Paula

I disagree that men and women have to be different or one wouldn’t be needed. This very idea is what drives the Eternal Subordination of the Son movement, because they claim that hierarchy in the Trinity is required in order to distinguish the Persons.

The only difference in humans that’s truly **needed** is biological. The Bible speaks of the bond between David and Jonathan as “better than the love of women” (which of course some take wrong), and there are plenty of best friends of the same sex. If they happen to be of opposite sexes people presume the relationship to be sexual even when it isn’t. So the presupposition of a non-biological gender-based difference is flawed because there is so much evidence to the contrary.

I think some egals try to attribute non-biological differences out of an over-reaction to the bogus claim that we wish to blur the distinction between the sexes. But as I always reply, it is comps that wish to blur distinctions– between individuals within a sex. They read too much into the “help meet” thing, presuming a spiritual or emotional bond beyond that which any two friends could have, even though the first two humans **had** to be of opposite sex or there’d have been no other “friends” to come.

There is a good reason scripture calls only the male/female sexual relationship “one flesh”: it’s about the flesh. Oh I know, people will go ballistic over that, but as I said, two people of the same sex can be best friends, very complementary, without any hint of sexuality. I’m not saying a husband and wife don’t bond emotionally, but that sexuality is not a requirement for such a bond.

I will have to find some current studies, but those I’ve read in the past showed that while hormones affect the development of the brain, this does not result in any clear advantage in intelligence of one sex over the other, or in particular emotional or spiritual traits. Male and female brains have general tendencies to think in particular ways, but there are too many exceptions to make it a rule. In order for something to be a rule– that is, a universal trait that crosses culture and time– there can be no exceptions. And I am not aware of any study showing an emotional or spiritual trait that is clearly exclusive to one sex or the other.

So both scripture and science, along with much anecdotal evidence, agree that the only necessary and pre-Fall difference between male and female is physical.

“And that’s all I have to say about that.” — Forrest Gump