Thinking Out Loud with Alan Shlemon - If God Became a Man, Can a Man Become a Woman?

Episode Date: June 4, 2022

A popular tweet claims that if someone can believe God became a man, then they can also believe that a man can become a woman. Alan unpacks this tweet, defines some key terms, and shows why the claim is misleading.

Is it reasonable to claim that if someone believes that God became a man, then they can also believe that a man can become a woman? Well, that's what I want to discuss on this 62nd episode of my podcast, Thinking Out Loud with Alan Schliemann. Does Christian theology support transgender ideology? Well, you wouldn't think so, but someone recently tweeted something that indicates they think the answer is yes. So listen to this tweet, and then I want to kind of unpack and assess it. They said, if you believe God became a human, then you can believe someone can be a different gender than what they were assigned at birth. Okay, that's the entire tweet.

And that seems, you know, simple enough. God changed, so why can't we? What's the problem, right? Now, you might also be wondering, well, Alan, come on, this is just a single tweet. Why bother answering this? Why bother responding to it? And now, I understand it does seem like an isolated challenge. It is worth addressing for three reasons. First of all, it's a very popular tweet. It has thousands of likes and retweets. Second of all, it represents what I believe to be an increasingly common but mistaken view that Christian theology provides a safe harbor for transgender ideology. And then third, I think it's good mental practice to see a kind of a tricky challenge and then learn how to evaluate it and then respond.

OK, now, Christians who uphold a biblical anthropology read this tweet and I think oftentimes know that something's amiss about it, but they will struggle to identify what the problem is. And I think sometimes it's easy to be taken aback by a simple slogan and then not know how to respond. And the reason in this case is because the tweet trades on a different dictionary, right? The author defines the terms that he uses in his tweet differently than you and I would. defines the terms that he uses in his tweet differently than you and I would. And so what happens is when you clarify the meanings, the solution becomes rather apparent. And there's three terms in particular that demand to be defined that this person, that this author uses. The first phrase is God became a human. The second is the word gender.

And the third is the phrase assigned at birth. Now, those three terms or phrases entail almost the entire tweet, which explains why this challenge seems so mystifying. Now, I think defining terms is always essential in any conversation because you don't want to talk past each other. And in this case, it's even more critical because the tweet compares two things, the incarnation and transgender ideology. And so the only way the tweet works is if the two things that are being compared are parallel. is if the two things that are being compared are parallel. Now, I recognize that in any comparison between two things, it's not fair to expect that everything be parallel. Okay, I get that.

There's always going to be some areas of similarity and dissimilarity. Okay, I'm not denying that at all. But in this case, the details of what's being compared need to be parallel in relevant ways. And what I want to show you is they are not parallel in relevant ways. All right. So let's first clarify the claim that God became a human. Okay. So this phrase, God became a human. Now, I would suggest that this phrase is theologically imprecise. Now, I understand the author is trying to sort of make a general reference to the incarnation.

But by being overly simplistic, he's ignoring the theological nuance that he needs in order to see that his point is unsound. You see, in the incarnation, God does not become human. That's not orthodoxy. God doesn't change his nature and become something else. Rather, the proper way to understand the incarnation is this. While remaining fully God, the second person of the Trinity, the Logos, right, adds human nature to himself in the person of Jesus. Okay. So God's divine nature does not change. Now this might seem like sort of nitpicking. Okay. I don't think this is the case because clarifying the nature of the incarnation in this case is very relevant. After all, remember, the author uses the incarnation as an example of what's possible with a transgender person.

You know, since God changed from divine to human, so the author is claiming, it's alleged that a transgender person can change from man to woman. Now, the problem with this type of reasoning is twofold. First, just because God can do something, it doesn't mean that a human can do it as well, right? In fact, I would say the opposite is true. God's miraculous activity is just that. It's supernatural. Something mere mortals like us are completely incompetent or I'm sorry, impotent to do. Second of all, and as we've clarified this,

