, and all of her other powers and qualities exist to support this summit of her being. Motherhood shows in full measure the feminine constitution. 

It seems as if the specific determination of the woman, though her body and her sex, hides what constitutes the very depth of her femininity… We should observe in Genesis 4:1 the mystery of femininity manifests and reveals itself in its full depth through motherhood, as the text says, ‘who conceived and gave birth’… Motherhood shows this constitution from within, as a particular power of the feminine organism, which serves with creative specificity for the conception and generation of human beings with the concurrence of the man (TOB, p. 210 & 211).

The constitution of women is both hidden and revealed. It is hidden in that her creative act takes place within her, as she harbors conceived love in her heart and womb, for her motherhood is an activity of both the spiritual and physical dimensions of her existence. This fruit of both heart and womb is then shared when it has reached a moment of completion, a “fullness of time,” ready for a new beginning. “The body of the woman becomes a place of the conception of the new human being. In her womb, the human takes on its characteristic human appearance before being brought into the world” (TOB, p. 212). She is then revealed in that both she and we know her better by seeing her in this completing dimension of her vocation. John Paul II says, “Motherhood as a human fact and phenomenon, is fully explained on the basis of the truth about the person. Motherhood is linked to the personal structure of the woman and to the personal dimension of the gift: ‘I have brought a man into being with the help of the Lord’ (Gen 4:1)” (MD, p. 26). As a fulfillment of her nature, motherhood is an expression of a woman’s nature as an extension of her personhood. This expression is twofold: first, in the child who is an expression of his parents by being the incarnation of their love, which is to say of their gifts of self. Second, women express their nature by the continual “mothering” that comes with the child: nurturing, encouraging, and guiding new life to maturity, (a new “fullness of time”). Through these actions, she is once again revealed as a knower, lover, and “creator” as she co-creates this “new man,” interacting with him personally, sharing their ‘common humanity’ in their unique relationship, and providing for his environment, nourishment, and education (TOB, p. 213).

John Paul II speaks of the special precedence that woman has in her motherhood over both the physical and spiritual formation of her child:

The ‘woman’, as mother and first teacher of the human being (education being the spiritual dimension of parenthood), has a specific precedence over the man. Although motherhood, especially in the bio-physical sense, depends upon the man, it places an essential ‘mark’ on the whole personal growth process of new children… Motherhood in its personal-ethical sense expresses a very important creativity on the part of the woman, upon whom the very humanity of the new human being mainly depends (MD, p. 27).

She has this precedence accidentally by being the majority of who her child knows and imitates in the first and most sub-consciously formative years of their life. Her actions, her expressions of her personhood, form the child in a nearly irreversible way. Thus, ‘motherhood in its personal-ethical sense expresses a very important creativity on the part of the woman, upon whom the very humanity of the new human being mainly depends.’ “This unique contact with the new human being developing within her gives rise to an attitude towards human beings - not only towards her own child, but every human being - which profoundly marks the woman’s personality” (MD, p. 27). The personalities of all women are fundamentally maternal, for to be a woman is implicitly to be a mother, the feminine ‘creative specificity.’

This quote from John Paul II introduces an important quality of parenthood; showing exactly how parenthood is another dimension of how humanity images God: all human generation is a participation in God’s generative power.

This characteristic of biblical language - its anthropomorphic way of speaking about God - points indirectly to the mystery of the eternal ‘generating’ which belongs to the inner life of God. Nevertheless, in itself this “generating” has neither ‘masculine’ nor ‘feminine’ qualities. It is by nature totally divine… [Thus] we must seek in God the absolute model of all ‘generation’ among human beings… All ‘generating’ among creatures finds its primary model in that generating which in God is completely divine, that is, spiritual. All ‘generating’ in the created world is to be likened to this absolute and uncreated model… Human ‘fatherhood’ and ‘motherhood’, bears within itself a likeness to, or analogy with the divine ‘generating’ and with that ‘fatherhood’ which in God is ‘totally different’, that is, completely spiritual and divine essence. Whereas in the human order, generation is proper to the ‘unity of the two’: both are ‘parents’, the man and the woman alike. (MD, p. 11). 

It is always God’s generating power that one participates in. It is not specifically feminine nor masculine; generation is a human activity because God shares His own creative power, allowing the father and mother to co-create with Him, acting as real causes of a “third I” as the incarnation of their love. On our own, the best we can do is model and make. 

