The author of the book touches on dogmatics. As is known, dogmatics formulates the content of our faith. Those who have an inkling of what fundamental theology or dogmatics is will understand that the question of the human being as woman and man in this book is examined not only exegetically or historically, but at the very center of theology.
The New Testament contains both descriptions of the real life of its time and eternal principles. Today we must be guided by the principles that are included in the New Testament, not by the descriptions of circumstances, because if we wished to apply literally the descriptions of the real life of that time, we would also have to return to slavery.
Jewett bases his book on the fact that, despite the existence of extensive literature in the field of the woman question, fairly little has been written on this question specifically from the aspect of Christian dogmatics. But what has been written in the field of dogmatics has often only repeated the views of previous centuries about what a woman is.
In the book, Jewett has reflected both the conservative and the progressive theologians’ views on the question: What is the human being – woman and man? As the basis for his discussion, Jewett takes the Imago Dei or the doctrine of the image of God, from which the author’s theological arguments derive, which are also reflected in the title of the book, namely, the author argues that God created the human being in His image and likeness, as a result of which the human being is a being that is male and female.
Speaking in general terms, the author, like Augustine, Origen, and Luther, as well as other early theologians, holds that within the canon there is a canon. This means that a literal reading and application of the New Testament is not possible for the reason that in that case we would have to retain several things characteristic of early culture and society, and one of these things typical of an archaic society is the institution of slavery. Thus the Christian congregation today should canonize not the application of the culture characteristic of the society of that time to the present day, but rather the eternal insights of the New Testament about what kind of relationship between woman and man is formed in the light of Christ’s redemption (not in the light of the fall into sin).
Here we arrive at the aspects for which Jewett criticizes the existing interpretations of human nature:
1) the early theologians, in trying to form an understanding of what the human being is, drew ideas from the philosophers. The philosophers’ view, in turn, was entirely different from the Creation story in the first book of Moses (Genesis), and moreover devoted to woman only as much attention as is contained in these words – the bearing of children. Needless to add, in these interpretations the question of man and woman together forming the Imago Dei was not relevant;
2) by defining the roles of men and women only according to how they appear after the story of the fall into sin, the rest of the parts of the biblical text are ignored, namely, the perspective of Christ’s redemption. This is a limited definition of human nature that has nothing to do with Christianity, because it has nothing to do with Christ;
3) the earlier definition of human nature and of the roles of man and woman in theology was formulated through the prism of marriage. In this case, the question of what, in the Christian understanding, the human being as man and woman is, is reduced to the question of what the Christian understanding is of the different roles of a particular man and woman that they fulfill in marriage, ignoring the fact that not every man and woman enter into marriage with one another.
Speaking of the first aspect, Jewett is convinced that human sexuality is not only a mechanism for producing offspring, which is also characteristic of the animal world; rather, God’s plan for creating the human being as woman and man reflects God’s own fellowship in the Trinity – as God is in fellowship within Himself, so too the human being is in fellowship within himself. And the fundamental form of this fellowship, insofar as it concerns the human being, is woman and man. Such an insight allows Jewett to agree that woman was created from man and for man, but with one essential precondition, that only both sexes form the concept of “the human being,” which reflects the Imago Dei. The fact that woman is by her nature different from man – for example, physically weaker than man – does not, in the author’s view, in any way mean that woman should be subject to man. The differences between the two sexes do not give the right to model relationships of super- or sub-ordination. On the contrary, precisely because of these differences, the appropriate model of relationship between men and women is partnership, or a relationship of cooperation, because, according to what is described in the Creation story, the proper relationship between man and woman exists when they accept one another as equals, whose differences mutually complement all spheres of life and human endeavor.
In the first chapter of the book, Jewett examines the three most widespread views of what the human being is and what role the differences between man and woman play (the author represents the third view):
1. The differences between men and women cannot tell us anything about what the human being is, who is created in the image of God.
2. Although the differences between men and women do not form an essential part of the doctrine of the human being, the Scriptures show that man and woman together possess differences that distinguish them from animals, and through this common distinction both – man and woman – affirm the image of God.
According to this view, in order to understand what the human being is, it is not necessary to highlight the mutual differences that exist between man and woman. Likewise, one should not appeal to the primordial masculine principle as the true paradigm of humanity in contrast to the feminine principle.
3. This view holds that to be created in the image of God is to be man and woman. Men and women not only share in the likeness of God, but their very fellowship – the fellowship between man and woman – forms the image of God. Here it is not a matter only of marriage, as has traditionally been assumed. While marriage may be the most intimate form of human fellowship, it is not the fundamental form of fellowship. Man and woman can become husband and wife, and many do so. But in the very nature of creation, husband and wife are in a relationship as man and woman. To be a human being means to be a man or a woman, a man and a woman, and finally – the discussion of this mysterious dualism cannot be avoided until we clarify in essence what the human being is. To speak of the human being as such means to speak of the human being as man and woman together.
In mentioning the most varied interpretations of human nature, the author also gives an insight into the theory of the androgynous being, according to which, at the level of the idea, the human being is androgynous, but at the physical level on which it exists, this androgynous being is either a man or a woman. This theory, which originated with Plato and was later taken over by Philo of Alexandria, is said to have been fairly widespread in rabbinic exegesis. Jewett considers such a doctrine of the human being to be unbiblical. Nonetheless, with all that, a doctrine of the human being of this type, according to the author’s observation, is detected in the Christian world – for example, in the works of the Eastern Church Fathers, in which they tend to speak of the sex of man and woman after the event of the fall into sin, that is, in such a way as if before the fall the differences between the two sexes did not exist. As the most outstanding representative of such theology, Jewett mentions the Greek Church Father and interpreter of Holy Scripture Origen, who regarded sexual activity as sinful and, according to legend, castrated himself in order to avoid sexual desire.
In the Russian Orthodox Church, such an androgynous model is represented by Nikolai Berdyaev. According to Berdyaev’s androgynous theory, the ideal of creation is the presence of both the feminine and the masculine principle in each human being. In the fallen world, this ideal disintegrates, and these two principles (feminine and masculine) not only seek one another but also war with one another, on account of which a cosmic struggle takes place between the sexes, in which the masculine principle struggles with the feminine. According to Berdyaev’s views, the human being in the sinful world cannot live in peace and harmony as long as it exists as a sexual being.
The book in English was worked on by Mag. Theol. Aļesja Lavrinoviča
Editor Mag. Theol. Milda Klampe