God does not become human, but merely adds human nature to himself. Now, this is different than what the author said. And the details matter in this case. Because a transgender person is claiming that they can change their gender from the one they were born with. But God doesn't change in that way, and therefore it's not evidence that a person can change their gender either. And now, of course, what this sort of leads us to is the question of what is meant by gender. And this, of course, is precisely another key question. So let's now turn our attention to this second question or the second phrase, gender. Let's clarify what is meant by this word. Now, throughout the history of human civilization,

the word gender was always synonymous with biological sex. And so, for example, when filling out a form, the only options for gender were listed as male and female. And so in that sense, gender is determined at conception, really, and it's immutable. It's not something you can change. Now, that's not what the author of this tweet means, though, when he used the term gender. He's using gender to mean gender identity. What a person psychologically believes is their gender. And gender identity, because it's psychological, can absolutely, yes, differ from a person's biological sex. And so when we read gender, when we read gender, we interpret it as a reference to biological sex. And so when we read gender, when we read gender, we interpret it as a reference to biological sex, but the author of the tweet is referring to gender identity. Now, given his

definition of gender, it's no surprise he believes a person can, as he says, be a different gender from their biology. After all, right, he thinks that it's merely a change in one's psychological belief about oneself. And so in that sense, there's nothing controversial about such a claim. The tweet, though, contrasts gender identity with another phrase that needs to be explained. And here's the third phrase. Assigned at birth. Assigned. What, let's clarify what is meant by this. Now, if you define gender as a psychological belief, then of course no doctor or parent for that matter can know a baby's beliefs when they're born.

And so this is why modern gender theorists will say gender is quote unquote assigned at birth. We're told that adults assume and assign gender identities until children grow up and decide for themselves. If, however, gender is defined as biological sex, which is, by the way, how it's historically been understood, then no doctor assigns a child's gender. Rather, when a child is born, they simply present as either male or female. Now, I'll also add that the phrase assigned at birth has no relevance to the incarnation, though I'm not necessarily suggesting that the author is making this claim. But I just want you

to understand, assigned at birth, this phrase has no relevance to the incarnation. Because the second person of the Trinity was never assigned divinity and then somehow later realized his true human identity. To suggest, therefore, that this phrase is relevant to the incarnation is not only anachronistic, but it also represents a misunderstanding of Christology. So, now that we've defined the author's terms, and by the way, contrasted them with how they've been historically understood, it's easy to see how he believes what he's saying. I agree that according to his definitions, a person can have a gender identity, a psychological

belief, that is different from their biological sex. There is nothing controversial about that. The problem with his tweet is that he appears to adopt modern gender definitions and believes transgender ideology is legitimate. Now, of course, he's entitled to his opinion, but I'd argue this is completely inconsistent with the Christian worldview. And that's, of course, to say nothing of the question of whether transgender ideation, like the incarnation, is good and healthy. That's an additional claim, really, that needs to be supported, which he doesn't, of course, because this is just a tweet.

Now, the more immediate problem with this tweet is the claim that believing in the incarnation lends credibility to believing transgender ideology. And that does not follow. It takes little effort to believe that God can add a human nature to his divine son, since, after all, God is God and can do the miraculous. After all, he created the universe out of nothing, so it's certainly no sweat for him to incarnate his son. The problem with accepting transgender ideology, though, has nothing to do with a person's

capacity or incapacity to believe that a person can have a gender identity that is different than their biology. That doesn't require any effort because there's nothing incredulous about it. The problem is, listen very carefully here, is that the tweet conflates theological and gender terminology and uses it to pressure Christians to support transgender ideology. There's no connection between the two, though. And instead, the author has just found a way to loosely compare two things that resemble one another while ignoring their significant differences.

And as long as people pick up on the similarities, they herald the idea. It's like, woohoo, this is amazing. they herald the idea. It's like, woohoo, this is amazing, right? So I hope you see how this example illustrates the problem with how our society works through ideas, right? What you have is someone posts this like pithy tweet that's, you know, rhetorically persuasive. It only takes a second or so to write, you know. The problem, though, is that it often takes time and energy to unpack the claim, to define the terms, and clarify the point. And unless someone is willing to put in the hard work of some kind of a sustained analysis, they're not likely to discover that the message is completely bereft

of merit. They'll just read the post and be persuaded, you know, especially if it conforms to what they already believed. So, although that's where we are as a society today, I want you to know it doesn't mean that you have to approach challenges in the same way. Well, that's all I have for you today. If you enjoy listening to these podcasts, these short podcasts where I address apologetics and theology or biblical interpretation, I want to encourage you to rate or review my podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen to this podcast on. And thank you again for listening today. I look forward to thinking

out loud with you next time. Bye.