Manifested in the fine arts and technology, this is a beautiful and impressive expression of humanity’s creative power, another dimension of a personal self-gift becoming something new. However, the greatest painting does not breathe, but is a phantom of breath; the greatest technological advancement could not love freely, as a ‘self-conscious and self-determining’ person, but merely operate off of pre-ordained principles and up-loaded “experiences.” Nothing made by man alone can compare with a living human person. Motherhood participates in the generation of the ‘new man’ in a particularly active and intimate way, implying “from the beginning a special openness to the new person: and this is precisely the woman’s ‘part’” (MD, p. 25).

Participation in Divine Generation is shown most explicitly in the Virgin Mary, Spouse of God, standing in the place of all of humanity, intimately tied to the Incarnational and Paschal Mysteries.

The biblical exemplar of the ‘woman’ finds its culmination in the motherhood of the Mother of God. The words of the Proto-evangelium - ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman’ - find here a fresh confirmation. We see that through Mary - through her maternal ‘fiat’... - God begins a New Covenant with humanity. This is the eternal and definitive Covenant in Christ, in his body and blood, in his Cross and Resurrection. Precisely because this Covenant is to be fulfilled ‘in flesh and blood’ its beginning is in the Mother… Motherhood has been introduced into the order of the Covenant that God made with humanity in Jesus Christ. Each time that motherhood is repeated in human history, it is always related to the Covenant which God established with the human race through the motherhood of the Mother of God… The motherhood of every woman, understood in the light of the Gospel [“Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!... “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it” (Lk 11:27-28)], is similarly not only ‘of flesh and blood’: it expresses a profound ‘listening to the word of the living God’ and the readiness to ‘safeguard’ this Word, which is ‘the word of eternal life’ (cf. Jn 6:68) (MD, p. 27).

But practically speaking, how do women profoundly listen and readily ‘safeguard… the word of eternal life?’ The answer is in the two active dimensions of the feminine vocation: a natural dimension and a supernatural dimension. “Motherhood… and… virginity… [are] two particular dimensions of the vocation of women in the light of divine Revelation” (MD, p. 10). Represented by the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, all women are present at and personally share in the ‘definitive Covenant in Christ, in his body and blood, in his Cross and Resurrection.’ The woman’s heart that truly loves is inseparable from the trials and joys of her beloved: thus, embodied by the Blessed Virgin, who was completely united to both Christ’s Suffering and Resurrection and us as children of her Divine Spouce, all mothers and therefore all women are joined to Christ’s Sacred Heart through the channel of Mary’s Immaculate Heart. 

Further explaining how motherhood has been forever intertwined with the Paschal Mystery, the Death and Resurrection of Christ, and the foundation of the New Covenant, John Paul II says:

‘When a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world’ (Jn 16:21). The first part of Christ’s words refers to the ‘pangs of childbirth’ which belong to the heritage of original sin; at the same time these words indicate the link that exists between the woman’s motherhood and the Paschal Mystery. For this mystery also includes the Mother’s sorrow at the foot of the Cross - the Mother who through faith shares in the amazing mystery of her Son’s ‘self-emptying’... But the words of the Gospel about the woman who suffers when the time comes for her to give birth to her child, immediately afterwards express joy: it is ‘the joy that a child is born into the world’. This joy too is referred to the Paschal Mystery, to the joy which is communicated to the Apostles on the day of Christ’s Resurrection: ‘So you have sorrow now… but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take you joy from you’ (Jn 16:22-23) (MD, p. 28).

Standing at the foot of the Cross, Mary, personally participating in her Son’s suffering, consecrates the Old Motherhood, and ‘on the day of Christ’s Resurrection,’ the New Motherhood takes its place. 

Motherhood of the New Covenant has two dimensions: natural and divine. Natural motherhood is forever tied to the very cause of Salvation, inscribing in women’s hearts and wombs the Death that brings New Life. Also, divine motherhood is introduced. Before the New Covenant, there was only Divine Fatherhood conceptualized by humanity, but with the birth of the Bride of God, divine motherhood becomes the temporal manifestation of the Spousal Union with God that is to come in the New Kingdom. 

‘Celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven’... is, then, a voluntary celibacy, chosen for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven, in view of man’s eschatological vocation to union with God… Consequently, celibacy for the kingdom of heaven results not only from a free choice on the part of man, but also from a special grace on the part of God, who calls a particular person to live celibacy. While this is a special sign of the Kingdom of God to come, it also serves as a way to devote all the energies of soul and body during one’s earthly life exclusively for the sake of the eschatological kingdom (MD, p. 29).

The emphasis in the Old Testament of the female vocation is on motherhood. 

Certainly this tradition was connected in some way with Israel’s expectation of the Messiah’s coming, especially among the woman of Israel from whom he was to be born… Nevertheless, celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom, or rather, virginity, is undeniably an innovation connected with the incarnation of God (MD, p. 29). 

But this virginity, ‘celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom,’ is the eternal spousal relationship with God lived on earth in time. This is to make manifest ‘the Kingdom of God to come.’ Consecrated virgins truly “mother” those in their lives, bound by that indescribable feminine bound to her Beloved, Who is mirrored to her in every human person. 

“Virginity does not deprive a woman of her prerogatives” (MD, p. 31). Consecrated virgins are spouses and mothers. They are simply not married. Marriage is the sign of being a spouse. Being a spouse is the relationship between persons who chose to know and give themselves to each other, the natural extension of being human.

In this wider context, virginity has to be considered also as a path for women, a path on which they realize their womanhood in a way different from marriage. In order to understand this path, it is necessary to refer once more to the fundamental idea of Christian anthropology. By freely choosing virginity, women confirm themselves as persons, as beings whom the Creator from the beginning has willed for their own sake. At the same time they realize the personal value of their own femininity by becoming ‘a sincere gift of self’ for God who has revealed himself in Christ, a gift for Christ, the Redeemer of humanity and the Spouse of souls: a ‘spousal’ gift. One cannot correctly understand virginity - a woman’s consecrated virginity - without referring to spousal love. It is through this kind of love that a person becomes a gift for the other… The naturally spousal predisposition of the feminine personality finds a response in virginity understood in this way. Women, called from the very ‘beginning’ to be loved and to love, in a vocation to virginity find in Christ first of all as the Redeemer who ‘loved until the end; through his total gift of self; and they respond to this gift with a ‘sincere gift’ of their whole lives. Thus they give themselves to the divine Spouse, and this personal gift tends to union, which is properly spiritual in character. Through the Holy Spirit’s action a woman becomes ‘one spirit’ with Christ the Spouse (MD, p. 30).

Natural Motherhood is the greatest earthly confirmation of a woman’s dignity. Divine motherhood, ie, virginity, is a higher and more radical confirmation of a woman’s dignity by making her “one body” with Christ Himself. In both, the higher spiritual dimension cannot stand without the lower material dimension: thus in both natural and divine motherhood, there is an active and physical dimension and a contemplative and spiritual dimension. These are both to be lived by women as the fulfillment of their maternal vocation.

The reader may be wondering how those who suffer from infertility can truly fulfill their nature without becoming a mother? Besides the obvious option of adoption (and besides, this is not always a feasible option), the response to this question lies in that all humans and therefore all women are made to live for each other. Motherhood is the feminine title for this philanthropic attitude toward persons who are not her spouse, for motherhood is a ‘special openness to [a] new person: and this is precisely the woman’s part.’ Motherhood is an interior reality made manifest by actions. It is an interior disposition that permeates every moment of her life. Thus, any woman, through good works of prayer, charity, hospitality, and education, fulfills her vocation of motherhood, thus fulfilling her personal imaging of the Triune God.

Conclusion

Therefore, the dignity of a woman as an image of God is fully expressed in her motherhood. Motherhood, both natural and supernatural, is a confirmation of a woman’s personhood and her specific feminine powers. Her originality and femininity are essential aspects of her that support and facilitate her creativity, imaging God in her ability to know, love, and sub-create. Motherhood is the feminine summation of her subjectivity as a ‘self-conscious and self determinate’ person and her call to be a spouse in communio personarum, giving her entire self for greater union with her “second I” and for the creation of their “third I.” Women image God through their personality: the objective human nature and vocation that they share with men to know, love, and sub-create; her sexuality: the distinction of the feminine gender from the masculine gender that not only specializes her vocation to know, love, and sub-create, but also serves for the greater union of their common nature; her maternity: bringing a new human into existence and encouraging the growth and perfection of new life. Women image God by participating in His existence as persons, being in communities, and being “creators” of new life.

Motherhood could not be a more natural and fulfilling dimension of womens’ existence than it is already, nor could it be more redeemed and elevating than it is already as the active participation in God’s Divine Creative Power. In this third dimension of her call, a woman not only images her Beloved Creator but sub-creates with Him in the creation of immortal souls ex nihilo. Of course, she does not create ex nihilo, but by the generosity of God, the woman and her husband are real causes of the new person, and God Who creates ex nihilo, does so within her womb. Nowhere else in all of creation since the beginning of time has God chosen to create persons ex nihilo except for in the wombs of women. Thus it is most fitting, having arrived at motherhood as the crowning glory and dignity of women, to say with our Mother Mary, Tabernacle of the Lord:

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.

For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed;

for he who is mighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his name.”

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